1. health and fitness
2. disorders
3. mental disorder
4. panic and anxiety

4/29/2015
QUICK-WRITE
GOTHIC NOVELS
UNIT
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Think About It: Horror is a pervading intoxication. We, as
humans, are intrigued by the supernatural, the grotesque, as
well as exciting bone-chilling narratives and the macabre. Let
us consider today’s pop cultural hits: Saw, Paranormal
Activity, The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Teen Werewolf.
Why? Why are we so drawn to feelings of horror, suspense,
dread and darkness?
Write It: In your “Gothic Genre - Guided Notes” handout, flip
to the second-to-last page. Complete the “Agree / Disagree”
activity now.
INTRODUCTION TO THE GOTHIC
GENRE: HISTORY
❖ 1660 - 1790: Enlightenment/ Age of Reason
❖ 1790 - 1837: Romanticism
➢ a response to/reaction against the objectivity of scientific
reason
■ focus on imagination and emotion
➢ a response/reaction to the development of industry
■ admiration and reverence for the natural world
❖ 1837 - 1901: Victorian Era
➢ improved transportation, communication, and industry
➢ increasing urban population = increase in poverty
➢ growing middle class = worker’s rights
➢ social norms: order and rationality
WRITING STYLE
The writing style of any genre of literature and any
particular author is characterized by nuances in the
following categories, otherwise referred to by your
English teachers as DIDLS:
❖ Diction
❖ Imagery
❖ Details
❖ Language
❖ Syntax
THE ROMANTIC
MOVEMENT
natural feelings/emotion > rationale/reason
imagination > societal rules/norms
intuition > science
individual > society
a focus on the common man, individualism, and freedom from
oppression and subjugation
❖ the creative spirit is more important than mainstream
tradition
❖ love and respect of nature, of the Sublime
❖
❖
❖
❖
❖
➢ Gothic novels: were developed during the Romantic
Movement and Romantic Literary Period and share some of
these common themes and traits, although they were often
inspired by the setting and mood of Medieval literature.
WRITING STYLE
❖ Diction: author’s word choice
connotation matters
❖ Imagery
vivid appeals to understand through the
five senses
❖ Details
facts that are included or those omitted
❖ Language
overall use of language (e.g. formal,
informal, colloquial, jargon, etc.)
❖ Syntax
sentence structure
how structure affects reader’s attitude
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DICTION OF THE
GOTHIC GENRE
❖ Diction in Gothic
literature is often
characterized by:
➢ antiquated, archaic
word choice
➢ higher-level,
elevated, formal
diction
➢ words that often have
dark, grimy
connotations
IMAGERY IN THE
GOTHIC GENRE
❖ Imagery in Gothic literature
is often characterized by:
➢ a maze of alarmingly
concrete imagery designed
to induce fear, shock,
revulsion, and/or disgust
➢ images that convey a
sense of entrapment,
claustrophobia,
subjugation, loss, and/or
isolation
➢ images that conjure gloom
and mystery
DETAILS IN THE GOTHIC
GENRE
❖ Details in Gothic literature are
often characterized by:
➢ the author’s extensive
explanation of the minutia of a
scene for suspenseful effect
➢ narration that may be highly
sentimental, and the characters
are often overcome by anger,
sorrow, surprise, and especially,
terror or impending doom
➢ incorporating women in
distress
➢ producing a sense of dread,
horror, and mystery
VOCABULARY OF THE
GOTHIC
Mystery / The
Supernatural
Fear, Terror, or
Sorrow
Haste
diabolical, enchantment, ghost, goblins, haunted, infernal,
magic, magician, miracle, necromancer, omens, ominous,
portent, preternatural, prodigy, prophecy, secret, sorcerer,
spectre, spirits, strangeness, talisman, vision
afflicted, affliction, agony, anguish, apprehensions,
apprehensive, commiseration, concern, despair, dismal,
dismay, dread, dreaded, dreading, fearing, frantic, fright,
frightened, grief, hopeless, horrid, horror, lamentable,
melancholy, miserable, mournfully, panic, sadly, scared,
shrieks, sorrow, sympathy, tears, terrible, terrified, terror,
unhappy, wretched
anxious, breathless, flight, frantic, hastened, hastily,
impatience, impatient, impatiently, impetuosity, precipitately,
running, sudden, suddenly
IMAGERY IN THE
GOTHIC GENRE
❖ Imagery in Gothic literature is
often characterized by:
➢ natural and elemental imagery
(ex: moonlight, night-time
settings, flickering fires,
forests, moors, etc.)
