Edexcel AS coursework - Gothic & Supernatural - Prose fiction

Gothic fiction has its orgins in the Romantic movement which began in Europe in the second half of the eighteenth century. Romantic writers, artists and musicians rejected the values of the Enlightenment which they perceived as too rational and too scientific in favour of depicting raw experience and strong emotions such as terror and awe.

Writers of Gothic fiction focus on creating atmosphere: common settings include haunted houses and castles, ruins, graveyards and ruined landscapes. While characters within Gothic literature tend to be archetypes or stock characters (villains, monsters, virgins, vampires, madmen and women, angels, femme fatales, magicians and the devil himself all feature heavily in Gothic fiction) the use of elemental imagery and rich symbolism is psychologically resonant.

The key themes of the Gothic novel, namely, death and decay, act as a continuous reminder of the transitory nature of human existence; important tropes such as secrets, darkness and locks symbolise the power of the subconcious mind; while the use of foreshadowing in the form of hereditary curses, portents and doppelgangers negate the concept of free will.

The Turn of the Screw

This turn of the century novella begins with a group of friends staying in a country house and entertaining one another with ghost stories. When it is discovered that one of the guests possesses a secret manuscript that contains the first hand account of a haunting involving an unnamed governess and two young children, the other guests clamour to hear the tale; however this simple ghost story turns out to be more ambiguous and more tragic than its listeners could have foreseen.

Style: frame narrative, unreliable narrator

Themes: innocence, morality, insanity, class,

Film adaptions: The Innocents (1961)
The Turn of the Screw (

Lost Souls