The central emotion of the Gothic is to horrify and terrify. Do you agree that the primary aim of the Gothic novel is to horrify and terrify?
The central emotions evoked by Gothic literature are horror and fear for non-gothic people, but I feel that the principal aim of Gothic literature is to express the individuality of this resilient subculture.
Every novel has the Gothic elements of an atmosphere of mystery and suspense, supernatural or inexplicable events, excess of emotions and the metonymy of gloom and horror. These elements do try to evoke fear of the supernatural; however, the usage of these characteristics is to portray a deeper purpose rather than just to scare the readers.
The difference between Terror and Horror is the difference between awful apprehension and sickening realization: between the smell of death and stumbling against a corpse. Devendra Varma has distinct horror and terror by saying,” Terror thus creates an intangible atmosphere of spiritual psychic dread, a certain superstitious shudder at the other world. Horror resorts to a cruder presentation of the macabre: by an exact portrayal of the physically horrible and revolting, against a far more terrible background of spiritual gloom and despair.” The works of terror create a sense of uncertain apprehensions that leads to a complex fear of obscure and dreadful elements. It stimulates the imagination and challenges reasoning to arrive at a somewhat reasonable explanation of this uncertain fear and anxiety. The works of horror are constructed from a maze of unnervingly concrete imagery designed to induce fear, shock, revulsion and disgust. It appeals to lower mental faculties, nearly ‘annihilating’ the reader’s responsive capacity with its unambiguous displays of atrocity. Elements of horror render the reader incapable of resolution and expose the reader’s mind to a state of inevitable confusion and chaos.
