NARRATIVE - URBAN GOTHIC AND GOTHIC HORROR

In this session, we took a look into the history of gothic horror and urban horror.

 The gothic horror genre started with books like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby. 



(The British Library's video dissecting the Gothic genre - credit: The British Library)
The gothic genre had some key features prevalent in multiple stories; some of these include

  • The Past returning to the Present - Some kind of figure from a character's past coming back to cause them distress. For example, though not a gothic novel, Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol features the past returning, when Marley comes back to warn Scrooge to change his ways. In current media, this is usually done with ghosts and zombies.
  • Wild Landscapes vs Imprisonment
  • Bizarre Sexual Themes and Moments
  • The Uncanny - The uncanny is, by definition, that which is not quite right, and gives off an unnerving feeling. These can be represented with dolls, mannequins, automata, etc. In Jekyll & Hyde, Mr. Hyde is seen as an uncanny figure.


(A BBC documentary about automata, titled "Princely Toys"; these automata fall under the "uncanny" label - credit: BBC)
It is advised when writing a horror, we should use what scares us, since we'll be more likely to write a true emotional reaction to whatever is being presented to the audience.

 While that all relates to the vanilla Gothic Horror genre, Jekyll and Hyde is recognised as the first Urban Gothic Horror. The key difference is in their presentation; Urban Gothic Horror is seemingly presented in a more elegant way, where Gothic Horror can go down multiple other routes to deliver as impactful a story as wanted.

 We finished off by looking at the idea of the Dual Brain; in Stevenson's time, there wasn't as complex or accurate an understanding of the human brain as there is today. Stemming from that was the study of Phrenology; a theory that says that certain bumps on a person's skull can be used to define certain traits. The following clip from Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained delves into this idea.


(Phrenology from Django Unchained - credit: Columbia)

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