People’s de

1.4 The Gothic American Literature
In its broad sense, Gothic literature can be related to all what is dark, scary, gloomy and mysteries; The word “Gothic” derived from “the Goths” who were “Germanic tribe” that ”settled in much of Europe from the third to the fifth
centuries AD”. It developed in the mid and late eighteenth century in Britain as a reaction to the ideology of enlightenment that “extolled the virtues of rationality” and human reason (Smith 02).


The Gothic novel first originated in England by the publication of the first literary work called “A Gothic Story”, Horace Walpole applied the word “Gothic” as subtitle for his novel The Castle of Otranto (1764). (Hogle 01); It is generally regarded as the first gothic novel and it tells a supernatural tale about Manfred, the prince of Otranto, who develops a secret admiration for the beautiful princess
Isabella. The story opens with the tragedy of Manfred’s son Conrad who has been crushed to death by the huge helmet from a statue of a previous prince of Otranto on the morning of his wedding with Isabella. Throughout the story, the reader experiences the supernatural accidents in the castle in which Walpole provides an old mysterious buildings for the protagonists.


During the eighteenth century, America witnessed a new wave or a movement in literature known as the Gothic, or anti-transcendentalist movement,
concentrate on “subjectivity”, “the inner life” and “imagination”, due to the


historical and social conditions at that time, gothic writers saw the tragic life the


American society was living instead they created a new literary genre in which they express their beliefs, suffering and the darkness inside them (Lloyd Smith 26).


The gothic is a genre of literature that creates feelings of mystery, fear, gloom and suspense. It generally deals with a variety of themes related to fiction and supernatural world and creatures “claustrophobia, atmospheric gloom, the imminence of violence were generated in early American literature” (Savoy 196).


In most cases, this genre is filled with death, mystery and terror. It shows the dark side of humans and nature, generally a gothic story or novel will turn around an old creepy castle, with supernatural beings and women suffering or in distress. Such characteristics can be easily found in American gothic literature, such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein and especially it can be seen in stories written by Edgar Allan Poe due to the fact that he grew up in a very bad life conditions which provides him with the right atmosphere that helps him write a very successful gothic stories like “The Haunted Talace”, “The Tell- Tale House”
and his poem “The Raven”.
Gothicism can be found in both Novels and short Stories as follows: