Abstract
The paper asserts that gothic refers to the encounter with the mysterious and the unknown. The paper explains that the unknown in gothic fiction refers to something that is beyond the normal and rational. The paper illustrates how "The Fall of the House of Usher" presents the conventional themes and motifs of the gothic romance genre. There is the haunted house, the depressing location, the horrors, madness and disease and development of a monstrous bizarre union in destruction and decay. However, the paper concludes that at the heart of the gothic genre, lay the movement towards an expression of the unknown and the mysterious, which lies beyond our comprehension.

Outline:
Introduction and Thesis Statement
The House of Usher and the Unknown
Conclusion

From the Paper
"The works of Edgar Allan Poe were not the first literature to be described as gothic. Poe has as his antecedents many other works that contain the gothic style and content. His work is often described as "A descent from such British milestones in literary Gothicism as Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), William Beckford's Vathek (1786), W. H. Ireland's The Abbess (1798), or Sir Walter Scott's The Bride of Lammermoor (1819) is evident in Poe's writings." (Fisher 72)"
"The gothic in art and literature is defined and described in numerous ways and with a great degree of controversy and disagreement. There are many critics who suggest that there can be no one definitive view of this genre."

Tags:romanticism, genre, mysterious, monstrous, haunted

Abstract
This paper explains that the Ghost's Walk, which is a symbol for Lady Dedlock's secret past, is one of the most haunting images in Charles Dickens' "Bleak House". Specifically, the paper relates the ways that Dickens uses this literary device to create an overall tension, to foreshadow connections between characters and to symbolize Lady Dedlock's guilty conscience. The Ghost's Walk is particularly significant to the book as a whole, the paper relates, because it brings the novel to its main climax.

From the Paper
"Esther's fascination with the Ghost's Walk is fitting, since she is personally a key to the fulfillment of its prophecy. How appropriate, even ironic, that just as Esther is wondering about the family curse, Lady Dedlock arrives to make her aware of her own part in it. This connection becomes blatant and fever-pitched when Esther later decides to explore the Ghost's Walk. "I was passing quickly on...when my echoing footsteps brought it suddenly into my mind that there was a dreadful truth in the legend of the Ghost's Walk; that it was I, who was to bring calamity upon the stately house.""

Tags:transition, guilty conscience, foreshadow, personified curse, climax

From the Paper
"Although they were written nearly thirty years apart, and deal with completely different periods in American history and American culture, Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House and Toni Morrison's Beloved share a distinctly feminine perspective on the nature of ghosts in the domestic sphere. In both novels, while female protagonists are haunted by female ghosts, the root of the disturbance is definitely a masculine, patriarchal one. This patriarchal evil, expressed through feminine supernatural phenomena, places constraints of domesticity and servitude not just on the victims of the ghosts, but on the ghosts as well. Furthermore, the constraints go beyond mere domesticity, but destroy the identity and the sanity of the antagonized woman in the process."

Tags:morrison, toni

Abstract
The paper examines how Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" illustrates the gothic traditions of doubling, haunted houses and mysterious, brooding landscapes. The paper also looks at the views of critics who argue that Poe created this quintessential Gothic nightmare to put on the reader and parody the Gothic horror structure so popular at the time.

From the Paper
"Poe opens this foreboding tale with the gloomy landscape. He writes, "During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher" (Poe). Thus, from the very opening of this tale, Poe sets the stage for Gothic horror and misfortune. Nothing good could come from this gloomy landscape, and ultimately, nothing good comes from the story. In classic Gothic fashion, it leaves the reader with a sense of dismay and melancholy as the house slowly implodes on itself, removing any trace of the Ushers and their pathetic lives. Poe is a master of this form of horror, and some critics feel "Usher" is one of his best short stories. Its structure and form could be used as an example of the perfect Gothic horror tale, with its many doubles, stories within stories, and eerie characters."

Tags:horror, gloom, macabre, humor

Abstract
The paper examines the personality of Eleanor Vance, the main character in Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House," from a psychological viewpoint. It proposes that the reason Eleanor is drawn to Hill House and the spirits within is because she has a co-dependent personality.

From the Paper
The paper examines the personality of Eleanor Vance, the main character in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, from a psychological viewpoint. It proposes that the reason Eleanor is drawn to Hill House and the spirits within is because she has a co-dependent personality.

Tags:analysis, ghost, gothic, haunting, hill, house, jackson, literary, personality, relationships, shirley, spirit

Abstract
William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily is a creepy, patient telling of how one small town manages to maintain appearances of tranquil normalcy while a local woman goes mad and becomes a danger to those around her. Her madness is frightening to the town in a way that is humorous to the reader. An upright hypocrisy seems to pervade the story.Told after Emily Grierson's funeral, the deranged deceased woman's house is a classic old haunted house "that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies" (340).

