Charlotte Lesemann

For some reason, I have certain books that appeal to me at different times of the year. Even if the book spans more than a calendar year in the lives of the characters, I will often think of it as a book for Fall or Winter or Spring.

Some books, like Wuthering Heights, I’ve read so many times that I’ve come to think of it exclusively in terms of a specific month: October. I try to read it every October (which doesn’t always happen, though I manage it often enough).

That said, I have some recommendations of Gothic books that just feel like Fall to me. A lot of these are classic works, mixed with a few more recent works. Regardless, I hope these give you that foggy, haunted Autumn feeling just like they do for me.

#1 – Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

#2 – The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

#3 – The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

#4 – The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

#5 – The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

#6 – Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

#7 – ‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King

#8 – The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

#9 – The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

#10 – Interview with The Vampire by Anne Rice

Let me know if any of these are also your favorite Fall Gothic books and what about them appeals to you.

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Last Friday, I released a video about the differences between [traditional] Gothic writing – Gothic writing that uses terror – and Horror writing. In that video, I mentioned that in recent years there has been some crossover between the two genres. As much as I would hate for the classic Gothic style to disappear, I think there’s a place in the market for these new crossover products as well.

The reason I say that is partly based on the fact that some of the classic Gothic novels we know and love were already leaning that way. There has always been a terror-horror spectrum in Gothic genre.

Turn of the Screw, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights featured exclusively terror. Frankenstein and Dracula have enough of a manifest threat to arguably qualify as using horror. There’s still a strong measure of terror in these works, but they could easily be thought of as an early step towards Gothic-Horror and away from strictly terror.

But what would Gothic-Horror look like? And what wouldn’t it include? That’s what we’re talking about today.

The Necessary Components

In order for a book to be either traditionally Gothic or Gothic-Horror, it needs to have a Gothic theme. An irrational one. Something that asks and explores an intangible psychological or spiritual question.

It also needs to use its tropes to support that theme, to make it more tangible to readers. If that’s hard to picture, stay with me. Hopefully the examples we cover below will make that clearer.

In contrast, books that feature the fallout from a character or entity’s moral failing (their secret sin) fall into the Horror genre. These books use tropes that are often similar or even identical to those in the Gothic genre, but they employ them differently. Rather than symbolizing the inner state of the character, or making the theme more tangible, the tropes act to create an atmosphere of dark oppression. One that forces the characters to work to overcome the effects of the consequences of that moral failing.

That said, I have chosen two examples for us to examine, both of them contemporary. One is a book that’s classified as Horror, but which I believe to be Gothic-Horror: Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. The other is a book that’s marketed as Gothic, but which I believe to be Horror: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Gothic-Horror

You may have heard of Dan Simmons if you’ve seen or heard of the TV show, The Terror. I first ran across the book version many years ago while browsing in a bookstore. (When bookstores were still super prevalent and the world was a better place.) His work struck me as Horror written with a brilliant literary quality. Since then I’ve read several of his books, one of which is Carrion Comfort.

That book brought back to me everything I love about his writing. He’s one of the few writers I’ve ever encountered who can perfectly balance plot, character and theme without dropping any thread. Literally. Every scene is a beautiful balance of the three. (If you want to hear more about his writing, watch for my video on Summer of Night, which should be posted on The Gothic Literary Society YouTube channel in the next couple of weeks.)

Some of his books are exactly what they’re marketed to be: Horror. But when I read Carrion Comfort, I realized that he had written a work of Gothic-Horror.

The book features a concentration camp survivor, Saul Laski, who witnessed a horrible incident (worse than the usual events even for a death camp) while he was imprisoned in Poland. A chess game. Unlike most chess games though, in this game, the prisoners were the pieces on the chessboard and the two opposing competitors – Nazi leaders – used their minds to control them.

Simmons calls them mind vampires. As Saul moves on in life, he can’t shake the desire to find the terrible Nazi Oberst who entered into his mind and overruled all of his self-possession. As he searches for him, he discovers something about the world leaders – that they are also mind vampires who are using people for their own purposes.

The theme is essentially a two-fold one. On one hand it asks whether much, if not all, of the world events, especially the most inexplicable ones, are all orchestrated by very evil people. On the other hand, it asks how we can explain some of the extreme violence we’ve witnessed throughout history. For example, how did a handful of Nazi leaders convince an entire nation to either aid them directly in slaughtering millions of people, or to do so indirectly by turning a blind eye to the situation?

It’s an extraordinarily thought-provoking theme, particularly for a genre piece. And it’s a Gothic theme. It’s an irrational question. It asks a spiritual/psychological question about something that we can’t know through reason.

And the only trope he uses are the actual mind vampires themselves. In the book, they are presented as having the literal ability to take over the minds of others and control them in any number of situations. Their actions, which are meant to be symbolic of the effects we see playing out in the world, make the theme tangible. They take what in real life is hidden and make it manifest.

Those two combined, are wonderfully Gothic.

But of course, this book is still Horror in the sense that we witness the actual physical threat unlike terror, which features simply an unseen dread.

When we marry the Gothic theme and use of tropes with the use of horror, we have a Gothic-Horror novel.

Horror, Not Gothic

 On the other hand, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s 2020 novel Mexican Gothic, is – as the name would imply – marketed as Gothic, or at least Gothic-Horror. I strongly disagree.

The book centers on Noemí Taboada, who receives word that her cousin believes her husband is trying to kill her. Noemí goes to the mountains to visit and investigate the situation for the family. What she finds is that her cousin’s family (who are not Mexican) have a deep-rooted belief in genetic purity and are acting on that. I won’t give too much away, but basically, they’re a bunch of murderous racists.

It’s a good start to what is a pretty well-written book. The book has an old family estate, lots of family secrets, stormy weather…you name it, the makings of a great Mexican Gothic book. And in many ways, it’s a good book. It’s just not Gothic.

The theme is about the poison that such a belief, and the actual actions that stem from it, cause to everyone else around them, not to mention to the family itself. That’s a theme about a secret sin, a moral failing. It’s a Horror theme.

And the tropes don’t support the theme in the way that Gothic tropes should. They’re dark, they’re evil, they’re oppressive, but they’re not symbolic. They don’t directly tie into the theme and make it tangible. If you watched my video about the Gothic genre versus the Horror genre, you know that sometimes Gothic and Horror writing feature some of the same tropes. But, as I said earlier, they’re used differently. Mexican Gothic uses what appear to be Gothic tropes in a way that’s consistent with Horror novels.

It’s a work of Horror.

