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American Literature: Isn't it Gothic-Romantic? 1536 Views


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Check out this video to learn more about Gothic Romanticism

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Transcript

00:02

Isn't it gothic-romantic?

00:19

Alright... you know that goth kid in your class the one who wears all [Statue of liberty talking]

00:25

black clothing, loves Death Rock has piercings in unusual places and makes

00:28

you just a wee bit nervous that they worship the devil

00:31

yeah well God isn't quite the same as Gothic Romanticism but there are some [Person grabs book of romanticism]

00:35

similarities there's a fascination with the macabre ie

00:38

disturbing death related stuff there is a preoccupation with creating dark and

00:42

mysterious visuals and there's a mutual affection for ghosts ghouls and vampires

00:46

ie every agent in Hollywood because of [Ghost ghoul and vampire eating at a restaurant]

00:48

what's not to love about a vampire such an easy convenient way to donate blood..

00:52

but Gothic Romanticism a literary genre that first reared its horns in the late

00:57

18th century is so much more than just dressing like the Grim Reaper in order [Man dressed as grim reaper]

01:01

to take off your parents the Gothic romantic style of storytelling tapped

01:05

into something deep and dark and desperate about the human psyche it was [Mans head opens and spider crawls on brain]

01:09

a terrifying void we needed to have filled think about it when we were kids

01:13

why do we love hearing stories about children pushing old women to ovens or

01:18

wolves swallowing old women whole man old women did not fare well in fairy tales

01:22

did they then as we got older we loved reading books of Roald Dahl about people

01:26

getting eaten by Giants or attacked by witches or crushed by huge rolling

01:30

peaches so yeah even from a young age we demonstrated an attraction to the dark [Magnifying glass burning an ant]

01:34

violent and depressing gothic Romanticism or dark romanticism simply

01:38

scratch that itch a writer named Washington Irving was the one who jump

01:43

started this literary revolution specifically with his story The Legend

01:46

of Sleepy Hollow yep that one with the Headless Horseman scary for us and for [Man with no head riding a horse]

01:52

the horse but people ate it up they were getting

01:55

tired of the Bronte's family dramas and Dickens umpteenth poor miserable orphan

01:59

stories following in Irving hoof steps where writers like Edgar Allen Poe who

02:04

wrote about hearts beating under floorboards and razor-sharp pendulums [Pendulum swings]

02:07

that threaten to cut people in two... Nathaniel Hawthorne who took a less

02:10

supernatural approach with his books like The Scarlet

02:13

Letter which focus on the concepts of sin evil and guilt and Herman Melville

02:17

who wrote about large bloodthirsty whales these perverse sinister tales [Whale eats Melville from a ship]

02:22

were exciting unexpected and a new and everybody loves new even when it makes

02:28

you pee the bed a little bit ok but where did Gothic Romanticism come from [Bird flying and carrying gothic romanticism book]

02:32

was Irving just having recurring nightmares and his therapist told them to

02:35

write them down as an exercise it didn't just suddenly spring up from nothing did

02:40

it definitely not the only things that spring up out of nowhere are groundhogs [Groundhogs appear from ground]

02:43

and essay deadlines before Gothic Romanticism there was just plain old

02:47

romanticism if you lived in the 18th century and you were writing a book

02:51

in the romantic style you'd write it in a way that valued emotions over reason

02:55

it wasn't a denial of reason really romanticism simply thought that we could [Surgeon removes heart]

02:59

get at certain truths via the heart ie not everything about the human condition

03:03

could be discovered simply by reasoning it out we are after all emotional

03:08

creatures so why not write about people responding to their circumstance on a [Man with xray image of his gut]

03:11

gut level, rather than always being so logical about everything

03:15

so when Irving started writing his ghost stories all he did was focus in on one

03:19

emotion in particular horror, dread, fear whatever you want to call it that terror

03:24

of the unknown that captivates us all so let's go to the movie theaters in droves [Girl screams when essay lands on her desk]

03:28

to watch The Ring, the conjuring or whatever Saw number they're up to now

03:32

we love to be scared silly but because we didn't always have the ability to CGI

03:37

spine-chilling creatures with gaping holes in their faces for a while we had

03:40

to settle for reading about stuff that made our hair stand on end Gothic [Girl reading she has frizzy hair]

03:44

Romanticism is even more specific than that though you can't just have a

03:47

creature terrorizing your main character but that main character lives in a

03:51

cookiecutter house in suburbia USA the setting and tone are huge parts of any

03:55

gothic romantic story we're talking dark gloomy settings, dusky moors, old rickety

04:01

houses, abandoned buildings with no trespassing signs sometimes the setting

04:05

is described so vividly and with such chilling detail it almost become a [Lightning strikes a man]

04:10

character itself so yeah if you're reading a story and you start wondering

04:13

hey I wonder which Hollywood actor would play this creepy mansion in the movie

04:17

version you just might be reading something that falls into the gothic

04:20

romantic category and then there the tone stories in the genre don't try [Woman watching TV]

