"Psychoanalytically, the experiences of terror and horror are comparable to the phenomenon of the uncanny as theorized by Sigmund Freud. Uncanny effects arise when familiar circumstances unexpectedly acquire unfamiliar connotations without our being able to ascertain how or why this has happened. They may be generated by "doubts whether an apparently animate being is really alive; or conversely, whether a lifeless object might not be in fact animate" (Freud 1919:226) or by a failure to differentiate between "image and reality"(244). Produced through the collusion of familiarity and strangeness, they evoke correspondingly ambivalent emotions: excitement, jouissance and exhilaration on the one hand, and revulsion, dread and disgust on the other."(Cavallaro 2002)
"The interaction of terror and horror is most explicitly conveyed by stories that articulate the experience of fear as an ongoing condition. Such naratives intimate that fear is not triggered by a single disturbing moment or occurance but is actually a permanent, albeit multi-faceted, aspect of being-in-the-world." (Cavallaro 2002)
"According to Clive Barker, narratives of darkness can help us understand the power and legitimacy of our wildest drives by "valuing our appetite for the forbidden rather than suppresing it, comprehending that our taste for the strange, or the morbid, or the paradoxical, is contrary to what we're brought up to believe, a sign of our good health" (1986; quoted in Bloom 1998:100). Darkness may scare us into hiding under the bedclothes but it is also, more importantly, capable of reminding us that what we most often cower beneath is the burden of self-imposed limitations resulting from the internalization of cultural norms that only hypocritically claim to protect the self."(Calvallaro 2002)
"In relation to narratives of darkness, Gothicity primarily refers to tales of obsession and haunting which employ images of disorder, alienation and monstrosity for the purposes of both entertainment and ideological reflection. The fascination with the violation of cultural boundaries combines with anxieties bred by the possibly dire repercussions of transgression. In schematic form, Gothicity can pe mapped as follows:
Geographical connotations
- Northern barbarity versus English civilisation
- Mediterranean depravity versus Anglican rectitude
Ideological connotations
- archaic disorder versus modern discipline
- medieval darkness versus enlightenment
- anti-classical leanings versus (neo)classical ethos
- crudeness versus elegance
- savage paganism versus refined morality
- aristocracy/feudalism versus bourgeoisie/capitalism
- landed classes versus cosmopolitan gentry
Psychological connotations
- terror
- horror
- the sublime
- the uncanny
- spectrality
- secretiveness
- obsession
- paranoia
- psychosis
- melancholia
- persecution
- claustrophobia
Physical connotations
- bestiality
- monstrosity
- the hybrid
- the grotesque
- revulsion
- pollution
- disease
Stylistic connotation
- exaggeration
- ornamental excess
- surrealist effects
- dream language
- tenebrous comedy"(Calvalarro 2002)
"Gothic texts are not good in moral, aesthetic or social terms. Their concern is with vice: protagonists are selfish or evil; adventures involve decadence or crime. Their effects, aestethically and socially, are also replete with a range of negative features: not beautiful, they display no harmony or proportion. Ill-formed, obscure, ugly, gloomy and utterly antipathetic to effects of love, admiration or gentle delight, gothic texts register revulsion, abhorrence, fear, disgust and terror. Invoking ideas and objects of displeasure, gothic texts were invariably considered to be of little artistic merit, crude, formulaic productions for vulgar, uncultivated tastes. They were also considered anti-social in content and function, failing to encourage the acquisition of virtuous attitudes and corrupting reasers' powers of discrimination with idle fantasies, seducing them from paths of filial obedience, respect, prudence, modesty and social duty. Definitively negative, gothic fictions appear distinctly anti-modern in their use of the customs, costumes and codes of chivalry associated with feudal power: the gallantry and romanticism of knights, ladies and marital honour also evoked an era of barbarism, ignorance, tyranny and superstition."(Botting 2013)
References:
- Cavallaro, D. (2002) The gothic vision: Three centuries of horror, terror and fear. London: Continuum International Publishing Group;
- Botting, F. (2013) Gothic. 2nd edn. London: Routledge.
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