Key features of the Gothic tradition.

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        This passage entails many key features of the Gothic tradition where Gothic conventions, with the usage of archetypal symbols, dominate much of the text. Other than effectively evoking horror, suspense and unease in the reader, the Gothic uses these conventions to challenge and destabilize certain concepts and perceptions of the world. Boundaries of binary oppositions are also blurred in the process. The Gothic conventions that prevalent in the passage are the setting and atmosphere, the role double, the supernatural visitation, extreme interior mental states of the narrator and the apparitions and the fragmented mental states of the narrator.

        The setting of the passage is dark and obscure, typical of the Gothic. The visitation by the apparitions occurs at an “untimely” hour, about “four or five o’clock”, a time when most people are asleep and that anything that may happen would be left unnoticed. By taking into consideration the fact that most of the time people are unfamiliar with the surroundings and activities of the wee-hours of the morning, a foreign, strange, Unheimlich sensation is created. Although it is presumably in the comforts of the speaker’s own room, the fact that it is “dark” lends to the sinister tone of the atmosphere evoking further unease. As seen in the other gothic narratives, most visitations by the otherworldly occur in such setting. For example in Dracula, the fateful visit the Count made to Lucy occurs in the dark setting of the night and in Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason, the madwoman, too visits the protagonist Jane in a similar setting.

        The Gothic endorses the use of otherworldly creatures. For example in Frankenstein there is a human-created-monster and in Dracula, the Count have physiognomy that are inhuman. The presence of the apparitions in the passage addresses this tradition of the Gothic, evoking terror and suspense. The apparitions are otherworldly in a sense that they defy all forms of classifications. They do no have a fixed definite shape as the narrator describe them to be “intangible weird Shapes” and were “impossible to tell whether they were men or women” throwing them out of the spectrum of a normal human being. They embody images of death with their “dark garments” as such garments express a form of mourning. On top of that, to Jung, the idea of the figures being “closely hooded” elevate them the highest sphere of the celestial world because for the most powerful gods in Greek mythology were known wear them. However, in the context of the passage, the hoods are worn to conceal and intimidate, subverting the idea of the divine as being protectors of mankind. Ominously, covering the head therefore meant far more than becoming invisible, it meant to vanish and to die. Death is also depicted at the way one of the “face (was) as white as whitest marble” similar to that of a corpse. This sense of foreboding adds to the terror with the anticipation of a potential death to come. The idea of having “three Figures” suggests a relation to the Holy Trinity in Catholicism. Instead of the figures representing something holy, they represent a diabolical force, resulting in the subversion of religion. The use of capital letters when in mentioning the creatures effectively intimidates reflective at the way the Gothic seeks to intimidate.

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        The supernatural abilities of the apparitions are also an indication of a Gothic passage. It is the “invisible hand” that woke the narrator up by touching him and despite the fact that he cannot strike at the apparitions, they remain “distinct as ever” even though they are merely “fantastic masqueraders”. Although the apparitions are fantastic creatures, their presence also makes up the reality of the narrator. This blurs the boundaries of the real and fantastic.

        The extreme feelings or passion of characters is constantly envisaged in Gothic narratives like the way Jane Eyre as a child suffer from ...

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