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Gothic Literature Essay

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Gothic Literature Essay
Gothic Literature Comparative Essay

In the movie ‘Coraline ‘ and the texts ‘The Red Room’, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper”’ and ‘Northanger Abbey’, there are many aspects of gothic literature present, gothic literature is used to create mystery and a sense of something odd to come. Coraline is a movie about a young girl who discovers a parallel universe in the new house she moved into, The Red Room is about a supposedly haunted room, Northanger Abbey is about a girl who is spending some time in an old Abbey, she begins to imagine everything is much more interesting and out of the ordinary than what it actually is, lastly The Yellow Wallpaper is the story of a woman locked in the upstairs room of her summerhouse. Many stories in the Victorian era showed several signs of having used gothic literature.

Setting is used to show gothic literature immensely, usually with stormy weather, fog or a dark setting, old objects and haunted houses will usually be present in a gothic story, In The Red Room the house that it is set in, is described as being run down and aged, much like any typical haunted house “I left the door wide open until the candle was well alight, and then I
shut them in and walked down the chilly, echoing passage.” Using the sound of echoes and a cold feeling in the setting is a very common technique found in gothic literature, In Coraline also the apartment that Coraline lives in is not well maintained and is slightly worn away with age. A classic part of the film that shows the house is of gothic nature is when Coraline goes around counting all the doors and windows in the home as well as writing everything down that is blue, during this scene you see the bathroom Is infested with bugs and all the doors are old and creaky.
Secondly there is Usually a strange obsession shown throughout the text or film, in Coraline the Other mother is shown to be nice and loving, but you later find out her strange obsession with sewing Buttons into eyes, her obsession

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