For them, the setting is tends to be a dimly lit castle or ruin, with a maze of confusing corridors, in contrast with a beautiful picturesque open landscape. This can been seen as mirroring the dark and unnerving tyrant, with the beautiful and pure marginalized women. This allows gothics to make home a place of fear, and foreign lands safe and welcoming, which is in conflict with our own biases. The stories also place the characters in the past, without romanticizing or honoring it. This aids in the feeling of strangeness, as we are only accustomed to seeing the past through rose tinted glasses, with all the filth wiped off. These elements together, give the impression that the victim is isolated, and without hope of being saved. The dreadful castle, imprisoning them, the vast landscapes making them feel alone, and make escape and arduous, or seemingly impossible task, and with no comfort of more modern living. All of these aspects put together, the feeling of the strange or unknown, the “tragic other” trying to escape the tyrant, and the backdrop of the confined and hopeless, lends itself to all but one simple emotion, fear. One wants the victims to succeed, the monster to fail, and everything to be alright, but the stories themselves give out the sense that at any moment, everything can come crashing down and be for naught, and with that almost endless
For them, the setting is tends to be a dimly lit castle or ruin, with a maze of confusing corridors, in contrast with a beautiful picturesque open landscape. This can been seen as mirroring the dark and unnerving tyrant, with the beautiful and pure marginalized women. This allows gothics to make home a place of fear, and foreign lands safe and welcoming, which is in conflict with our own biases. The stories also place the characters in the past, without romanticizing or honoring it. This aids in the feeling of strangeness, as we are only accustomed to seeing the past through rose tinted glasses, with all the filth wiped off. These elements together, give the impression that the victim is isolated, and without hope of being saved. The dreadful castle, imprisoning them, the vast landscapes making them feel alone, and make escape and arduous, or seemingly impossible task, and with no comfort of more modern living. All of these aspects put together, the feeling of the strange or unknown, the “tragic other” trying to escape the tyrant, and the backdrop of the confined and hopeless, lends itself to all but one simple emotion, fear. One wants the victims to succeed, the monster to fail, and everything to be alright, but the stories themselves give out the sense that at any moment, everything can come crashing down and be for naught, and with that almost endless