Title: terms & themes
Headings: 

Content: terms & themes






The gothic is a genre or style of literature that appears throughout Western literary history—from visions of hell to the novels of Stephen King—though it often goes by names like "horror," "terror," "thriller," the grotesque or macabre. The gothic is easily identified by its network or system of symbols, all of which may not appear in every text: haunted houses / castles / woods mazes, labyrinths closed doors & secret passages / rooms
light and dark interplay with shades of gray or blood-red colors ( color code ) fair & dark ladies twinning, doubling, & doppelgangers
repressed fears & desires; memory of past crime or sin death & decay bad-boy Byronic heroes
blood as visual spectacle and genealogy / ethnicity spectral or grotesque figures, lurid symbols
creepy or startling sounds, screams in the night, groans from locked rooms
Manifestations of the gothic make a long list, and so do its literary genres: gothic novels or romances, horror, thrillers, mysteries, film noir
“goth” fashion and gothic rock or metal music
Frequently today (and earlier) the gothic is satirized as a formula, e.g. The Addams Family, Young Frankenstein, Scary Movie, etc. The gothic has deep roots in theology, architecture, psychology, the imagination, and many literary traditions. ( see variations on the gothic)
Backgrounds: Images associated with the gothic stretch back to Christian visions of hell, devils, and demons, with Lucifer as the original Byronic hero: proud, rebellious, attractive, dangerous to know. As the gothic develops, such imagery becomes secularized but may still evoke the supernatural.