Gothic Castles: A Literary Analysis

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When listening to the lecture in the beginning of module two, one quotation stood out to me. This quotation was,“A common feature of many Gothic castles is that they seem to distort perception, to cause some slippage between what is natural and what is human-made; they act as unreliable lenses through which to view history and from the other side of which may emerge terrors only previously apprehended in dream.” This quotation truly describes the feeling one experiences when coming in contact with a castle. The Gothic castles bring upon the idea of fear, suspense, and mystery. The feeling one may experience is disequilibrium, this is because the castle over all provides the feeling of nothing is what it seems. The idea of a haunted castle …show more content…
This can be present throughout the piece through diction, setting, and narrative structure. The mood or emotional experience of a gothic novel are fear, anxiety, terror, and horror. In a gothic novel both the reader and the characters experience emotions to the fullest. The setting of these novels allow the reader to experience a dark, dreary, and morbid setting. The landscapes in these pieces are meant to invoke terror. Suspense was created by mistaken identities and long chase sequences through cellar passageways produce both fear and anxiety. A similar emotional response a readers has experiences is through nightmares and night terrors.The dreamers often find themselves running from dark spooky monsters or evil. This helps relate the characters in Gothic novels to those who experience nightmares and night terror. Readers of Gothic novels are able to experience these strong emotions vicariously, through the main characters. They are able to be deliciously, if safely, frightened out of their wits by the narrative twists and turns. That this is able to happen can largely be attributed to the prevailing mood Gothic writers
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