Conclusion

Does it matter how these books are categorized? In some ways, it doesn’t. I can imagine a lot of Gothic readers enjoying Mexican Gothic and many Horror readers reveling in Carrion Comfort. From the Amazon reviews, that seems to be the case. However, my concern is not a matter of targeting the audience so much as it’s a matter of potentially muddying the water.

I’m zealous about the definitions of Gothic and Gothic-Horror because I don’t want the genre to fade into obscurity. Or to become something it isn’t: a label for any book, regardless of its theme, that contains a lot of Gothic tropes. And generally those that serve no symbolic purpose.

If there are crossovers, let’s embrace them, let’s enjoy them, but let’s call them what they are. The same for books that aren’t actually Gothic. That way Gothic readers and writers will continue to uphold and produce works that are truly Gothic. Or Gothic-Horror.

At face value, the Gothic and Dark Fantasy genres have nothing in common save for perhaps a “dark” ambience. Gothic writing takes place in the real world, albeit often a historical period within our world. Dark Fantasy exists entirely in an alternate world. Gothic literature is often lingering, languid, melancholy – a slow, dark beautiful journey into the soul. Dark Fantasy tends to chafe with sarcasm and cynicism, full of edges and reality portrayed in a harsh light.

But all of my literary loves tend to fall into either the Gothic, Horror or Dark Fantasy sphere. Which caused me to stop and consider the fact that, at some level, there must be a connection between these. Some similar factor that resonates for me in each genre.

That’s what we’re going to look at today: the connection between Gothic and Dark Fantasy.

I used to think that I loved Fantasy fiction in general. Until I couldn’t find a book that truly appealed to me. I finally stumbled upon Robin Hobb’s work and devoured the Farseer Trilogy. The stories feature a royal bastard – a liability to the throne – who is raised to be a royal assassin. The books are fantastic. Years later, G.R.R. Martin hit the scene with his A Song of Ice and Fire series. The stories also resonated with me, although I have my criticisms… but that’s another story for another day.

It wasn’t until years later that I discovered that both Hobb and Martin are said to write in the Dark Fantasy (also referred to as Grimdark) genre.

Some people describe the genre in particularly deprecating terms – as one full of characters devoid of any honor or goodness, with no beauty or hope – but I haven’t found that to be universally true. If anything, the most common thread I’ve witnessed is a commitment to realism. To leaders who are often self-centered and corrupted by their power. To characters with mixed motives – some that may be idealistic, others that are rooted in some secret predilection. To worlds that may be beautiful in one respect, but which are often tainted by a long history of human greed and self-interest.

I find these stories to be more complex. More authentic. And something about that appeals to me greatly.

But what does this have to do with Gothic writing?

Contrasting Themes

Dark Fantasy is technically described as Horror mixed with Fantasy, but that’s not a perfect description. Because a horror work set in a fantasy landscape wouldn’t necessarily result in a work of Grimdark. You need a whole lot more: characters who are easily corrupted and are often amoral or morally ambiguous; a plot without the certainty of good triumphing over evil; a story stripped bare of the sugar-coating that we used to see in more of the Tolkien-esque storytelling.

But both Dark Fantasy and Horror use themes related to what we call a “secret sin.” These themes deal with the moral failings of people, whether that’s the protagonist, a close associate, or merely the world leaders themselves. The fallout from their prior choices haunt the principal characters throughout the work.

But this is very different from the themes in traditional Gothic writing: themes which address the irrational truths of spiritual and psychological issues that many of us question. Whether love is really eternal. Whether the spiritual world is as great, or perhaps even greater, than the visible one around us. How a person’s conflicting nature can be understood; is one part perpetually competing with the other? Or are they like two (or more) parts of a whole – parts that cannot operate simultaneously?

Clearly the themes of Gothic novels are quite different from those of Dark Fantasy, so that can’t be the common factor.

Fantastical Elements

Both the Gothic and the Fantasy genre – Dark or otherwise – often use fantastical elements. In Dark Fantasy, magic is necessary. It underpins the entire world-building, becoming an integral part of how the characters relate to the world around them. The magic reveals who the characters are and what we should believe about what is of value in their world.

A world in which characters have a magical form of telepathy or can travel through time and space says something about the value of connectivity and relationships. A world in which characters can access life-saving healing sources is one that places great emphasis on the fear of death. Sure, some characters may not be able to harness those sources, but they’re out there, holding out the promise of life and hope. A world in which characters have superhuman strength, or other extra-human abilities, is attempting to compensate for the sense of helplessness that so many people feel. It gives readers the ability to see themselves rising above their foes or their circumstances, of having the power that they don’t have in real life.

At its heart, a magic system should tie into the value system of the world in which the characters live. It should tell readers what is important and what is true.

Gothic writing, when it uses fantastical elements, does so in order to bring the theme to life. I wrote about this in an article entitled How Gothic Writing Makes the B-Plot Tangible. What that means is that the fantastical elements are a tangible manifestation of a particularly intangible theme. Gothic books, as I just mentioned are examining those things that we can’t prove. They do this at a thematic level, using the entire book to test a theory about some spiritual or psychological question. In doing so, the Gothic genre attempts to present a more robust truth than we would see with only our five senses. The Gothic delves into the invisible to bring the unseen to life so that our understanding of truth will be richer, fuller.

So vampires can be a way to show how the character(s) feel ostracized and out of place or even threatened by changing circumstances. Monsters can bring to life the idea that man’s access to power – through science – can have disastrous ends. Ghosts can represent the past, or another part of us, that haunts us.

Clearly these two are a bit different, but I think you can see the similarities. Both of these genres use fantastical elements to make the truth more accessible, more relatable to readers.

If you’re like me, you’re starting to see a glimpse of that common thread.

Hidden Truth Revealed

I call it “hidden truth revealed.” Both Dark Fantasy and Gothic writing seek to reveal things that are true but are often overlooked or unseen.

Dark Fantasy does this through portraying fallible characters ripe with good and bad intentions, duplicity, and shifting whims. It also does so through its use of the magical elements in the fantasy world.

Gothic writing does so through its theme and the tropes that make these difficult themes tangible.

So while the two genres are employing very different methods, they both present deeper truth than most other genres do. They both want to present the truth as the writer understands it, devoid of the sanitized expectations that might be expected elsewhere.

That’s what appeals to me. Whether or not I agree with every writer, I appreciate the desire to show the truth in all of its facets – whether those be beautiful or gritty and dark. Because I value the unvarnished truth more than the varnish itself.

