The sky has darkened to a cool gray. The wind picks up the leaves and twirls them into a frenzy before they die down again. The candles are lit as the sun sets on a longer, colder night. It’s time to read “Dracula” again.
As someone who often enjoys a chilling story but can’t stomach much gore, the Gothic is my go-to Halloween genre, in film and in books (and in buildings, but that’s an article for another day). Where else do we get our classic monster stories and the foundations of modern horror?
The works of Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Daphne Du Maurier, Henry James and Edgar Allan Poe color the season for me in shades of reds and greys without covering my vision in a haze of Tarantino-esque blood splatters. While their works are blood-soaked and frightening, the psychological experiences of their characters lend themselves to a deep experience of a sublime fear that transcends the roar of a chainsaw or the shriek of a violin.
The haunting horror of the Gothic arrives when characters are left to face unknown opponents, supernatural threats and crumbling architecture that force them not only to fight for survival but for sanity.
Poe’s short stories in particular takes deep dives into his characters’ psyches. He uses unreliable narrators and gloomy settings to craft sinkholes of horror that draw you into the depths of his own tortured mind, drowning you alongside the “House of Usher” as it collapses into the marsh until you eventually resurface.
“The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James takes a similar tactic, weaving the haunting tale of a governess whose two charges are plagued by malicious ghosts to the point that it is left in doubt whether the ghosts are real, or fantasies dragged up from the governess’ imagination. Theatreworks will be presenting this story in play form next semester.
“Dracula” and “Frankenstein” weave complex, psychological narratives of monstrosity, and how creatures once human reflect our vices and sometimes our virtues. While “Dracula” uses the fangs of vampires to tear a window into how the Victorians viewed lust and purity, “Frankenstein” stitches together limbs of self-hatred, mad genius, longing for acceptance and hubris into a towering masterpiece that instills both fear and deep appreciation.
On a slightly less spooky but no less gothic level, “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights” explore the depth of love in madness and strife across the windswept English landscape. “Rebecca” by Du Maurier awakens the ghost of memory rather than form, filling the novel with the presence and power of a woman long dead.
I have also discovered modern authors that evoke the Gothic in different settings, using their own cultural history to take ownership of the genre. “Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia and “The Vampires of El Norte” by Isabel Cañas are two excellent examples by Latina authors that meet my standard of slow-burning Romantic horror.
I long for this season yearly, so I can submerge myself in the winding corridors, twisting towers and misty marshes of the Gothic, finding the ghostly narratives that embrace me in ways no slasher ever will.
“Dracula” in the Kraemer Family Library. Photo by Lillian Davis.