Key gothic tropes

Question 1

How are burning houses a trope?

Answer 1

• Houses are characters themselves
• They have personality, history, secrets and must ultimately die in the end
• Destroying the central setting (the house) might allow the plot to continue
• A houses destruction signals and end to the horrors that took place within

Question 2

Examples of the burning house trope?

Answer 2

• Example 1 = Thornfield house is burned down, which allows for Rochester to remarry without committing bigamy, cleanses Rochester of his past and brings him to Jane’s level
• Example 2 = The house set alight by the housewife, allows the protagonist to move on from the trauma of the plotline and leave both Rebecca and the ‘Manderly’ estate behind

Question 3

How is the first wife a common trope?

Answer 3

• The main protagonist is often seen as the second choice or second love
• Often the memory of presence of previous wife hauns the protagonist or the relationship

Question 4

Examples of the first wife trope:

Answer 4

2. The First Wife
   
   • The main protagonist is often seen as the second choice or second love
   • Often the memory of presence of previous wife hauns the protagonist or the relationship
   • Example1: Edgar Allen Poe ‘Ligeia, where the husband is obsessed with his first wife Ligeia, who died of illness and then he remarried - he then hates his new wife, who is haunted by Ligeia
     * From the husband’s perspective, the story is of how his old wife found her way back to him from the dead by possessing Rowena (new wife’s body) , but from Rowena’s perspective, it is a terrifying tale of how the ghost of her husband’s ex-wife haunts her, prowl her chamber, kills her and takes over her body
     * Example 2 = The life is very much living in Jane Eyre but is seen as ghostly sightings by Jane, who doesn’t know she exists. This is very serious because Rochester would have been committing bigamy by marrying Jane
     Example 3 = Rebecca Daphne du Maurier - the first wife is so prevalent she claims the title of the book, whilst the protagonist (Second wife) is left un-named

Question 5

How is the Naif a common trope?

Answer 5

• The innocent victim, normally depicted as an adolescent female
• French for ‘naïve’ and is normally a sheltered character who is thrust into unfamiliar dangerous situations
• They act as a foil to innate evil
  Stereotypes as the ‘damsel in distress’
• sometimes the naif loses her innocence and gains experience/agency

Question 6

Examples of the Naif:

Answer 6

Example 1: the first ever Naif in gothic literature in ‘The Castle of Otranto’ who is saved by Theodore (the true heir to the castle), whilst Manfred (the late near-husbands father) pursues her. She is a Naif because she is 1 -dimensional, her only character trait being her piety.
Example 2: Christine in the phantom of the opera however he has slightly more character depth and feels sympathy for her villain (the phantom)
Example 3: Jane Eyre but she didn’t have a sheltered childhood