If you love Gothic and Dark Fantasy writing, perhaps that’s true for you as well. Give it some thought and let me know!

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Last week, I released a video on Robert Louis Stevenson’s book, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In that video, I talked about Stevenson’s exploration of the duality of man and what conclusion I believe the book supports. (Hint: it differs from the prevailing opinion you may have heard.) If that interests you, you can check it out here.

That got me thinking about the theme of the duality of man in literature. From my admittedly brief research, it seems to be a rarely-explored concept in any genre, even less so in the Gothic one. But the possibilities are huge. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. The marriage between doppelgängers and the duality of man and how the Gothic genre could facilitate a deep exploration of this theme.

Definitions: Duality of Man & Doppelgängers

First, though, some definitions. By the duality of man, I mean themes that explore the contrast between good and evil in a single person. Stevenson explored the extent to which the two can coexist. Dr. Jekyll, a man who “was committed to duplicity” spends the novel attempting to live a double life. By day, he’s an upstanding doctor. By night, he lives as Mr. Hyde, a murderer. We aren’t explicitly told what else he does by night, but the implication is that he engages in every evil fancy he has.

Jekyll reminds me a bit of Dorian Gray in Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Portrait of Dorian Gray. As a man, Gray lives exclusively on the dark side of the equation, deliberately seeking out every evil he can imagine. And to an escalating extent. However, if we look at Gray’s portrait, the one that externalizes how his life has affected his soul, we see a bit of duality. Whereas Gray lacks Jekyll’s duplicity, his appearance represents the extent to which a man may appear to be a figure of virtue while he lives as a fiend.

These are thematic examples, for which a doppelgänger would be a particularly useful trope.

A doppelgänger is the German word [meaning “double goer”] used to reference an ancient concept: that every person and animal has a spirit double.¹ One of the most prevalent examples I know of in modern writing and entertainment is the abundant use of doppelgängers in the CW television series The Vampire Diaries (based on the books by L.J. Smith). Both Elena Gilbert and Stefan Salvatore have numerous doppelgängers – going back to Amara and Silas in ancient Greece – all conspiring to force them together or attempting to thwart their eternal fate.

But it isn’t the Stefan/Amara line of doppelgängers that applies most aptly to our discussion today. It’s the character of Stefan and his brother, Damon Salvatore. We’ll marry this to the possible use of doppelgängers after we take a quick look at the complexity of these two figures.

Duality & The Salvatore Brothers

As a disclaimer, I have never read The Vampire Diaries, but I have seen most of the television series several times. (My appetite for young-adult fiction usually only extends to television and movies.) That said, I don’t know to what extent Stefan and Damon’s characters exhibit duality in the books, but the television characters certainly do, so we’ll focus on this example.

Beware! [Light] Plot Spoilers Ahead!

In the beginning of the series, Plec presents Stefan Salvatore as a compassionate vampire, obsessed with Elena Gilbert, the doppelgänger of his first love, Katherine Pierce. His brother Damon is the witty, but unpredictable image of evil. He ransacks the local woods, picking up wayward campers and drivers, draining them of blood and disposing of the bodies. Everywhere he goes, he leaves a wake of destruction.

But as the series progresses, these two characters round out in surprising ways.

For all Damon’s tough exterior, he’s the one who would sacrifice the most to protect Elena, his brother, and their closest friends. Plec writes him as a essentially a good vampire who expresses his pain in harmful ways. And gentle Stefan. It turns out he has a problem with self-control. He has a history as a ripper – basically a vampire on steroids. Rather than simply killing to survive, a ripper goes on rampages, destroying as many people as possible for the sheer joy of the hunt.

Duality. That’s what we see in both of these characters. There’s more to the two of them than that, of course, but Plec presents both of them as two opposing – and often warring – sides of a person. As much as I enjoy the other characters in the series, I believe that it’s that component that makes the show the success that it is.

Putting It All Together

I don’t see Stefan’s doppelgängers as a representation of his own duality, although I think you could make a loose argument for it. And Damon has no spirit double.

But the marriage of these two would be brilliant. What are some options?

Our starting point would be the theme of the duality of man, but not in an abstract way. Rather, we could set out to explore elements such as:

1. Every person is a balance of two opposing forces: good and evil
2. Good and evil can’t coexist; one must win out over the other
3. In order for a person’s good side to prevail, [x] must happen. “x” could include things such as having the right advantages in life, a supportive marriage or other relationship, or having a spirit of gratitude even in adversity
4. All things increase in conjunction with one another –> so a person who pursues increased goodness, will find himself more likely to indulge in evil, albeit perhaps in secret

…etc.

The trope would be the doppelgänger, so our task is to use this trope in such a way that it enhances the exploration of whatever theme we choose. In the options above, we could approach the theme-trope marriage in the following ways:

1. The main character has a doppelgänger who continually acts in contrast to his own actions (and desires). When he wants to accomplish something good, the doppelgänger sabotages his efforts. When he loses his temper and lashes out, his doppelgänger puts the best foot forward and steals the acclaim that he never receives.
2. This is much like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde battling for existence. It could go either way, but the idea is that the main character and his doppelgänger war with one another for preeminence, or even existence.
3. As an example, say your main character is a happily married mother of two. (She’s our “good” character.) But her mother-in-law falls ill and requires assistance. She moves in with the family. And, due to her discomfort and pain, she grows irritable and difficult. In addition, the husband is under undue pressure at work and is becoming both physically and emotionally distant. The main character has a twin sister who lives nearby and who is losing patience as she witnesses this stressful arrangement. As a result, she begins to act out against the MC’s mother-in-law, escalating her spiteful actions until they reach the point of being life-threatening. The MC is in a race to protect her mother-in-law, a race that’s becoming more difficult as the strain on her marriage increases.
4. Perhaps your main character has just been appointed to the position of the head of The U.S. Department of Agriculture. He has a long history of humanitarism leanings and, given is newfound role, he now has a greater ability to pursue these aims on a grander scale. But the more benevolent his outward actions become, the more his doppelgänger (perhaps his right hand in the industry) acts in opposition. Perhaps this spirit double is using the humanitarian aims as a means of gaining a better control over people in a desire to use them and ultimately destroy them. The more the MC attempts to counter this with increased benevolence, the worse his doppelgänger becomes…

The options are endless. But can you see how the use of the doppelgänger trope could exaggerate and elucidate any number of themes related to the duality of man?

I love the possibilities. And the plot and character complexity that would result from these options. Feel free to explore your own iterations. And let us know about what you discover!

