Macbeth and Young Girl

To what extent do you agree that, in gothic writing, fear and pain are sources of pleasure?
Fear and pain are sources of pleasure that Shelley in ‘Frankenstein’ employs, especially within the character of Victor. The painful description of the monstrous birth is one example of this- having the element of disturbance to shock the reader, yet to Victor (the creator) his response is pleasure and he seems to enjoy the terrifying sounds made of the birth; ‘’I might infuse a spark… into the lifeless thing’’, Here Shelley emphasises the gothic by playing with the dead and ‘infusing’ life- making the dead a scientific experiment for Victor to ‘play’ with.
Shelley also reinforces the idea of fear and pain being a pleasure to Victor by the way he describes his emotions towards the experiment- ‘’I became nervous to a painful degree’’ making the reader feel a degree of anticipation by the creator speaking like this is intensifies the situation- even though he seems eager to fulfil ‘spark’s into the ‘’lifeless thing’’.
In relation to ‘Macbeth’- Shakespeare ties in inflicting pain with one of the major themes within the play- the supernatural. The characters of the three witches are used to present inflicting fear over the reader which enhances the theme of the supernatural due to their nature. This is highlighted by the link between the witches and pathetic fallacy ‘’When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning or rain?’’- Similar to the ‘dreary night’ in Frankenstein where the ‘monstrous birth’ consists, pathetic fallacy is used to inflict a scare over the reader and foreshadows fear and pain- again, similar to Victor in ‘Frankenstein’, the witches seem to be comfortable around this type of weather which gives the effect of them holding an inhumanly pleasure concerned with pathetic fallacy- a tendency of the gothic used to highlight fear and danger. Lady Macbeth, also, is pleasured by the pain and fear she is making Macbeth impose on others (Banquo, King Duncan and