Your exam unit for the A2 course will cover 3 or 4 texts from the Gothic genre. Before studying Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber', it is important you have some understanding of what we mean when we talk about 'the Gothic'. Read David Punter's emagazine article on the subject here.
It seems like the Gothic has had a very complex history, and can be based on almost everything in our daily lives.
ReplyDeleteThat was an extremely interesting article. I think that it will really help with identifying a text as Gothic and explaining why it is so; where we may go on to talk about motifs and moods of a traditional Gothic novel. However I think by far the most interesting part of the article was the authors six different 'uses' of Gothic which range from dealing with extreme passions to commenting on revolution at the time.
ReplyDeleteOverall this is a great article which has given me some great ideas which I will use in the exam and future essays.
Roman A.
The Gothic is surely a complicated concept to understand properly. The unanswered questions which lie within it, make the learning of Gothic flexible and rather debateable amongst individuals.
ReplyDeleteI also like how the article has broken down The Gothic into various categories, for example: motifs, texts, mood and outside the mainstream. The simplication of the Gothic into parts, gives me personally a greater understanding of this concept. AlthoughW will need further help of Sir
i would agree with romans comment to an extent, i agree the article is very uselful in helping define the gothic genre and outlining things to look out for, howver i would also add, that literarly genres are very difficult to strictly define, i think the gothic genre perhaps is hardest of all because it is left to the reader to judge whether the text evokes their darkest inner-most thoughts
ReplyDeleteI found the article to be interesting and in my view accurate as the gothic genre does seem to put the possible "fear" into our minds of the unreal happening, as the idea of supernatural vs reason both intertwine within the genre making us feel subconciously the unreal could happen as they blend it with reality in their stories which makes it seem real instead of an over done joke by means of not having the reality element at all. Also the sexual element paticulary towards females showing them as sexual beings possibly showing the message of the female`s true nature highlights the darkness in gothic text.
ReplyDeleteTamsin (p.s i can`t spell)
This article was really helpful in defining the gothic literary style and pointed out its general attributes. I think that the gothic genre is so popular because it provides its audience with a distraction from the events of their everyday lives, as it is action packed and full of unusual happenings. However the descriptions of the situations and creatures that live inside the world of fairytales are so vivid that it is possible to wonder whether they could exist in real life. Personally I find that the situations present in gothic text are very metaphorical and actually explore the possibilities of the human mind and the darkness that is burried inside every one of us.
ReplyDeleteAleksandra
The article by David Punter gave a very open ambiguous insight about the Gothic genre. I was particularly interested in "the original Goths" who "left almost no written records".
ReplyDeleteWhen Punter went on to talk about motifs such as the "Gothic castle" and the persecuted "or at least pursued maiden" I immediately thought of the Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole and the small extract we read in class.
It seems the Gothic genre has extremely diverse effects as pointed out by the "Why is the Gothic?" section of the article. My personal favourite was the psychological effects of the Gothic genre.
The article Punter describes the Gothics from different cultures such as the "German culture was particularly crucial with number of Gothic plays". It also explains that contains the roots of the 19th centuray English culture of the melodrama. I believe with Gothics could be psychological as for reading books, wathching films the figures of fear could be gone out of our minds but still be with us and make us paraniod.
ReplyDeleteRosie