¹ “Doppelgänger”. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Brittanica. https://www.britannica.com/art/doppelganger

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Something that many people will cite when describing Gothic writing is the prevalence of exaggerated emotions. Some people even go so far as to assume that the definition of Gothic writing is simply hysteria mixed with a dark ambience and perhaps some supernatural elements. Jane Austen was guilty of this. If you’ve read much of my blog, or watched my videos, you know that this is something that annoys me greatly. Gothic writing is so much more than these superficial components.

But that’s not to say that Gothic writing doesn’t often feature intense emotional responses. Why is that?

That’s what we’re talking about today.

Think about emotions for a second. Until you see someone’s emotional response, how much do you understand about what’s going on in their life? In their mind? Their heart? Not much. You might pick up some clues from what they say or do, but without that emotional element, it’s a lot harder to read them.

Emotions reveal those things that are often hidden inside of a person.

They take what’s unseen and they make it manifest. They take the simmering rage, or the uncontrollable passion, or the fathomless despair and they present them to the world. Otherwise, we might not understand the full extent of those emotions.

If you’re thinking about your reading repertoire, you’ve likely noted that hyperbolic emotions aren’t present in much of literature. They make an appearance in a heightened situation – a domestic dispute, a shattering loss, an exhilarating win – but otherwise, infrequently. Why? Because in reality, people don’t show the full extent of their emotions most of the time. They lie dormant, concealed behind subtext and those quotidien activities that make up the bulk of the human experience.

That brings us back to the Gothic and why, in contrast, they make such a strong showing in this genre. I can think of at least two very strong reasons for the use of intense emotions in Gothic writing. Both of them are tied to the nature of Gothic themes.

Making the Unseen Tangible

If you recall an article that I wrote a while back – How Gothic Writing Makes the B-Plot Tangible – I talked about ways in which Gothic tropes take the underlying thematic story and make it tangible. For instance, in Gothic writing, ghosts are never just a ghost. They’re an unresolved part of the protagonist’s past, or a part of herself that she’s repressed or refuses to face, or a reminder of someone she wronged, or…

The stormy weather is a symbol of the brewing tension in the household, or the dark mental state of the character(s), or the undercurrent of evil intentions within the antagonist, or…you get the point. The tropes mean something.

They take what is unseen and make it accessible.

The same is true of the preponderance of emotions in Gothic writing. Of course, with emotions, they’re less likely to be symbolic rather than simply an expression of the character’s true state. But they, like the gothic tropes, are making the unseen manifest.

This was the case in The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty. One of the most unseen themes we could possibly explore is the existence of evil entities – the sort that can takeover a human and control her, rendering her helpless. But that’s what Blatty did. And the emotions in the book and movie parallel this exploration. They give voice to the horror of what’s happening within.

Exaggerating an Irrational Theme

Other times, writers use the excessive emotions to exaggerate that Gothic (aka: irrational) theme. When dealing with themes that can’t be explained through ordinary, empirical means, emotions can come in particularly handy

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is a wonderful example of this. When I think about excessive emotions in Gothic writing, Catherine Earnshaw is the first character who comes to mind. And Heathcliff is generally the second. The two of them are a study in excesses.

We’ll get into this in a book review in the near future, but suffice it to say that yes, this book is a love story… but not the one that Hollywood portrays. The key is to watch Nellie’s character – what she says and does – for the writer’s perspective and the book’s theme.

The story deals with a relationship that’s taken to excesses, to the point of idolatry. Heathcliff loves Catherine so much that he allows it to take over him and destroy him. He becomes a monster in the midst of his obsession with her. He refuses to live without her. And she possesses a histrionic character that sees all things in an unhealthy light. She’s vicious, vindictive, greedy and possessive. She must have all of Heathcliff’s attention. But she also must have money and esteem from marrying Edgar Linton.

Their excessive emotional states from start to finish parallel the theme that Brontë is exploring: about love taken to an unhealthy point. About two youths and then adults who are so excessive that they destroy one another and almost everyone else around them.

Conclusion

These intense emotions work hand-in-hand with Gothic themes, themes that are often particularly intangible. They make them seen and also exaggerate them to make the writer’s point easier for readers to grasp.

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And How to Accomplish That

Have you ever read a book, or watched a movie, and noticed that you felt consistently off throughout the story? As if you couldn’t get your bearings, couldn’t find a way to predict what’s coming next, or found the character(s) to be delightfully unrelatable? And yet you truly enjoyed the experience. [It sounds like an oxymoron – I know – but stay with me.]

There’s a reason why what sense of imbalance is useful in some stories. That’s what we’re talking about today. Why and when you would want that sense of unease, and how to create it.

In the movie world, I can think of lots of examples of this. In parts of The Matrix and much of Memento, and Inception, viewers are thrown off-kilter. We aren’t sure what’s real and what isn’t. We aren’t even always sure where the character really is. (I’m talking about you Dominick Cobb.)

But this is just as prevalent in certain types of books. Let’s look at examples by category – depending on when and why you would want the reader to feel unsettled.

To Parallel Psychological Instability

First, when the main character’s psychological state is coming unhinged, it’s often most effective if the readers feel this as well. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is a great example of this. In the story, Eleanor Vance grows increasingly disoriented within the house – to such an extent that readers feel unstable and confused along with her. Jackson describes the house in such a way that the walls and doors seem to move.

The sense readers have parallels Eleanor’s mental instability. By making the story disorienting, readers have an opportunity to experience – to some extent – Eleanor’s inability to cope in the real world.

To Cause Readers to Consider a Controversial Theme

Second, when writers want readers to consider a theme that they might dismiss at first glance, one of the best ways to do so is to force the readers to step out of their element. By that I mean, cause them to feel disoriented so that they can’t predict what the character(s) will so. This end is often accomplished through the use of an unreliable narrator. We talked about this recently on the Gothic Literary Society YouTube channel, but I’ll summarize a couple of examples here.

The first is Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. In the story, Teddy Daniels travels to an island to visit a prison for the criminally insane. As the story progresses, it becomes more and more obvious that Teddy’s perspective may not be accurate. This throws the reader off enough to make the theme – whether it’s better to live as a monster or to die as a good man – resonate. Years after reading the book and watching the movie, I still see that one, final scene in my mind. Whereas I might have disregarded it before, the nuances of both options are now forever warring in my mind.

The second is We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. [Jackson was a master of this concept of leaving readers unsettled.] She uses an unreliable narrator – Merricat Blackwood – in an entirely different way from Dennis Lehane. Rather than a tragic character, Merricat is deliriously odd. She’s vindictive, witchy and borderline autistic in such a delightful way that readers love her. And by using such an unrelatable character, readers are thrown off balance enough to consider something they might not have: that the collective is the enemy of the individual.

