CONVENTIONS OF GOTHIC LITERATURE

Something Wicked This Way Comes

By: Ray Bradbury

Gothic Literature Tends to have the following characteristics:

• References to ancient prophecies, legends, or folklore, especially mysterious, obscure, or hard to understand ones.

• Plot is driven by mystery and/or suspense• Extremes of emotion and sentimentalism, but also

pronounced anger, surprise, and especially terror.• Supernatural events (e.g. giants, monsters,

vampires, sighing portraits, ghosts or their apparent presence, skeletons, etc.)

• Omens, portents of doom, dreams, visions

GOTHIC CONVENTIONS CONTINUED…

• Fainting, frightened, or screaming women• Women threatened by powerful, impetuous male

figure• Setting usually is in a grand castle, especially with

secret doorways and passages• The metonymy of gloom and horror (e.g. wind,

rain, doors creaking on rusty hinges, howls or screams in the distance, footsteps approaching, lights in abandoned rooms, candles being blown out, characters feeling trapped or imprisoned)

• Gothic vocabulary (words indicating fear, mystery, etc…: apparition, shadow, devil, ghost, haunted, evil, terror, fright, etc…)

Assignment:

Using these notes, look for evidence of the Gothic influence in Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Find at least four (4) concrete details—objects, passages, images, descriptive details—from the story and explain how each reveals an aspect of the Gothic influence.

Example:

Quote:“If it’s around Oct. twentieth and everything smoky-smelling and the sky orange and ash gray at twilight, it seems Halloween will never come in a fall of broomsticks and a soft flap of bedsheets around corners.” (Prologue)

Explanation: Uses Gothic vocabulary with words like “smoky-smelling,” “ash gray at twilight,”and “Halloween,” to create an overall feeling of foreboding and darkness approaching with the season of fall.