04:24

to scare you like most contemporary thrillers or horror stories do in other

04:28

words there aren't monsters forever leaping out of closets, or armies of

04:32

killer zombies chasing our protagonist Gothic Romantic authors tended to create

04:36

a general sense of unease there might be disturbing stuff happening in the story

04:40

but the characters would often take these occurrences in stride as if they [Ghosts fly by as guys chat]

04:44

were normal ish it wasn't that the stuff that happened was so out of place that

04:48

it would scare you but instead that the unnerving events were kind of taken in

04:52

stride which was somehow even more unsettling like if we're talking about a

04:57

character who keeps hearing a knock on the door and he goes to answer it and [Boy walks to the door]

05:00

there's a face of school standing outside we sort of want or hear to run

05:03

away screaming down the hall maybe grab a shovel or a shotgun or something not

05:07

invite him in and serve him a cup of tea so when you're thinking Gothic

05:11

Romanticism don't just think scary and disturbing think scary disturbing and uh

05:15

weird all right enough talking about genre let's dig in [Woman steps her heels into book]

05:19

our heels and actually read one of these stories since Washington Irving is the

05:23

founding father of the style we're going to go into one of his most popular

05:26

stories The Devil and Tom Walker as you read ask yourself some of these

05:30

questions what's the story setting and how does it add to the feel of the piece

05:34

what about the tone what is the story about like how would I summarize it how

05:40

does Irving want his readers to feel what identifies this story as

05:44

belonging to the genre of Gothic Romanticism why should I care what did

05:48

these dark not so scary stories have to do with the landscape of horror stories

05:51

today and how did the devil get top billing does this Tom Walker guy need a

05:56

better press agent alright give her a read and come back and we'll discuss [Person pulls down pause slide]

06:02

okay so first a quick and dirty summary of the story we got this dude Tom Walker

06:07

who's a total peach loves his wife so much that when he finds out she's dead [Tom Walker in a misty wooded forest]

06:11

he's relieved divorced circa 1820 anyway Tom is all about the benjamins all he

06:17

cares about is making money even if it means cheating or swindling other people

06:21

out of theirs well one day he meets the devil not the [Person carrying a cake]

06:24

food cake not a politician the actual devil.. Mr. Devil makes a deal with Tom

06:29

sell me your soul and I'll make you rich beyond your wildest

06:32

dreams Tom thinks about it for roughly two seconds then shakes on it done deal [Tom shakes Devil's hand]

06:37

sure enough Tom becomes a very wealthy man as a userer

06:40

someone who lend money while charging a criminally high interest rate he has a

06:45

good run until one day when the devil comes to make good on their little [Tom opens door to the devil]

06:48

bargain the devil throws Tom unto his state of death and Tom is due to ride

06:54

the creature for the rest of eternity hope he enjoyed his swimming pool full

06:59

of dollar bills while he had the chance and that's it guy meets devil, guy falls [Tom jumps into pool of dollar bills]

07:02

in love with the devil, guy sells soul to the devil, devil collects soul...

07:05

okay now let's go back and take a look at some of our questions first up what's

07:10

the story setting and how does it add to the feel of the piece well remember that

07:14

thing we talked about when it comes to gothic romantic settings dark and gloomy

07:17

right does that description hold true here when Tom meets the devil check out [Tom stood with the Devil]

07:21

some of the descriptions of the location the swamp was thickly grown with great

07:25

gloomy pines and hemlocks some of them 90 feet high which made it dark at

07:29

noonday; a gulf of black smothering mud dark and stagnant pools where trunks of

07:36

pines and hemlocks lay half drowned half rotting looking like alligators sleeping

07:41

in the mire yeah this setting fits the bill...Wouldn't have had

07:45

the same effects if Tom had met the devil while at a hair salon waiting to [Tom sits in salon with the devil]

07:49

get his sideburns trimmed would it this sort of location description immediately

07:53

establishes a sense of foreboding in other words nothing awful has happened

07:57

yet but we already know it's going to black smothering mud is never a good [Lots of wet mud]

08:01

thing what about the story's tone here we're looking for the author's attitude

08:05

towards his characters toward his subject matter toward his audience etc

08:09

well in some ways this story reads like most stories from Irving's era long

08:13

carefully worded sentences very descriptive passages but there are some [Poem stamped with differences]

08:17

differences between this style and the style of some of those who came before

08:20

him your Jane Austen or your Daniel Defoe or your Jonathan Swift the writing

08:25

isn't wooden no offense to those other writers we just named they were all

08:28

brilliant in their own right but they were writing in an age where it wasn't

08:32

kosher to delve so much into emotion they were for the most part [Kosher pickled emotions jar]

08:36

straightforward storytellers allowing for an emotional response to come from

08:39

the reader but not revealing any emotion outwardly in the writing itself

08:43

Irving and other gothic romantic writers altered that way of thinking we

08:46

can see a real change in Tom Walker's emotional state between his first [Tom Walker meeting the devil]

08:49

meeting with the devil and his last early on Tom was not a man to be

08:53

troubled with any fears he was a hard minded fellow not easily daunted but

08:58

once the time comes for Tom to offer up his soul he begins to waver...huh, he thinks

09:04

maybe it wasn't such a good idea to make a deal with the devil [Tom thinking about the deal]

09:07

hindsight's 20/20 right just look at what Tom's actions later in life tell us

09:12

about his emotional state he became a violent churchgoer

09:15

he prayed loudly and strenuously as if heaven were to be taken by force of

09:20

lungs yeah his reasons for becoming more religious might have been selfish but

09:25

there's no denying the fear that was suddenly settling in for the first time

09:29

in Toms life and once Tom is whisked away and forever cursed to ride the devil's [Tom riding the Devil's horse]

09:33

horse well Irving refers to him as a troubled

09:36

spirit okay that one might be his understatement how does Irving want his

09:40

readers to feel well we should definitely feel wary of making deals

09:44

with the devil point made there but notice how even though the story [Man opens door and devil appears]

09:47

features the biggest baddest baddie of them all

09:50

Satan aka the devil aka old scratch he never pops out of anywhere suddenly he

09:56

isn't horrifying to look at in fact Tommy mistakes him as a man at first

09:59

he speaks normally treats Tom with decency even the scariest most vicious

10:03

thing he does is help Tom onto a horse at the end of the story so Alfred [Devil lays down a stool]

10:08

Hitchcock probably isn't knocking down Irving's door for the movie rights or he

10:12

wouldn't be if either them were still alive

10:14

like most gothic Romantic literature the feeling the story invokes is creepiness

10:18

rather than scariness the gloomy swamp the casual attitude of both Tom and the

10:23

devil the disgusting way Tom responds to evidence of his wife's death and what

10:27

about the humor this thing is chock full of satire ie Irving is irony or

10:33

exaggeration to point out how ridiculous people can be when it comes to money or

10:37

love or forging questionable friendships like he satirizes the animosity that [tom walking in a misty forest]

10:41

often exists between a married couple when Tom realizes the devil killed his

10:44

wife and rather than mourn her loss he notices that she must have pulled out

10:48

some of the devil's hair and says old scratch must have had a tough time

10:51

of it so yeah he feels worse for the devil and his missing patch of hair than [Tom's wife's ghost appears from grave]

10:55

he does for his dead wife funny hmm maybe depending on

10:59

who you ask well definitely to a zombie disturbing

11:02

definitely because the story is so dark the humor only adds to the creepiness

11:06

factor what other things identify the story as

11:09

belonging to the genre of Gothic Romanticism

11:11

well we already talked about the dismal setting and the dark humor but there's

11:15

also a big indicator here an element of evil

11:18

what's more evil than the devil right and yet he doesn't seem like such a bad [Devil with an axe stood by a tree]

11:22

guy just a businessman really the truly evil character here seems to be Tom

11:27

Walker who shakes off his wife's death has no problem chatting it up [Tom laughing]

11:32

and doesn't seem to care that he's cheating all of his neighbors and

11:35

friends out of their life savings so when he finally gets his comeuppance at

11:39

the end of story rather than feel horrified we find

11:42

ourselves laughing at Tom and cheering for the devil man Washington Irving made us

11:46

root for Satan now that is evil finally why should we care we're not likely to

11:51

run into the devil on our next trip to the local swamp so what gives well for [Boy standing in a swamp]

11:56

one thing without Irving there might be no gothic Romanticism, so no Poe, no

12:00

Hawthorne, no Melville and without those authors who took early forays into

12:05

horror there might be no Stephen King, no Clive Barker, no RL Stine there might not

12:11

be any scary books or movies at all the ring might be a chick flick about a [Boy watching a romantic movie on TV]

12:15

overdue marriage proposal the purge might be about someone finally cleaning

12:19

out their Gmail box and sharknado well that one would still probably be about a

12:23

tornado... but while the story might not seem to have much to do with our

12:27

lives on the surface it actually has something to say about the human

12:30

condition something we can totally relate to we've all felt the urge to

12:33

make a choice that will benefit us in the short run but isn't so great for us [Boy looking at signs for short run or long haul]

12:37

in the long haul like maybe we want to buy a few new PlayStation games rather

12:41

than put that money into our college fund or we really want to eat that entire box

12:45

of donuts even though we know we'll pay for it tomorrow [Person in a toilet cubicle]

12:48

Irving waggles his finger at this temporary kind of thinking, showing how

12:52

despite the temporary delight you might experience it is so not worth betraying

12:57

your conscious in other words it's saying listen to that angel on your

13:01

shoulder and not to that devil in your swamp [Devil appears in a swamp]

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