To Cause a Paradigm Shift

Third, humans have a habit of developing paradigms – for obvious and practical purposes. Paradigms help us to predict and respond to the world around us. But sometimes paradigms are false…or only partially true. And we writers love to call these into question.

William Gibson’s novel The Neuromancer – the inspiration for the movie The Matrix – does just that, among other things. By creating characters who can enter into the matrix and experience a separate, virtual reality, the book questions reality itself. It’s not simply that either the virtual reality or the seen one is true. The question is whether what we see and believe around us is actually the truth, or at least, the full-extent of the truth. Or whether, perhaps, we’ve been conditioned to believe things that aren’t true.

By using what was at that time, a cutting-edge idea of technology and the relationship between it and humans, Gibson created a world in which readers have no precedential leg to stand on. Rather, we’re left imbalanced and because of that, more open-minded to the theme.

How Do We Accomplish That

From the examples above, I think you can see the advantages to this sense of unease. And some examples of how writers have accomplished this. But how do we go about it?

As a writer, we only have twenty-six letters to work with. With these we craft people, settings, stories and sometimes entire worlds. The key to creating this sense of disorientation in readers is to use these very things in ways that they don’t expect, or with which they are unfamiliar. In all of these, what you want to create is a sense of the uncanny – when things that we expect to be familiar aren’t. They look like what we know, but then they function in ways that we don’t anticipate. I’ll give you examples of each.

People – As with Merricat and Teddy Daniels, unease blooms in the case of an unreliable narrator. To create one, your character must perceive reality in a false way. Sometimes the character is a liar, openly or secretly concocting a false reality – perhaps for reasons with which readers will sympathize… perhaps not.

Sometimes the character is mentally unstable, misunderstanding reality because of a psychological problem or a neurological impairment.

And sometimes the character is just so strange that his words and actions are consistently unexpected. If the reader can enjoy the character and yet can’t predict what he or she will do, that will create this sense of disorientation. Of course, the character’s actions need to make sense for him and for the plot. But they need to be unpredictable for the reader.

Setting – Some settings are guaranteed to throw readers out of their comfort zone. And I’m not necessarily referring to a fantasy setting. Most of these mirror reality enough that readers feel at home in the new world. If your characters live on Mars, but they have some means of growing food and keeping house and laboring, readers will feel at home even in the most distant galaxy. This is a wonderful feeling for other purposes, but not for what we’re describing.

If you want your readers to be disoriented, what you want in a setting – real-world or fantasy – is to create a sense of the outlandish. A pig farm on which the pigs rise up, attack the farmer, eat him and his wife and then go out into the world to accomplish whatever goal they have for themselves. I’m being a bit absurd to illustrate a point. Readers think that a pig farm will function in a given way. They know something about how it should work. So when it doesn’t work that way, it throws off the readers sense of balance.

Exactly what you want.

Plot – The same is true with respect to plots. The best way to create imbalance in the reader is to give them a plot that they think they recognize and then turn it upside down.

Say you picked up a murder mystery in which the body of a young girl is found at the beginning of the book. Her parents and the investigators team up to solve the crime. You settle in with the book, ready to read about the trail of the murderer and the clues that he/she has left.

But then the parents begin to act strangely. They don’t seem that sad. And their efforts to track the murderer, efforts that appeared normal at first, take an interesting turn. Now it doesn’t really seem like they’re actually looking for a killer. But we’re not sure what they’re looking for.

And the investigators too. What at first seems like a normal murder investigation becomes something else altogether. The people they’re questioning, the trails their pursuing become more and more [seemingly] disjointed. Why? Because we’re assuming one thing – that they’re looking for the murderer when in reality, they’re doing something else entirely.

That method – of twisting the expectations of the reader – is a wonderful way to create a sense of unease.

Conclusion

There are many reasons why we might want readers to feel unsettled. Sometimes it’s the best way to cause them to consider a theme that’s so far outside of their experience that they might overlook or disregard it at first glance.

To accomplish this, use the notion of the uncanny in your writing. Use characters, settings, or plots that seem to function in familiar ways and then twist them just enough to set everything on edge.

Not only will this help you shift the reader’s paradigm or open her up to your theme. It’ll also make your story that much more interesting and unique.

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Last Friday, I posted a Horror/ Dark Fantasy video on Stephen King’s 2019 novel, The Institute. I’m also preparing another video based on my favorite work of Horror. (I can’t tell you which one yet 🙂 Look for it the last Friday of October.) Both novels feature child protagonists. Which prompted the question in my mind:

What are the reasons for, and advantages of, using children in the horror genre?

I’m referring to adult fiction, not young adult. Because even there, children often play a central role in the genre. But why is that? As I considered it, several compelling reasons stood out. Let’s look at three of them, and some examples of how these have played out in the pages of horror literature!

Children Represent Our Deepest Vulnerability

Using children as protagonists won’t appeal to everyone, but a child protagonist is so much more than just a young character. He’s a proxy for the vulnerability of adults. And judging by the popularity of these characters, many readers sense this at some level.

Unless you’ve lived a magical, glitter-infused existence, you probably know that though we may try are hardest, our efforts may still not pay off. We can exercise regularly, eat only organic produce and still face a horrifying diagnosis at an early age. We can drive carefully, buckle our seat belts and still be blind-sided by a semi.

I apologize if that’s depressing, but I write it in order to illustrate something most people understand: how little control, if any, we have over our lives.

The loss, or absence of control is the source of ulcers, panic attacks and nightmares for many. Making it a great basis for the Horror genre in which we want to highlight and address those kinds of themes – the ones that make us uncomfortable and which we can so easily avoid avoid.

Children often represent the weakest individuals in humanity. They are largely dependent on others and are physically, emotionally and psychologically undeveloped. They represent the part of ourselves that feels the most vulnerable, susceptible to forces and circumstances against which we have no control.

Who does the demon attack in The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty? Eleven-year-old Regan MacNeil. Why her? Because the story isn’t about her. It’s about her atheistic mother and the priest, Father Damien Karras, whose faith is faltering. They’re the ones who need to learn that the spiritual world is real and that it’s not to be trifled with. Regan is simply a symbol of weakness against those unseen powers, a warning to those who don’t know how weak they actually are.