From the Paper
William Faulkner's A Rose for Emily is a creepy, patient telling of how one small town manages to maintain appearances of tranquil normalcy while a local woman goes mad and becomes a danger to those around her. Her madness is frightening to the town in a way that is humorous to the reader. An upright hypocrisy seems to pervade the story. Told after Emily Grierson's funeral, the deranged deceased woman's house is a classic old haunted house "that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires and scrolled balconies" (340). In the first segment, how she frightens away the tax collectors is more evidence that the town is scared of her because she is so flat-out frightening. Her body has

Tags:faulkner, rose, emily

Abstract
Gothic is defined in literature as a genre that has both horror and romance in its plot. Gothic literature-or should I say good gothic literature-has terror and romance. The terror is psychological and physical-there are ghosts, houses that are haunted and all the supernatural things a creative mind can conjure up. However, gothic is romance too. There are secrets, madness and perversity in this genre's love. In gothic fiction, characters represent the self that we struggle to keep hidden from the other people in our lives. This is what makes gothic literature fantasy.

From the Paper
Expectations in Gothic Literature What is Gothic Literature: Gothic is defined in literature as a genre that has both horror and romance in its plot. Gothic literature--or should I say good gothic literature--has terror and romance. The terror is psychological and physical--there are ghosts, houses that are haunted and all the supernatural things a creative mind can conjure up. However, gothic is romance too. There are secrets, madness and perversity in this genre's love. In gothic fiction, characters represent the self that we struggle to keep hidden from the other people in our lives. This is what makes gothic

Tags:gothic, fulfillment, literature

Abstract
An analysis and critique of John White Alexander's oil on canvas version of "Isabella and the Pot of Basil" from 1897. This paper goes through the nuances and details of the famous painting, as well as the haunting story behind its mysterious subject.

From the Paper
"Some of the world's best-loved paintings are based on ancient legends and stories. The visual combined with the verbal usually ends up producing a truly magnificent work of art, made all the more meaningful by having a story behind it, backing it up and expanding upon every detail. John White Alexander's oil on canvas version of Isabella and the Pot of Basil from 1897 is definitely one of these pieces. Based on Keats' 1820 poem of the same title, Alexander masterfully combines the tragic essence of the legend with the macabre actuality of what Isabella was doing."

Tags:alexander, analysis, boston, criticism, john, keats, mfa, paintings, white

Abstract
This paper explains that it is customary to find the symbol of the house as representing a secure place for a woman's transformation and her release of self-expression; however, in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall Paper", the protagonist does not want to be in the house and declares it is "haunted". The author points out that the yellow wall-paper plays a double role because (1) it has the ability to trap her in with its intricate pattern, which leads her to no satisfying end; however, (2) it also sets her free. The paper relates that, when examining the larger body of Gilman's work, there is a shift away from the type of confused first-person narrator found in the very popular "The Yellow Wall-Paper" towards a confident all-knowing third-person narrator, not stories that explore the complex psychological development of a character but rather stories that feature stock characters who can be seen as a representative of a type or a class.

From the Paper
"Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper," does more than just tell the story of a woman who suffers at the hands of 19th century quack medicine. Gilman created a protagonist with real emotions and a real psyche that can be examined and analyzed in the context of modern psychology. In fact, to understand the psychology of the unnamed protagonist is to be well on the way to understanding the story itself. "The Yellow Wall-Paper," written in first-person narrative, charts the psychological state of the protagonist as she slowly deteriorates into schizophrenia (a disintegration of the personality)."

Tags:house, narrator, psychological, class, stream-of-consciousness

Abstract
This paper discusses Colette's novel "La Vagabond" and Woolf's essay "Professions for Women" and in particular the angel-monster duality that haunted women during Colette and Woolf's time and continues to follow women of today where the woman is the angel of the house. It looks at how Virginia Woolf advocates the "killing of the Angel in the house" ie. the Victorian [mis]conception of women and how in comparison, Colette sadly fails in her attempt to do the Woolfian act of killing the Angel. In addition, the paper examines how Colette's "La Vagabond" also falls prey to the monster mentality.

From the Paper
"In 1900, centuries after literature entered the lives of humans and became an important part of it, men continued to dominate the scene. Even after the publication of "Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) and John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women (1869)" (From Wollstonecraft to Mills), not much change was seen nor felt. Women still continued to be subordinates of men, his inferior counterpart. The expansion of the feminist cause into a full blown movement during the 19th century initially presented how "women were treated unfairly under the law," but it wasn't until "the early years of the 20th century, especially in the final years of the First World War and the first years after the war" (History of Feminism), that women were granted some, not even all, rights enjoyed by men. "

Tags:feminism, renee