American Gothic Literature
Though in many of its
aspects this visible world
seems formed in love, the
invisible spheres were formed
in fright. Herman Melville,
Moby Dick
American Gothic Literature
Gothic refers to the use of medieval,
wild, or mysterious elements in
literature. Gothic literature features
gloomy settings and horrifying events.
Edgar Allan Poe is generally regarded
as the American master of Gothic
writing.
American Gothic Literature
Themes
•Family structure
•Violence
•Unreliable narrators
•Transgression
•Religion
American Gothic Literature
Gothic literature is marked by
a preoccupation with gloom,
mystery, and terror. It may
involve the supernatural.
The Castle of Otranto by
Horace Walpole (1764) began
American Gothic Literature
Many writers followed him, and in
the United States, the first wellknown Gothic novelist was Charles
Brockden Brown. Later, both
Hawthorne and Poe wrote in the
Gothic mode.
American Gothic Literature
The term “Gothic” has also been
extended to denote a type of
fiction which lacks the medieval
setting but develops a brooding
atmosphere of gloom or terror,
represents events which are
uncanny, or macabre, or
American Gothic Literature
melodramatically violent, and
often deals with
psychological states.
American Gothic Literature
The settings for these pieces
of literature could be in any
time period, a gloomy castle
replete with dungeons,
subterranean passages, and
sliding panels,
American Gothic Literature
with plentiful use of ghosts,
mysterious chilling terror and
a variety of horrors.
Elements of the Gothic Novel
• An atmosphere of
mystery and suspense.
• An ancient prophecy
• Omens, portents,
visions
• Supernatural or
otherwise inexplicable
events
• High, even
overwrought emotion
• Women in distress
• Women threatened by
a powerful, impulsive,
tyrannical male
• The metonymy of
gloom and horror
Southern Gothic Literature
The South’s reputation for
sultry decadence lives on in a
literature that meshes the
moody romanticism of Gothic
novels with the American
South’s sensibility of tragedy
and doom.
Southern Gothic Literature
The South’s mystique of decay
and danger became a
preoccupation for some midtwentieth century novelists.
William Faulkner, Truman
Capote, and Flannery O’Connor
are sometimes
Southern Gothic Literature
grouped together in the
category of Southern
Gothic because of the
gloom and pessimism of
their fiction.