Children Intensify the Consequences of Adults’ Actions

If you’ve watched my videos, you may have heard me mention Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody. In her writing craft book, she mentions that the horror genre should always include a secret sin, meaning some unresolved failing in one of the character’s lives. That character can also be a larger entity – a government or military, or even a global organization. It’s that secret sin that symbolically manifests as the opposition to the main character.

In the case of child characters, it’s rarely the child who’s the source of that secret sin. Rather, it’s the child or children who often have to face the consequences of the secret sin of adults. And that’s crucial, because using a child character exaggerates the severity of our failings as adults. It’s one thing to see how a adult is harmed by another adult’s actions. But it’s another to see the lives of the most innocent in society experience the horrifying fall-out of the terrible choices that adults sometimes make.

Swan Song by Robert McCammon is a great example of this. The titular character, Swan, is a bewitching young girl, gifted with the ability to bring about growth in the earth. In the beginning of the story, she is a tragic character, focusing on her beautiful tiny garden alongside the trailer where she lives, while her mother and her mother’s boyfriend abusive relationship rages in the background.

But before long, the world collapses under nuclear war and she is caught in a struggle to survive amidst greed, famine and environmental hardship. Of course, she is the one able to help the world heal and recover, but it’s not without great trials that she didn’t earn or deserve. And her helplessness highlights the consequences of the terrible actions of the world’s most powerful entities.

Children Give Us the Most Hope

Lastly, working with child-characters can give readers the most hope. It seems odd to say that pitting a child-character against seemingly insurmountable foes can do this. But, when the child prevails, it does. What that victory says to readers is that no matter how powerless we may feel – and actually be at times – it is possible to face horrible odds and to succeed.

Despite the popularity of Marvel movies, it isn’t as spectacular when a superhero hits a home run as when the little near-sighted, dyslexic boy next door faces the same odds and comes out ahead. Then our hearts soar. Because that speaks to us the most closely. We aren’t gods. We’re fallible, mortal, vulnerable. But we need hope. We need to know that there’s a chance for those who don’t have any superpowers.

If you’ve ever read Summer of Night by Dan Simmons, you know what it is to see true horror manifest in the lives of five twelve-year-old boys. One of these is exceptionally intelligent, but the others are merely a well-rounded mix of relatively normal kids. None have any supernatural abilities. And yet they prevail. They go to war against something that seems too great for even adults to vanquish and come out ahead. It’s a beautifully nostalgic book within a pervasively horrifying tome of suspended tension. Simmons’s writing is brilliant.

And the children’s victory makes it doubly poignant.

Conclusion

There are plenty of books with adult protagonists that I count among my all time favorites. But some of my all-time favorites feature child protagonists. And now I can see why these sometimes impact me the most strongly. Because they speak to our greatest weakness while simultaneously holding out the most rewarding victory.

If you love them as well, don’t be afraid to use young characters in your adult fiction. Those characters might just be the ones that convey your theme the most clearly.

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Beware! Plot Spoilers Ahead!

My first experience with Gothic literature was Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. The story touched me in such a deep way that I fell in love with the Gothic genre from that point on. The novel was published in 1938. Since then, Hollywood has made two movies based on it: the 1940 film by Alfred Hitchcock and the 2020 remake by Ben Wheatley. Clearly, the story is a fantastic one – full of intrigue, psychological depth and relational complexity, set against a fascinating backdrop: the historical estate of the de Winter family on the coast of England.

On the surface, the story is about a young woman who meets a widower in Monte Carlo. She falls in love with him, marries him, and then moves back to his estate, Manderley. Once she gets there though, she learns that his first wife, Rebecca, was a woman of great beauty, intelligence and skill. Throughout the book, she feels the growing weight of the comparison between herself and Rebecca and what she believes her husband, Maxim, thinks of her in contrast to his perfect first wife. This comparison grows to a paralyzing point until she learns something cataclysmic that changes everything.

This main character, the second Mrs. de Winter, is never named for at least two possible reasons. The first is that we as readers are meant to see ourselves in du Maurier presentation of her. The second is that the protagonist’s self-perception is only in relation to her status as either the companion to Mrs. Van Hopper (at the beginning of the book), or subsequently, as the wife of Maxim de Winter and/or the successor of his first wife, Rebecca.

The Antagonist(s)

What the protagonist wants most is for her husband to love her as she loves him, and to reconcile herself to the idol that she sees in his former wife.

However, there are two principle antagonists in this book who are preventing her this. Both are reflections of the main character’s beliefs about who Rebecca was. The first is an external one: Mrs. Danvers. As Rebecca’s former personal maid, Mrs. Danvers is fiercely loyal to the memory of her mistress. As such, throughout the book, she constantly reiterates and reinforces the protagonist’s opinion that she is inferior to Rebecca.

While Mrs. Danvers plays an antagonistic role, the principle antagonist is actually the second antagonist: the main character’s own imagination, her comparison of herself with Rebecca, and her resulting sense of inferiority.

What is the Theme?

In this work, du Maurier is exploring the idea that comparing ourselves to someone else is paralyzing, and that, in the process, we often reach false conclusions. I love that du Maurier uses a deceased character whom the main character had never met in order to demonstrate this theme. All the new Mrs. de Winter knows of Rebecca is what other people tell her. As the book progresses, readers sense that these perspectives are very one-sided.

For example, many of the characters who tell the protagonist something about Rebecca only knew Rebecca’s public face. They didn’t really know the full person. In contrast, there are some characters like Frank Crawley, the manager/ agent of the estate, who chooses his words very carefully. If you read beneath the surface, it’s clear that Frank did know who Rebecca really was, but he doesn’t want to say anything against her out of his loyalty to Maxim. And also because Frank knows more about Rebecca’s fate than he lets on.

For example, right around the one-third point in the book, Mrs. de Winter comes home from a trip to visit the Bishop’s wife. She sees Frank walking along the drive and gets out of the car to walk with him. When she tells him about her day, Frank makes a very general comment in response and the protagonist rightly assesses that “It was the sort of remark Frank Crawley always made. Safe, conventional, very correct.”

So, she clearly understands that he is very politically careful not to say anything objectionable. Then she begins to prod him with comments about Rebecca’s skill in organizing large balls and parties at the estate. Instead of praising Rebecca, Frank says, “We all of us worked pretty hard.”

Now, given that she’s just identified that Frank is one to only say what’s safe, she should have begun to suspect that his comment actually conceals a very different truth. Instead, she says that, at that point, she began to wonder if Frank had been in love with Rebecca.