➢ having a magical or
preternatural effect on the
viewer, evoking a sense of awe,
terror, insignificance,
vulnerability, or the sense of
being at the mercy of a higher
power
LANGUAGE OF THE
GOTHIC GENRE
❖ Language of Gothic
literature is often
characterized by:
➢ a brooding, dark,
mysterious tone
➢ formality
➢ long syntax
➢ archaic words,
phrases
➢ Victorian-period
style of writing
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SYNTAX OF THE GOTHIC
GENRE
❖ Syntax of Gothic literature is often characterized by:
➢ long syntax
➢ loose sentences: a type of sentence in which the main idea
(independent clause) is elaborated by the successive
addition of modifying clauses or phrases
WEATHER
❖ Weather is used in a number of ways and forms,
some of these being:
➢ Mist - This convention in Gothic literature is often
used to obscure objects (this can be related to the
sublime) by reducing visibility or to prelude the
insertion of a terrifying person or thing
➢ Storms - These frequently accompany important
events. Flashes of lightning accompany revelation;
thunder and downpours prefigure the appearance of
a character or the beginning of a significant event;
➢ Sunlight - represents goodness and pleasure; it also
has the power to bestow these upon characters.
❖ Darkness and ominousness may pervade certain
circumstances
MOOD
SETTING
❖ Often takes place in a “castle” or “old mansion”
➢ Action takes place in and around an old castle or mansion,
sometimes seemingly abandoned, sometimes occupied
➢ Castle often contains secret passages, trap doors, secret
rooms, dark or hidden staircases, and possibly ruined
sections
➢ May be near or connected to caves, which lend their own
haunting flavor with their passages, claustrophobia, and
mystery
❖ Translated into modern filmmaking, setting might be in an
old house or mansion--or even a new house--where unusual
camera angles, sustained close ups during movement, and
darkness or shadows create the same sense of claustrophobia
and entrapment
ATMOSPHERE
❖ Gothic novels exude an atmosphere of
mystery and suspense.
❖ The work is pervaded by:
➢ a threatening feeling.
➢ a fear enhanced by the unknown.
❖ Often, the plot itself is built around a
mystery, such as unknown parentage, a
disappearance, or some other inexplicable
event.
❖ The elements below contribute to this
atmosphere
➢ an ancient prophecy
➢ omens, portents, visions
➢ supernatural or otherwise inexplicable
events
BLUEPRINT OF JEKYLL’S
HOME
❖ Strenuous, tense, even overwrought emotion
❖ The narration may be highly sentimental, and the
characters are often overcome by anger, sorrow,
surprise, and especially, terror.
❖ Characters suffer from:
➢ Raw nerves
➢ Feelings of impending doom
❖ The following are common and frequent:
➢ Crying and emotional speeches
➢ Breathlessness and panic
❖ In Gothic films, screaming is common.
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CHAPTER 5
❖ Why are names (e.g. the
mysterious Mr. Guest who
compares handwriting)
and dates (e.g. beginning
of chapter 4) redacted
from the text?
➢ Adds to the mysterious
mood of the text
➢ Creates verisimilitude
CHARACTER TROPES: FEMALE
CHARACTERS
❖ Women in Distress: As an appeal to the pathos and sympathy of the
reader, the female characters often face events that leave them
fainting, terrified, screaming, and/or sobbing. A lonely, pensive, and
oppressed heroine is often the central figure of the novel, so her
sufferings are even more pronounced and the focus of attention.
