Gothic fiction

I chose to read The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, and within the story of the book, the author uses many Gothic style themes. Some themes such as mystery and magic can be related back to many other passages I’ve read. Such common themes can be found in The Night Circus, and “The Feather Pillow” by Horacio Quiroga. Mystery sneak itself in in each peice, almost more specifically in The Night Circus, but “The Feather Pillow” has a mystery as well. “ “I don’t know,” he said to Jordan in a low…

In the poem The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, the mood he creates is suspense {{suspenseful}}. Poe creates this mood by using the setting, sound effects, and diction. Poe uses these 3 literary terms all throughout the poem. Using these 3 terms has me wondering "what's next?". as i {{I}} read. To begin with, Poe creates suspense in the play, but one of the ways he creates this mood is the setting and time. He states that it's dark at midnight, stating this early in the poem already gives off a…

Edgar Allan Poe was a famous poet known for his dark Gothic style of writing. He was best known for his poetry and short stories and was an active writer until his sudden death at the age of 40 in 1849. One of these great stories included “The Masque of the Red Death” which involved a selfish Prince who chose to be secluded from the outside world with other nobles in an effort to escape the horrific plague sweeping the country. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Masque of the Red…

Often in short stories, symbols are present. Symbols represent meanings beyond what they literally are in the story. In the short story, The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, the gigantic ebony clock is symbolic. The ebony clock is symbolic because it symbolizes death and that time never stops. Symbols represent something other than themselves, which is significant to the story. The ebony clock in the seventh room symbolizes death. According to the short story, it…

Life is full of decisions that could literally force people to choose between life or death. In the Rattler, a man makes this decision for an innocent snake. He has to kill it in order for those around him to be safe. The snake, however, is not willing to die without a fight. When the man does eventually kill it, he is deeply affected by its death. The author attempts to persuade the reader to empathize with the man and sympathize with the snake by giving the snake a personality, narrating the…

The book, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, is written by the author, Robert Louis Stevenson. The idea for the book originated from a nightmare that he had one night. After the nightmare he wrote the book in three days. The book tells a mysterious story in the setting of Victorian London. This was a time in Great Britain during the 1800’s. In the novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson uses imagery, diction, and details to create a dark mood. In the novel, Robert Louis Stevenson uses…

Many people have at least read several novels that are classified as “horror”, such as “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley. Yet, these texts would not have been possible if not for the authors during the Gothic era that laid the foundation for such works to be created by today’s novelists. The novels Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole and “Sir Bertrand” by Anna and John Aikin, give excellent examples on this subject. It was these works where the architectural environment helped give the text a sense…

A Nightmare on Elm Street questions the existence of a rare psychological affiliation that causes unexplained nocturnal deaths happening in seemingly healthy young adults and whether or not it is linked to a post-traumatic tension in their past that must have built fear in them. The idea behind this movie was the enigmatic deaths of healthy refugees in 1981 just three years earlier to the production of the first Elm Street film. As newspapers looked into the causes of the mysterious deaths the…

Henry Jekyll opens his statement of the case with a reflection on his life up until the time where he begins attempting to prise apart the two qualities that he believes man is made up of. Jekyll explains he had a better start in life than most other people, “born…to a large fortune [and of] excellent parts”, his family was quite well off in terms of finance and he was born with the foreseeable stature of an honourable gentleman. For the majority of his later life, Henry Jekyll found both his…

Is Deadpool a villain or a superhero? Well, Deadpool must be a hero because he sometimes does the right thing for the right reasons, but his rash actions speak louder than his honest word. Deadpool is that one anti-hero that everyone questions whether if he is a villain or a hero. Deadpool is known as the mercenary with a mouth “because he is quite talkative, with long streams of dialogue, rambling, and vocal thoughts” (Dustcircle). Many authors make stories of Deadpool either being a good guy…