When Horace Walpole wrote the first Gothic novel in 1764, the world had never seen anything like it before. In an era we now call the Enlightenment, in which knowledge, science and philosophy had made enormous strides, this book dared to be openly absurd; to present magic, strange curses, ghosts and prophecies. But despite its incongruity with the era, not only did Walpole's Castle of Otronto sell countless copies, but it spawned an entire genre of imitators, who sought to evoke this same sense of mystery and darkness. From “Wuthering Heights” to “Frankenstein,” “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” to “The Maltese Falcon,” books across the literary spectrum can trace their roots to the Gothic novels of the mid-to-late 18th century, or to literature from the “Gothic Revival,” which is more directly based on the Gothic. It may seem strange to find that such a love of the supernatural and inexplicable emerged during times of enlightenment, when people were learning the irrelevance of Magic, but in a strange way it makes sense. Even as the world began to make more sense and faith in the strange and unknown was waning, there is perhaps an innate human desire to be deceived, to have something that is beyond understanding. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned'? Get an original essay Horace Walpole writes on this topic in the third-person preface to the Castle of Otronto: “Even as such, an apology is in order for it. Miracles, visions, necromancy, dreams and other supernatural events now explode in novels too. It wasn't like this when our author wrote; much less when the story itself is supposed to have happened. Belief in all kinds of prodigies was so rooted in those dark ages that an author who omitted any mention of them would not be faithful to the customs of the times. He doesn't have to believe it himself, but he has to represent his actors as if they believed it. If this air of the miraculous is excused, the reader will find nothing else unworthy of his reading. Let's admit the possibility of the facts and all actors will behave as people would in their situation. "When mystery had been sucked out of the world, when people's gods and monsters had been banished from the realms of reality, the only place where mystery and terror and the unknown could exist without the constraints of cold, aromatic logic was in the pages of the novels. Walpole understood this and thus began to shape a narrative and a genre from both the real and the imaginative and the absurd. However, there is a rather unpleasant side effect in this conception While the books were admittedly unabashedly entertaining, modern readers often assume that the stories are nothing more than archaic pulp, devoid of literary value or meaningful interpretation. This really couldn't be further from the truth Gothic narrative made it more compelling to the 18th-century reader, had another equally important effect. By being so unabashedly phantasmagorical and strange, Gothic writers were able to hide unpopular or controversial opinions and ideas. It's not such an impossible idea. Today we have talk show hosts like John Oliver and comedians like George Carlin who make powerful points enjoyable to hear by fusing them with humor. A century ago, early science fiction writers addressed political and social topics through dystopian allegory. It's not much different than using enchanted weapons or lost kings to satirize the issues of the day. But although some efforts have already been made to draw attention to the political implications of somespecific Gothic texts, this is not enough. My intent with this essay is to demonstrate that Gothic novels are not only an early form of literary social criticism, but texts whose messages and ideas are still incredibly relevant today. The first text I will examine is The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The poem is perhaps the quintessence of the Gothic tale. It features strange supernatural horrors of the unknown, a narrative within a narrative, meditation on death, and excessive violence. In it, a reckless sailor kills an albatross that was supposed to bring good luck to the ship, and as a result, bad waters keep the ship trapped at sea. The entire crew dies, except the one sailor who killed the bird. He asks for forgiveness and as a result, the sea serpents roil the waters again and the crew are revived as corpses to bring the boat back to port. Once there, the sailor disembarks, and is forced to tell anyone he meets about his misadventures, to prevent them from making the same mistakes. While it may seem like a simple and fantastical tale, numerous interpretations of the story have appeared over the years. To fully understand them, however, we must first learn more about the poet who wrote the Rime. Coleridge was a close friend of the abolitionist Robert Southey, who wrote several popular works, including the poem "The Sailor Who Served in the Slave Trade." Coleridge himself shared some of these anti-slavery sentiments and did little to hide them. Therefore, there are many who read this story as an interpretation of a slave's nightmarish journey to the decrepitude of the new world. In her essay “Yellow Fever and the Slave Trade,” Debbie Lee examines the possible symbolic connection: “The poem, in fact, has often and convincingly been interpreted as a poem about the slave trade by writers who, in the tradition of John Livingston Lowes, contextualizes the poem's major tropes using Coleridge's material, issues with travel literature, colonialism, and the slave trade. JR Ebbotson is just one of many readers who see the poem as an indictment of maritime expansion where "the ancient mariner's central act, the killing of the albatross, may be a symbolic repetition of the crux of the 'colonial expansion, the enslavement of native peoples'” (Lee 676). The poem also goes on to list the symptoms of yellow fever, a disease that afflicted British sailors during their voyage by enslaving Africans. Many of the symptoms have a surprising resemblance to the ailments that afflict the sailors in the poem. The sailor's shipmates die of serious illnesses bleeding and vomiting, and their corpses are forced into a sick travesty of servitude, to ferry the weakened old man to shore and force him to perform a task. established, where he behaves like a madman and lives in extreme poverty. It is not difficult to see the parallels with someone involved in human trafficking who has contracted the disease and lost his sanity and health. Despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that it takes place so firmly in the realms of the absurd and the surreal, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner operates as a critique of the rampant exchange of human lives and labor for money. Others found a different meaning in Coleridge's lines. They see it as a call for economic upheaval, comprehensive financial reform and an end to poverty. To fully see this perspective, one must go to Coleridge's other works, especially his poem "To a Young Ass." The poem itself is not as psychedelic as “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” which is simply about a sad young donkey, whose mother is