Lau Cheuk Wai

53086530
GE 2112 – Response Paper 1

In gothic writing, excess and transgression play an important role in its nature of

writing. Gothic signifies a writing of excess, such as excess emotion, excess

imagination and fascination with immorality. Gothic writings stem from the 18 th

century, an era which many wars and invasions took place. Due to the political
unrest,

authors were easily exposed to violence, therefore, many writings were explicit and

detailed in violence. Apart from the historical factor, the violence in gothic writing is

essential to create a feeling of awe. It is hard to create such feeling if the violence is

not explicit enough.

It has be criticized that Gothic has been appealing too much of the dark side of the

mind. However, people have neglected that it is a form of transgression. It is used to

express an individual’s internalized feeling of anxiety, guilt and despair and is a way

to produce excessive emotion by transgressing the bounds of reality. Writing

about the dark side of the mind gives a ground for imagination. By crossing limits, it

can reinforce their value. The expression of internalized emotion not only used as

identification and transformation of limits, it also reflects cultural anxieties which

other genres of writings are lack of. Also, appealing the dark side of mind can lead

the readers to have a sense of ambiguity. Particularly in the middle ages, this sense
of ambiguity can actually boost their critical thinking and judgment towards the

power of the church.

Another concern about Gothic writing is the problem of exposing too much

horror. For example, in Frankenstein, it involves a lot of killing and murder. However,

it is stated that people have the need of feeling fear. Such fear can be only created

when the scene is written vividly. So, horror is essential in gothic writing to evoke a

certain kind of emotion. Over time, gothic writing has changed and diversified, which

is also known as diffusion. Writings now have focused more on terror in order to

create suspense than horror. In this way, the trend of being to explicit in horror may

not be as disgust as it was before.

While many Gothic pieces are highly associated with violence, horror and the

dark side, there are a few exceptions.

In The Parricide’s Tale, it tells a story of a man’s life in the convent before he was

sentenced in the vault. It focuses on how he reacts and treats when he saw the

young monk and novice had an affair. In the whole story, there isn’t many horrific

scene and violence as it emphasized on telling the process of his discovery of the

secret and the plan he came up with. The focus wasn’t the torture scene between

the lovers but the disclosure of the novice’s relation with the man and the

contradiction and misery the man faced. In short, it’s about emotion.
 Gothic writing’s aims is to explore the meaning of life and explore excess and

taboo, the elements used signified towards an aesthetics based on these two.

Although violence, horror and the dark side of mind are usually shown in Gothic

writing, it is still important to include these elements as they are the essences that

distinguish Gothic writing from others.