That’s a perfect illustration of what du Maurier does with the theme throughout the book. She makes a true statement and then causes the protagonist to misinterpret it so that the theme is exaggerated. This allows the protagonist to build up a false view of Rebecca in her mind: that everyone else must have loved and admired her.

Gothic Tropes

To work with this theme and make it clear, du Maurier uses at least four tropes: fog, an old estate, isolation, and family secrets.

Fog

At the three-quarters point in the book, after the fateful costume party, the protagonist’s false reality – her incorrect conclusions about who Rebecca really was – are at a fever pitch. Simultaneously, a ship runs aground off of the coast of Manderley. When the divers go down to investigate the wreckage, they discover Rebecca’s sunken sailboat with her body in it. Now everyone knows that what they had believed about Rebecca’s death is false. But this discovery also challenges all of the protagonist’s prior assumptions about who Rebecca was as a person. At this point, she’s left with nothing but confusion.

Not surprisingly, du Maurier lays a heavy fog over this entire scene. At the point when the fog rolls in, our protagonist knows that something about her assumptions is wrong and that she can no longer hold on to her false beliefs. But she still doesn’t know the truth. The fog mirrors her confusion. She can’t see through it. She can’t understand what is or isn’t the truth.

Old Estate (Manderley)

The de Winter estate is a large, old home resembling a castle. I mentioned earlier that it mirrors the internal antagonist: the protagonist’s false reality. It’s clear from the point at which Mrs. de Winter first arrives at Manderley that she is uncomfortable there. She feels awkward, out of place, and ill-equipped to manage the estate. At the very beginning, she gets lost and can’t find her way back to the main rooms she knows. She also responds to a phone call by saying that Mrs. de Winter isn’t alive, illustrating the fact that she doesn’t see herself as the true Mrs. de Winter.

Later on, she breaks a little statue that represents, on a micro-scale, the house itself. Instead of owning the accident as her own, she tries to hide it. Why? Because she doesn’t see herself as the mistress of the house. The house and its contents stand apart from her as something that she believes are better than herself. These events exemplify her inability to find her place in the household.

And throughout the book, she is afraid of Rebecca’s former suite of rooms. Even when she finally ventures in, the bedroom is a place of terror and another source of her false reality. Because she sees the room as one of perfect beauty, she sees in it a confirmation of her incorrect belief: that Rebecca was perfect and that she is inferior to her.

In all of these incidents, du Maurier uses the house to parallel the protagonist’s psychological state. In her responses to the house, we see her inferiority complex more clearly.

Isolation

After Maxim and Mrs. de Winter return to Manderley from their honeymoon tour, our protagonist is often alone. It is implied that, since he’s been away, Maxim has business to attend to, business that takes him to London for overnight trips. In reality though, with an estate manager/ agent, Frank Crawley, on site, Maxim should have had more time for his new bride. Instead readers witness incidents such as when, on one occasion, the protagonist comes to breakfast and the men immediately get up and leave, having already eaten. On this occasion, it’s clear that they could have lingered long enough to keep her company.

This is not an accident. Du Maurier did this in order to support the theme. The main character’s problem is one within her own head. It is her isolation from the reality of Maxim’s history and the truth that enables her to generate her incorrect conclusions about Rebecca. Thus, her physical isolation from Maxim – the source of the truth – is an important means of exaggerating and demonstrating that.

Family Secrets

Lastly, what about the family secrets? I’ve already hinted at it. Rebecca was not the woman who the protagonist assumed her to be. And Maxim’s relationship with Rebecca was something entirely different as well.

[I’m trying not to give away everything!]

But the truth about these things had to be a secret. Not just because this is a mystery, but because the theme wouldn’t have worked if the protagonist had known the truth.

If, early in the book, Maxim had confessed to her even part of the truth, she wouldn’t have created the false reality in her mind. She wouldn’t have decided that Rebecca was a perfect woman whom he loved and to whom he constantly compared his new wife. She would have known that that was at least partly false.

By keeping the main character in the dark, by establishing the family secrets, the author is able to work with the theme and show readers how terribly destructive it is to build up a false reality in our heads. One to which no one can measure up, least of all ourselves.

Can you see how these tropes help with the theme? That’s the key in the Gothic genre. It’s not the fog or the secrets that make the book Gothic. These elements are there to support a Gothic theme. It’s the Gothic theme that makes the book Gothic.

Is the Book Gothic?

I think you know the answer to this already, but let’s summarize. First the theme: is it a Gothic one? Well, it deals with something that can’t be reasoned or proved empirically: the idea that we create entire expectations and assumptions in our heads, based on false understandings. The idea that these false conclusions can be paralyzing and can produce a constant state of debilitating terror in our lives is a psychological one. It’s definitely Gothic. In Rebecca, du Maurier takes a psychological – you might even argue spiritual – state and makes it tangible. She brings it to life in the character of Mrs. Danvers, in the character of the house, Manderley, and in the protagonist’s responses to these.

And as we just discussed, all of the Gothic tropes that she uses exist to prove and support this Gothic theme. That’s the essence of Gothic right there.

So yes, I believe that this book is quintessentially Gothic. And I hope you’ll read (or re-read) it and enjoy it as much as I do!

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When most people talk about Gothic writing, they mention books such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre or Dracula. Or even the poems and stories of Edgar Allan Poe. A few people will mention more contemporary Gothic writing such as Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. But it seems like few people have any modern references despite the fact that there are many.

But how do these modern works differ from their historical predecessors? That’s what we’re talking about today – the evolution of Gothic writing!

This is a huge topic, one we can only cover at a minimum, but let’s take a look at as many examples as we can. And keep in mind that I’m including all of the works that are termed Gothic, many of which do not have truly Gothic themes and which I would not call Gothic. In addition, I’m going to consider works that aren’t marketed as Gothic…but should be.

I’m doing that for a reason. Including all of these works demonstrates the progression of what writers and readers believe about the Gothic genre. So stay with me.

To start with though, there are at least two things that have not changed since the Gothic genre began with the Castle Otranto, by Horace Walpole. And these are opposing elements. The first is the tendency of some writers to assume that Gothic writing is predominantly sensational superficiality and to focus on that. The second is the contrasting trend in which writers use the Gothic genre, especially its tropes to explore heavy themes related to spirituality, psychology and the progression of modern events.

Sensational Superficiality

If there was an award for the most sensational and nonsensical Gothic novel, the first Gothic work of all time – the Castle Otranto by Horace Walpole – would certainly be in the running. The book is so awkward that it’s hard to even argue that it’s Gothic, though I believe that it is. In order to find its Gothic underpinnings, we have to wade through the absurd. The plight of Princess Isabella at the hands of her soon-to-be father-in-law has real promise, but the remainder of the book takes this threat and explores it through comical events such as giant helmets falling from the sky.

