‘Sins of Fathers’: Confrontation of History in Gothic Fiction

Authors

  • Genevieve Gordon University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma

Keywords:

Gothic Fiction, History, Temporality, Romanticism, Vampires

Abstract

The Gothic movement of the 17th and 18th centuries is characterized by supernatural horror and frightening settings, but the literary label of “gothic†is notoriously difficult to define. Explication of the word’s two historical meanings—that of the barbaric Gothic tribes and the medieval European Gothic architecture movement—reveals a dual-sided interpretation of cultural history. Gothic texts portray the past as something simultaneously barbaric and illustrious, and this contradiction is what makes history itself a subject of terror and confusion. Through historical settings like castles and figures like vampires, Gothic fiction confronts complicated history and seeks to expose its threatening nature and its tendency to try to haunt the present and restrict both social and individual progress. This gives the Gothic genre adaptability, as these same devices can reflect upon any society’s history by exploring past violence and power structures that the culture anxiously seeks to both repress and romanticize.

 

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Shelley Rees

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Published

2020-05-01

Issue

Section

Humanities