Gothic conventions

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Mind Map on Gothic conventions, created by eveannesley on 01/01/2015.
eveannesley
Mind Map by eveannesley, updated more than 1 year ago
eveannesley
Created by eveannesley almost 10 years ago
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Resource summary

Gothic conventions
  1. crumbling castles, labyrinths, low lighting, catacombs, graveyards
    1. light and shadow: reflecting the characters of the protagonists, innocence v's darkness and corruption
      1. ambiguity: between good and evil, natural and supernatural
        1. Polarities: virginal young female protagonist v's the corrupt, inhumane male villain. Light and dark not only oppose but compliment eachother: there is something about the dark, sexually promiscuous male that hints at duality-an escape to the dark side
          1. sexual difference: power/experience of the male, virginal curiosity of the female.
        2. Transgression
          1. breaking boundaries: sexual, social
            1. Contextually: reaction against intellectual atmosphere of the Enlightenment
              1. WOMEN: gave them a place to explore rebellion
                1. feminist interpretations: women becoming sexually libertaed, freeing themselves from the shackles of society.
                  1. female/ gay male authors- against the grain of the patriachal novel
                    1. women= explorers, disobedient
                      1. female protagonist and unsexed male
                      2. safely, without society being turned on its head- the thrill, but returning to normality, ultimately unthreatening.
                    2. perversion, sexual desire, obsession, voyeurism, sexual violence
                    3. Claustrophobia and entrapment
                      1. constraint:threat and isolation, physical or psychological
                      2. gothic novels set during moments of transition: from girlhood to womanhood, enlightenment period, autumn to winter etc
                        1. opposition but also mysterious affinity between present and the archaic past
                          1. Freud: The UNCANNY: " That class of the frightening which leads back to the old and unfamiliar"
                            1. ex. Ghosts: disrupt the present with the past
                            2. a world of doubt: beyond human reason and power
                              1. Edmund Burke: The sublime
                                1. Beyond the beautiful- no order, harmony or proportion- the mighty, terrible and the awesome. Excess and awe.
                                2. 'a pleasing melancholy'
                                  1. Structural: elaborate narrative structure; many narrators, found texts and stories within stories
                                    1. vicarious pleasures, illicit thrills
                                      1. typical symbolism
                                        1. colours, usually red v's white to insinuate loss of virginity/purity
                                          1. mirrors: identity, sense of self, vanity, worldliness, sensuality, isolation, a door to an alternate reality.
                                            1. light and dark: polarities
                                              1. passageways, locked doors, keys: sexual discover, perhaps forbidden
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