Elements of a Gothic Tale

[NathanRMaher]

I have been doing some research into Gothic Fiction and have come across a wonderful book entitled, "The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction" edited by Jerrold E. Hogle. According to this source, here is a liste of elements that are frequently observed in Gothic Literature:

1) "...a Gothic tale usually takes place (at least some of the time) in an antiquated or seemingly antiquated space - be it a castle, foreign palace, an abbey, a vast prison, a subterranean crypt, a graveyard, a primeval frontier or island, a large old house or theatre, an aging city or urban underworld, a decaying storehouse, factory, laboratory, public building..." ect. (pg 2)

2) "Within this space, or a combination of such spaces, are hidden some secrets from the past (sometimes the recent past) that haunt the characters, psychologically, physically, or otherwise at the main time of the story. These hauntings can take many forms, but they frequently assume the features of ghosts, specters, or monsters (mixing features from different realms of being, often life and death) that rise from within the antiquated space, or sometimes invade it from alien realms, to manifest unresolved crimes or conflicts that can no longer be successfully buried from view." (pg 2)

3) "Gothic fictions generally play with and oscillate between the earthly laws of conventional reality and the possibilities of the supernatural least somewhat as Walpole urged such stores to do -- often siding with one of these over the other in the end, but usually raising the possibility that the boundaries between these may have been crossed, at least psychologically but also physically or both. This oscillation can range across a continuum between what have come to be called the "terror Gothic" on the one hand and the "horror Gothic" on the other. The first of these holds characters and readers mostly in anxious suspense about threats to life, safety, and sanity kept largely out of sight or in shadows or suggestions from a hidden past, while the latter confronts the principal characters with the gross violence of physical or psychological dissolution, explicitly shattering the assumed norms (including the repressions) of everyday life with wildly shocking, and even revolting, consequences." (pg 3)

4) "The readership or audience of all such Gothics began as and remains mostly middle-class and Anglo, though more kinds of audiences (postcolonial, African-American, American Indian, and Latin American, for example) have been drawn in over the years. Given that fact, Gothic fictions since Walpole have most often been about aspiring but middling, or sometimes upper middle-class, white people caught between the attractions or terrors of a past once controlled by overweening aristocrats or priests (or figures with such aspirations) and forces of change that would reject such a past yet still remain held by aspects of it (including desires for aristocratic or superhuman powers)." (pg 3)

5) "...the Gothic is thus continuously about confrontations between the low and the high, even as the ideologies and ingredients of these changes. It is about its own blurring of different levels of discourse while it is also concerned with the interpenetration of other opposed conditions - including life/death, natural/supernatural, ancient/modern, realistic/artificial, and unconscious/conscious - along with the abjection of these crossings into haunting and supposedly deviant "others" that therefore attract and terrify middle-class characters and readers." (pg 9)

I highly suggest this book for those of you who want to get a deeper academic study of Gothic Literature. In my personal opinion it really helps with formulating ideas for campaigns. But I thought I'd save you all the trouble and give you something to think about when it comes to defining your adventures.

[vipera aspis]

this looks fantastic. how i wish i would have seen it sooner. you could run many adventures on what you wrote down alone.

[Archedius]

yeah I've read that- best way to understand RL is to learn gothicism

[Wiccy of the Fraternity]

I have to agree wth it all 100%, the guy knows his stuff, but if you rread alot of gothic fiction it becomes quite obvious afer a while, lol.

[vipera aspis]

i think the best way to run ravenloft is to have your players understand gothicism.

[BigBadQDaddy]

i think the best way to run ravenloft is to have your players understand gothicism.

Here Here! Darn pesky players, always medlin with me lucky plot devices