GOTHIC LITERATURE VS MAGICAL REALISM SERIES

(25-6) The Gothic tradition is based in extremes. What arrested me on the spot-and with shock much greater than any vision had allowed for-was the sense that my imagination had, in a flash, turned real. I stopped short on emerging from one of the plantation and coming into view of the house. Another good example of realism incorporating suspense with a fantastic element is Henry James’ Turn of the Screw: It is interesting to see how many such as King deviate from the style at times to write a more gory tale while Morrison relies on more thematic techniques of storytelling which require exploration of the character’s psyche. The paragraphs below will touch on this foundation and discuss how modern authors like Morrison, Rice and even the King of Horror Stephen King find their writer’s wisdom in the true Gothic style. Not many think of the tradition has its roots in Wuthering Heights.

GOTHIC LITERATURE VS MAGICAL REALISM SERIES

When considering the Gothic tradition, modern readers think of Anne Rice’s Vampire series and classic horror like Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stroker’s Dracula.

Gothic Elements When many readers think of the Gothic novel, they think of horror, fantasy stories but what they do not think of is the beauty, the humanity conveyed in earlier works by the Bronte sisters. The paragraph below examines in greater detail Gothic novel themes as a means of comparison for the modern Gothic novel, the Magical Realism used more and more today. This notion of Magical Realism is not a new storytelling technique, but a forgotten one in need of evolution. In this respect, the Gothic novel creates an atmosphere of suspense as strange events happen to the main character. They make the female overcome with lust for this anti-hero, painting the picture of a female character in distress, needing the strength of their man and his love. Both of them take a faraway location usually shrouded fog and create a mysterious romantic leading man whose behavior borders on villainous. Prime examples of the Gothic novel come from the Bronte sisters. The modern Gothic novel builds from a varied thematic past where such techniques in conveying story seemed romantic in flavor but also horrific and fantastic. Order custom essay Toni Morrison’s Beloved: The Modern Gothic Novel It parts its characters in situations that seem completely interesting, gives them a past that is tragic, maybe somewhat scandalous and puts the characters in a limbo of an unfamiliar place, where mystical events happen. Part of what makes Beloved and other modern Gothic novels so enthralling is its ability to convey mystery, darkness the unknown as a realism to the reader. This novel makes the reader question, not only the content but how it is being conveyed, while masterfully, also complex in nature. Morrison tells a story not told before while weaving the spectacular into a very real situation.

The novel encompasses trauma, making the reader uncomfortable with its subject matter. It is the many interwoven techniques of storytelling that make this novel a challenge to analyze but also so integral to the telling of America’s collective past.

It can be argued that Morrison uses many techniques derived from the Gothic period to master her story of Sethe, a former slave haunted by the ghost of her murdered daughter, Beloved. The purpose of this paper is to explore the concept that Toni Morrison’s Beloved is a modern Gothic novel.

Gothic literature vs magical realism