Exploring Gothic Literature

The Pit and the Pendulum

Edgar Allen Poe

Get your paper read to create a Note Cloud:

• Write the words Gothic Literature in large letters.
• Add these words using smaller letters:
• Characters
• Setting
• Plot
• Supernaturals
• Famous works
• The dark side of Romanticism
 Write “Elements of Gothic Literature” on
your paper.
Take notes
as you
watch the
videos.
Write a
summary
explaining all
of the
Let’s Take a Look at the Assignments!
Your Taskis to Create a Gothic Tale
Directions:

1. Create a 6-panel storyboard for your Gothic Tale with the following elements and clear visuals
of important events. Your story will be more specific, so just include the most important events
on your story board (see example in presentation). You may include speech bubbles and or
explanation bubbles to support your drawings. (25 point Formative)

Exposition Conflict Rising Action

Climax Falling Action Resolution

2. Type your Gothic Tale (100 point Summative):

 1 inch margins, Double spaced, Times New Roman 12 font

 350-500 words

 Heading in the top left corner

• Your full name

• Instructor’s name

• Course name

• Date (for example, 06 January 2016)

3. Included elements of Gothic Literature (refer to your Note Cloud for details).

4. When you write your story include characters, setting, and situations that exudes a dark moody,
dreary, gloomy, decaying, mysterious atmosphere.

5. Use vocabulary that the reader can visualize and “feel” the emotion and suspense.

6. Use the literary device called synesthesia:

• When one kind of sensory stimulus evokes the subjective experience of another.

• We tasted the salty grin on the trickster's face.

• The sight of red ants makes you itchy.

• Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song title, “Taste the Pain”

Gothic Fiction:
• Horror and Romance
• Sinister Settings
• Extreme landscapes, decaying castles, hazy forests
• Elements of supernatural
• Stimulation of fear, horror, macabre (grisly, gruesome, morbid)
• Villains, tyrants, maniacs
• Madwoman, femme fatales, persecuted maidens
• Byronic heroes
Metonymy
• It is a figure of speech that replaces the name of a thing with the
name of something else with which it is closely associated.
• The pen is mightier than the sword. (Pen refers to written words and sword to
military force.)
• The Oval Office was busy in work. (“The Oval Office” is a metonymy as it
stands for people at work in the office.)
• Let me give you a hand. (Hand means help.)
Synesthesia
• When one kind of sensory stimulus evokes the subjective
experience of another.
• We tasted the salty grin on the trickster's face.
• The sight of red ants makes you itchy.
• Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song title, “Taste the Pain”
Your Task is to Create a Gothic Tale

Exposition
 Exposition
• The exposition is the part of the story that
sets the stage for the drama to follow.
• It introduces the theme, setting,
characters, and circumstances at the
beginning of the story.
• Consider these for a Gothic Tale:
• a setting in a castle, ancestral family home,
vault or crypt
• supernatural beings - monsters, vampires,
ghosts, werewolves, and such
• a person, particularly a damsel (or 2, or 3!) in
distress
• an atmosphere of suspense and/or terror
• women threatened by tyrannical
male/patriarchal figures
• an exotic locale, often in a country other than
that of the story's origin.
Conflict
• The conflict is the struggle
between the characters in the
story.
• In a Gothic Tale consider these:
• a vendetta or vengeance
perpetrated against the
protagonist and/or his/her family
by the antagonist
• an unrequited love, or illicit love
affair or romance
• an ancient prophecy foretelling
the doom of the protagonist
and/or his/her family
• Insanity explored
Rising Action
• The rising action is a series
of events building toward
the point of greatest
interest.
• These events begin
immediately after the
exposition of the story and
builds up to the climax.
• For your Gothic Tale,
consider plot twists that the
reader did not see coming.
Climax
• The climax is the apex of
the story, where the
‘battle’ will take place.
All of the drama and
conflict has led to this
point where it is
determined if the
leading character will
succeed or fail.
Falling Action
• The falling action occurs
right after the climax.
• It is what happens after the
main problem of the story
has been solved.
• Consider this, what are the
direct effects of the
climax?
• The falling action gives the
reader satisfaction of the
whole story; knowing what
happened next.
Resolution
• The resolution ties up
any loose ends that may
be left in the story.
• Sometimes the rising
action and the resolution
mix together in a plot.