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American gothic literature became popular in the 19th century when writers started to captivate reader's attention with stories of secret and disaster. This literary plan was most efficient due to it being able to compare genuine society in a more unusual sense. In all terrific Gothic stories, the author is proving a point on what society requires to recognize. In Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown" (553 ), Hawthorne shows the journey of a young guy who is slowly being damaged and robbed of his innocence.
In this story, Hawthorne also uses symbolism to supply mystery and tip at the significance of the story of society's corruptness.
Although, American gothic literature was one of the first types of popular American literature, the literature was influenced by earlier gothic authors. Who started to invent gothic literature, which was developed around 1800 in Europe. These earlier authors, such as Shelly who composed Frankenstein and other stories of disaster and scary, affected the American gothic authors, such as Poe and Hawthorne, to compose their own renditions of gothic literature, therefore birthing American gothic literature.
There are several schemes which go into making a great of gothic literature.
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First of all the perspective, viewpoint is such an essential part to the story because the perspective assists provide mystery and foreshadowing which are both essential to gothic literature. Gothic literature likewise interprets mayhem in society primarily by exaggerating stories. In addition Gothic literature typically goes from great to bad offering the reader no dynamic character, and ultimately producing a tragedy, which develops the whirlpool where the lead character is gradually drawn into by the villain.
All these schemes are very important to gothic literature and are integrated with meaning and foreshadowing, producing secret and enabling the reader to consider the true meaning of the story.
For instance in Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", (149) the story is on an extreme down fall from the start, when the protagonist Roderick Usher, calls his pal to come over while he is ill. Roderick currently starting off the story as a little mentally ill gradually starts to become more crazy.
Roderick is affected by his gloomy, near destroyed house and his marriage with his own sister, which creates love and tragedy. The true climax happens towards the end when Roderick buries his sister alive purposely to avoid his marriage. His actions then resulted in the death of himself, and the fall of the house, which Poe uses to show the fall of the Usher family, thus providing the reader with a whirlpool effect, no character growth, and ultimately chaos.
This form of gothic literature was not only popular in the 19th century though. American gothic literature began to grow and is still loved by many readers today. These early writers inspired new writers such as Stephen King and many others to create their own works of gothic. In fact, many horror films provide the same schemes that these earlier writers provided. Providing the reader or viewer the same mystery and chaos Poe provided earlier on.
In conclusion American gothic literature is a prolific form which captivates many people’s attention with its view on society. With the usage of different forms of symbolism and other literary schemes enhancing the readers experience. This form of literature has been so effective, that American gothic literature still exists today, and still has the same effect it used to. Now even more so in films the type of literature truly has a way of captivating the reader’s attention by providing such a suspenseful experience.
American Gothic Literature. (2017, Jan 19). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/american-gothic-literature-essay
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