Gothic techniques Flashcards
Terror
Fear generated through what is uncertain or obscure, shadowy or insubstantial, a perceived or anticipated threat preying on the imagination
Horror
Fear generated through a physical shock actually seen or experienced
The Sublime
A sense of awe, astonishment, of being overwhelmed in the face of something much bigger than ourselves
Can be landscape, magnificence, power, awareness of vastness
Dependent on obscurity - we are unable to fully see or comprehend the experience
The Uncanny
The strange, eerie or mysterious
Foreign or strange yet at the same time mysterious
Unsettling
Taboos
Cultural, moral or religious rules which are put under pressure or violated, challenging social norms
Examples include incest and murder
The Supernatural or preternatural
Above nature, mysterious, inexplicable
Oppositions
Contradictory elements
Ie Sanity/madness, wild/domesticated
Oppositions pressurized or shown to collapse, showing they are not as different as they seemed
Otherness
Anything that is different from ourselves and therefore is perceived as a threat
We may recognize ourselves in it
Obscurity
Key to experiencing the sublime
Lack of understanding, confusion and physical obscurity (fogginess)
The Revenant
Describing the past “what comes back”
Fear you thought you had banished
Something coming back to haunt you
Repressed elements from the past
The Doppelganger
A double or alter ego
Reveals the negative, evil or repressed within
The Liminal
The experience of being on a threshold or boundary
Between two states ie uncertainty and fluidity
Abhuman
Something only vestigially human
Possibly in the process of becoming monstrous (the creature?)