❖ The Suffering Heroine: She is a young woman often without family
connections, money, or other resources. The women suffer all the more
because they are often abandoned, left alone (either on purpose or by
accident), and have no protector at times.
CHARACTER TROPES: MALE
CHARACTERS
❖ The Patriarchal Male: Much of the
Gothic male’s characterization centers
around the archetype of the landedgentry: lords and kings of their estates,
and representative of the male society’s
rule over women.
MEETING #2: TALKING
POINTS
❖ Discuss the previous night’s
reading assignment for your
assigned novel (Ch. 1-4):
➢ Initial reactions to the
novel
➢ Creation of mood and
atmosphere through
setting and weather
➢ How your novel begins to
fit the Gothic genre
➢ Characteristics of Gothic
language (DIDLS) in your
novel
❖ Pick out one quotation
from your novel that you
feel best represents the
Gothic elements discussed
today.
➢ Setting/Weather/Atmo
sphere/Mood
❖ Add that quotation to the
class list (via the Google
Doc under the “About”
tab) by the end of class
that day.
CHARACTER TROPES: MALE
CHARACTERS
❖ The Master: is portrayed as a
forbidding man with a powerful or
magnetic personality.
❖ The Tyrannical Male: Women
are often threatened by a powerful,
impulsive, tyrannical male. One or
more male characters have the
power, as king, lord of the manor,
father, or guardian, to demand that
one or more of the female
characters do something
intolerable. The woman may be
commanded to marry someone she
does not love (it may even be the
powerful male himself) or to
commit a crime.
CHARACTER TROPES:
VILLAINS
❖ Villain-Hero (Satanic,
Promethean, Byronic
Hero). The villain of a story
who either
1) poses as a hero at the
beginning
of the story or
2) simply possesses enough
heroic
characteristics (charisma,
sympathetic past)
so that either the reader or
the
other characters see the
villain-hero as more than a
simple charlatan or bad guy.
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CHARACTER TROPES:
VILLAINS
❖ Satanic Hero:
a Villain-Hero
whose
nefarious deeds
and
justifications of
them make him
a more
interesting
character than
the rather trite,
banal good hero
CHARACTER TROPES:
VILLAINS
❖ Byronic Hero: a later
variation of the "antithetically
mixed" Villain-Hero.
Aristocratic, suave, moody,
handsome, solitary, secretive,
brilliant, cynical, sexually
intriguing, and nursing a secret
wound; he is renowned because
of his fatal attraction for female
characters and continues to
occasion debate about gender
issues. This darkly attractive
and very conflicted male figure
surfaces everywhere in the 19th
and 20th century Gothic.
OTHER CHARACTER TROPES
❖ The Outsider / Anti-Hero:
The one character trope that cuts
through virtually all Gothic
fiction is that of the "outsider,"
embodied in wanderers. The
outsider, like Cain, moves along
the edges of society, in caves, on
lonely seacoasts, or in
monasteries and convents. While
the society at large always
appears bourgeois in its culture
and morality, the Gothic outsider
is a counterforce driven by
strange longings and destructive
needs.
CHARACTER TROPES:
VILLAINS
❖ Promethean Hero: a
Villain-Hero who has
done good but only by
performing an
overreaching or
rebellious act.
Prometheus from ancient
Greek mythology saved
mankind but only after
stealing fire and ignoring
Zeus' order that mankind
should be kept in a state
of subjugation.
OTHER CHARACTER TROPES
❖ The Pursued Protagonist: Refers
to the idea of a pursuing force that
relentlessly acts in a severely
negative manner on a character.
This persecution often implies the
notion of some sort of a curse or
other form of terminal and utterly
unavoidable damnation, a notion
that usually suggests a return to or
"hangover" of, traditional religious
ideology to chastise the character for
some real or imagined wrong
against the moral order.