chained to apole and can't reach the tasty green grass, and is instead stuck eating the dry, brown, chewed up roots. The poet praises the Donkey's suffering, calling him “brother”, which was unheard of at the time. This sort of brotherhood was felt only with other human beings, not with animals. While a streak of sympathy for animals may be what can be gleaned from this poem - it is also present in Coleridge's The Hoarfrost, for the killing of a bird is what brings about the filthy torments of hell - this sense of communion with beasts can be interpreted in an even more radical context. They see Coleridge's ass as a symbol of the economically oppressed: struggling to survive, chained to a post, while the better-off gorge themselves on what they want. David Perkins writes about the political implications of this in an essay on Coleridge's incendiary choice of words. “Of all the English poems sympathizing with animals, this is considered the most extreme. The term brother codified a revolutionary ideal: Liberte, egalite, fraternite” (Perkins 929). Perhaps because it is a longer poem, or perhaps because it was Coleridge's intention to write it, but perhaps there is even more reason why “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” can be considered a criticism of 18th century capitalism. Indeed, if we accept, as Perkins does, the theme of animals representing humans or the oppressed in Coleridge's poems, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” could be a warning of some kind of Marxist revolution. The story begins with a poor scruffy sailor taking aside someone who is about to attend a wedding. Weddings were often joyous events with decadent displays of wealth, and to this day are generally associated with happiness, celebration and excess. But before the wedding guest can enter and join the ceremony, he is pulled aside by this crazed sailor. The sailor is not rich: working on a ship as a crew member was not and is not a profitable career. Nor can he say he is happy, now that he is forced to travel around the country telling strangers about his adventure for who knows how long. This adventure involves the killing of a well-intentioned animal whose presence brought good luck to the ship and crew. As a result, the sea calms down and all the other sailors die. If the albatross is indeed indicative of the working class, Coleridge seems to be saying that if we, as a society, harmed or refused to care for the poor and working class, it would end in our destruction. If the narrator's intent was to convey this point to the wedding guests, he succeeded. The guest misses the entire wedding celebration and wakes up the next day “A sadder and wiser man,” implying that he has changed from the day before, when he sought the joy of great celebrations (Coleridge). If Coleridge had simply written If something like that, especially in the 18th century, it would have had an astronomical reaction. There had not been a Karl Mark, a Lenin or even a Bentham when the Rhyme was written. Therefore the idea of ​​valuing the poor over the rich would have seemed not only absurd but dangerous. After all, the wealthy kings and monarchs who controlled much of Europe at that time might have felt attacked or offended by these feelings and ordered the poet's death. But by hiding his subtexts with the supernatural, Coleridge still manages to present a trenchant attack on the cruelty of the rich and the power held by the poor. The Gothic genre, then, provides a broad vehicle for such thoughts: coherent enough to make points about society at large, but abstract enough to provide the writer with protection from possible backlash. Another example from the novelGothic used as social criticism is Horace Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otronto. Considered by many to be the first Gothic novel, the story is a complete flight of fancy. Characters are killed by falling helmets, a crazy old man tries to marry a girl half his age, images move, men resembling the castle's long-dead heirs suddenly reappear, and so on. However, as in the previous text, this fictional mask hides an important attack on the society of the time, in particular on the male inheritance system. To fully understand the nuances of the work, we must first examine Walpole himself. Horace Walpole was a member of the British Parliament and 10 years earlier had become embroiled in a heated debate over the semantics of "Lord Hardwicke's Marriage act", a bill that would have annulled all marriages that had been performed secretly without announcement or consent of the parents, even if both spouses consented. In particular, parliament was concerned about what would become of the family lands and titles in the event of the death of the family patriarch. If the bill were passed, England's rich men would be able to monopolize most of the wealth and nobility through intelligent marriages, and would have much say in who their children, particularly daughters, could marry . Where as before, when clandestine marriages were deemed valid by the church, a daughter who married against her father's will inherited his wealth despite no longer bearing his name or furthering his lineage. Now, however, a daughter who did not publicly announce her marriage with her father's support would be considered unmarried, and because of how common it was for women to inherit their father's titles and lands at the time, this gave the patriarchy unprecedented power. .Walpole voted against this act and often tried to prevent it. He even went so far as to call it “…the bane of society.” (Clemene 32). Then, just ten years after this hated act became law, Walpole produces The Castle of Otronto, a story about a mad, bloodthirsty prince who chases a young woman around a castle with the intent of marrying her and promoting his family name, but in the process killing his innocent daughter. Feminist criticism of 18th-century England is an active presence throughout the narrative. And it's not just me who finds this parallel interesting. Gender relations in Gothic works have remained one of the hallmarks of the genre. Feminist and psychoanalytic critic Claire Kahane takes note of this when she examines several repetitive Gothic clichés: “Within an imprisoning structure, the protagonist, typically a young woman whose mother has died, is forced to seek a center of mystery, while she is vague and sexual threats to her person from some powerful male figure usually hover on the periphery of her consciousness” (Kahane 45). This center of mystery, almost always a Freudian womb-like structure, reveals an uncertainty regarding life and death, some mystery, and ultimately an understanding of its identity as it relates to history. Although missing from Coleridge's poetry, these are important themes in Otronto, and were taken up by future Gothic novelists, who along with the surreal atmosphere and violence, raised feminist criticism from the leading Gothic writer, Walpole. Yet despite how clear the attack was to the modern reader the patriarchy may seem cleverly disguised at the time. At that point in history, speaking out against the government was still a bad idea if you valued your existence. They are thus evoked 2015.