Another example would be Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. While it’s less absurd than Otranto, it’s clear that Austen’s disdain for the Gothic genre stemmed from her misunderstanding of it. She wrote this book intending to write in the Gothic, while also satirizing the genre. But the result is not Gothic. She overlays a very Austenian theme – one of family and culture in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century England – with superficial Gothic elements. The Gothic components serve to mock those who make superstitious and illogical assumptions based on an overuse of their imagination. That may be a common misconception of the Gothic genre – that it’s nothing more than overblown emotional responses – but it’s certainly not true. And it misinterprets the reasons for the genre’s use of hyperbolic emotion.

While the style and method has changed over the years, this obsession with the superficial elements of the Gothic genre is still present in our modern era.

Case in point: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Her book, strongly implied to be, and marketed as, Gothic, is anything but. It has a haunted house, a fair amount of family secrets, and a hidden life force waiting to subsume the unwitting protagonist, Noemi Taboada. But the theme? The entire book hinges on the family’s obsession with preserving its genetic bloodlines. That’s a theme based on a secret sin, which is the underpinnings of the horror genre, not the Gothic one.

Keep in mind, I’m not saying that any of these books, or other examples like them – awkward Otranto notwithstanding – are bad. They’re just not Gothic. The authors have focused their Gothic intent on the superficial tropes, not understanding (or not caring for, I’m not sure which) the underlying purpose of Gothic literature: it’s irrational themes.

A Manifestation of the B-Plot

On the other hand, there are numerous examples of Gothic writing – in prior centuries or our current one – in which authors have used the Gothic tropes to highlight and elucidate Gothic themes. I wrote an article on this awhile back, in which I explained how Gothic enables this sort of exploration. You can find it here.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a good example. Shelley used her reincarnated monster to examine her contemporaries’ focus on science to an extent that concerned her. In the book, she explored the idea that science can give man the opportunity to play God to an extent that could be horribly destructive. The monster, the tangible result of just such a scenario, is an outward manifestation of the dangers associated with this practice.

Or the Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. In the book, Dorian commissions a self-portrait. As the book progresses, Dorian, an exceptionally handsome, upper-class young man sets off down a self-destructive path. Though Wilde handles the matter with a superb balance of subtlety and disclosure, it’s evident that Dorian is engaging in every form of immorality he can find. As his soul becomes more and more polluted, his portrait grows increasingly corrupted and hideous. In person though, he looks as polished and unchanged as before. The seemingly-possessed portrait is the Gothic trope Wilde uses to make the internal state of Gray’s soul tangible to the reader. The contrast between the two provides us with Wilde’s theme.

A more contemporary example of this is a book that’s not marketed as Gothic, but which explores a very Gothic theme. That would be Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. He uses characters whom he terms mind vampires to explore the idea of people who use others for their own gain, whatever form that might take. Using World War II, an era in which so many Nazi soldiers were willing to destroy millions of fellow humans, as his backdrop, he sets off on a journey that explores the idea of this concept at a global level. It’s brilliant. And it’s Gothic Horror.

All that to say that both the prevalence of a superficial and sensational use of Gothic tropes and a deep use of these tropes in conjunction with Gothic themes are evident from 1764 through the modern era.

So what has changed?

An Increase in Sensationalism

It probably won’t surprise you that, for those who see the Gothic genre as nothing but a sensational, superficial use of Gothic tropes, that sensationalism has increased in modern times. Mexican Gothic is a perfect example of this. The book, which is well-written overall, takes its darker elements to extremes.

This trend is even easier to spot in Gothic-branded television series, such as Hannibal, True Blood, American Gothic, The Haunting of Hill House and Penny Dreadful. I’m constantly looking for good Gothic writing – in literature or in screenplays – and am, more often than not, confronted with nothing more than a presentation of darkness. It seems like many of these writers assume that the more evil or taboo the subject, the darker the psychological state and ambience of the work, the more Gothic it is. However, cannibalism, incest, and blood sacrifices don’t necessarily have anything to do with the Gothic genre. But of course, there’s a market for this, Gothic or not.

Modern Events = Modern Themes

If we look at some of the modern works that are more consistent with the irrational Gothic themes that established the genre, the trend is to use these themes to address more contemporary issues. Earlier, I mentioned Carrion Comfort, by Dan Simmons. His theme – that certain people have a sociopathic desire to subsume the wills of others to their own – is certainly not a modern idea. But his use of WWII and the lingering questions that came out of that war, makes the theme particularly relevant and modern.

The same is true of Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. In the book, King addresses the theme that those who are willing to admit that evil is real are the only people who are prepared and able to fight it. Ignorance is not bliss. At first blush, this doesn’t sound modern, but it is. Throughout history, people have embraced an understanding of the supernatural and the occurrence of things that we can neither see nor control. Spiritual entities that act independent of mankind. But in more recent generations, the prevalence of atheism and agnosticism has made such a belief one of scorn and derision. In that respect, this book is actually something of a rebuttal against such a temporal focus.

Of course, this is less of a change, than a return to the traditional use of the Gothic genre. Mary Shelley did much the same in using the Gothic genre to call contemporary beliefs and practices to account. The only real change today is that the events and beliefs are unique to our era. But in many of these cases, the audience, the industry and perhaps even the writers themselves, by mislabeling these works, imply that they don’t understand what constitutes a truly Gothic novel.

Gothic Confusion

In summary, what I see is primarily an increase in confusion. Writers – literary or cinematic – are increasingly using Gothic tropes with no underlying Gothic theme and yet labeling the work as Gothic. That seems to be driving the increase in sensationalism. But it also explains the mislabeling of works that do explore Gothic themes and which are usually labeled as Horror.

All of this leaves the market of readers confused. What is Gothic and what isn’t?

Which, of course, is why I wanted to start this blog and my corresponding YouTube channel – The Gothic Literary Society. I love Gothic writing – the true Gothic stuff of Shelley and Jackson and Rice. I want to see it continue. And for that to happen, readers and writers need to know how to differentiate Gothic from sensationalism. And we need to go out and use Gothic tropes in such a way that they make deep Gothic themes come to life. Themes that cause people to think about irrational concepts that are hard to address in any other genre.

Help me end the confusion. Tell people about the rich complexity of the Gothic genre. And even better, go write a wonderful Gothic book! And let me know so I can tell everyone about it!