OTHER CHARACTER TROPES
❖ The Outsider / Anti-Hero:
...cont’d...Gothic fiction, as we
have observed, is concerned with
the outsider---whether it be the
stationary figure who represses
his difference, or the wandering
figure who seeks for some kind of
salvation, or else the individual
who for whatever reason moves
entirely outside the norm. In any
event, he is beyond the
moderating impulses in society,
and he must be punished for his
transgression.
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OTHER CHARACTER TROPES
❖ Unreliable Narrator: A
narrator tells a story and
determines the story's
point of view. An
unreliable narrator,
however, does not
understand the
importance of a particular
situation or makes an
incorrect conclusion or
assumption about an
event that he/she
witnesses.
MOTIFS
❖ An ancient prophecy: is connected with the castle
or its inhabitants (either former or present). The
prophecy is usually obscure, partial, or confusing.
"What could it mean?" In more watered down modern
examples, this may amount to merely a legend: "It's
said that the ghost of old man Krebs still wanders
these halls."
MOTIFS
❖ Supernatural or otherwise
inexplicable events: Dramatic,
amazing events occur, such as ghosts
or giants walking, or inanimate
objects (such as a suit of armor or
painting) coming to life. In some
works, the events are ultimately given
a natural explanation, while in others
the events are truly supernatural.
This is generally in the form of some
kind of supernatural being or object,
such as a vampire or ghost, which is
frightening due to its refusal to
adhere to the laws of nature, God, or
man.
NARRATIVE STRUCTURE
❖ What are the many
different points of
view through which
the novella is
narrated?
❖ What is the effect of
these narrative
choices?
MOTIFS
❖ Omens, portents, visions, dreams: A character may
have a disturbing dream, vision, or some phenomenon
may be seen as a portent of coming events. For example,
if the statue of the lord of the manor falls over, it may
portend his death. In modern fiction, a character might
see something (a shadowy figure stabbing another
shadowy figure) and think that it was a dream. This might
be thought of as an "imitation vision."
MOTIFS
❖ The Sublime: The idea of the
sublime is essential to an
understanding of Gothic poetics and,
especially, the attempt to defend or
justify the literature of terror. The
Sublime is an overpowering sense of
the spiritual greatness and power of
nature, which can be uplifting, aweinspiring, and terrifying. It is caused
by the experience of beauty, vastness,
or grandeur. Sublime moments lead
us to consider the place of humanity
in the universe and the power
exhibited in the tangible world.
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MOTIFS
❖ Marriage as Resolution: The
importance of marriage in this schema
cannot be overstated. Not only does
movement toward matrimony in the
Gothic text’s present trigger the
appearance of the buried past, but that
buried past itself always contains
information tied to the institutions of
matrimony or family interest.
❖ Doubles/Duplicity/Foils: Characters,
events, motifs, or other ideas often occur
in pairs that serve as foils. By closely
matching two elements, the audience is
clearly able to discern a conflict or major
theme.
JEKYLL AND HYDE: CHAPTER 8 AND 9
QUESTIONS
1. What was your reaction when Poole
explained that he had heard Hyde
“weeping like a woman or a lost
soul”? Did learning this change your
feelings about Mr. Hyde? Why or why
not?
2. What details have been omitted in Dr.
Lanyon’s narrative? Why might
Stevenson left out these details?
3. Do you think any of the characters in
this novella have names that are
symbolic? Explain.
JEKYLL AND HYDE: CHAPTER 8
AND 9
❖ What motifs do you see in Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?
❖ What do these motifs help
further or develop within the
novella? Consider jotting
down notes/ideas/thoughts
about motifs on the back page
of your “Gothic Novels Guided
Notes.”
❖ You have 40 minutes to
quietly read these chapters on
your own.
VISUALIZATION ACTIVITY
Assignment: (due at the
beginning of next class)
1. Draw an image of how you imagine
Mr. Hyde to look.
2. Find a way to creatively depict
what you think Mr. Hyde
symbolizes in this story. Use
further images, colors, lines, or
words within your picture to
accomplish this task.
3. On the back, list three quotations
from the novella that best explain
the choices you made on your
drawing.
MAJOR THEMATIC
TOPICS
DAY FIVE AGENDA
Gothic Genre Focus: Major Ideas and Themes
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Chapter 10
❖ Darkness as intrinsic to humanity: Generally speaking, Gothic
literature delves into the macabre (taboo) nature of humanity in its
quest to satiate mankind's intrinsic desire to plumb the depths of
terror.
❖ The power of the natural world
❖ Turning to nature (in the nature vs. science debaute) as being able to
provide answers to life’s questions and problems
❖ The limits of reason and science (often shown through the
supernatural)
❖ Repressed fears and/or desires
❖ Reason vs. emotion
❖ Appearance vs. reality
❖ Social class (as oppressive, as hindering one’s potential, as obstacles
to relationships, as opposed to one’s individuality)
❖ The often negative effects of society on the individual
❖ Foreignness and the “other” / alienation
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THE GOTHIC IS TRYING TO
ACHIEVE/PORTRAY...
❖ A set of analysable displacements about what it means to be a human
being and gendered
❖ A journey into the “darker” side of life; a world of pain and destruction,
fear, and anxiety that shadows the daylight world of love and ethereality
❖ A case history of one of many types of insanity
❖ An exploration of (and perhaps therefore a delineation of) the limits of
mortality/immortality, morality/immorality, reason/emotion,
order/disorder, mind/body, masculine/feminine
❖ Revisiting the “landscapes of childhood”: narcissism, incest, violence,
vampirism, androgyny, sexual anarchy, the oedipal triangulation, the
family romance
❖ Projective identification (I am the Other) and spitting are the two
dominant psychological defences
❖ A view of interruptions in the maturation process; they are tales of
recuperation or reparation; resistance to loss
CHAPTER 10: ACTIVE READING
WORKSHEET
❖ Complete the Active Reading
worksheet to help make sure
you understand the incidents
in the novel and their
explanations.
❖ When you complete the
worksheet, look for evidence
of foreshadowing earlier in
the novella. Write evidence
of foreshadowing next to the
event on the worksheet.
❖ An assertion of the values of silence, rectitude, balance (mind of a man
and heart of a woman), restrained emotions, strength of character
POPULAR LITERARY CRITICISMS OF
JEKYLL AND HYDE
❖ Marx: Hyde represents increasing political power of working class
❖ Darwin: Hyde represents evil, strong-willed man who would
survive when Jekyll fell because Hyde is free of civilizing
influences that repress our natural instincts
❖ Freud: Hyde represents the subconscious desire to be freed from
society’s restrictions
❖ Historical: Main characters represent the hypocrisy of Victorian
society: Utterson as norms of order and rationality, Hyde of the
darkness intrinsic within humanity, and Jekyll as the
impossibility to balance both successfully
Which interpretation do you find to be more valid? In
groups, make a decision and be ready to defend your stance
to the class.
THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. T AND
MR. H.
❖ Parody: A literary work in which the style of
another author or work is closely imitated
for comic effect or in ridicule.
➢ Parodies require the audience to know or
understand certain things. Considering
this parody was published less than a
month after Stevenson’s novella was
published, what things are required of the
audience here to make the parody
effective?
➢ What elements of the Gothic genre are
being ridiculed? What elements of this
particular novella are being mocked?
➢ Do you feel this was a successful parody?
Why or why not?
JEKYLL AND HYDE: CHAPTER 10
❖ Break into groups and
find quotations relevant
to themes in the final
chapter.
❖ Literature Circles: Begin a
discussion of theme in
your novels.
MODERN TAKES ON DR. JEKYLL
AND MR. HYDE
❖ What other pieces of literature illustrate themes about
good/evil in humanity through the motif of duplicity or the
character foils present in the piece?
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