1. Mg. Julio Uribe English Literature
Gothic Literature
Mg. Julio Uribe
English Literature

2. What is gothic? Dark and mysterious settings
The macabre and the morbid
Obsession with the past
Morality v/s scientific advancement
Dark settings: night, polluted London, castles, the artic, mountains.
The macabre and the morbid: Profaning of body parts, eating humans, rape, murder, claustrophobia (case of Jonathan Harker in Dracula)
Obsession with the past: Ghosts or other creatures from the past come into being (Dracula). Old castles that resemble the Middle Ages. The symbol of the “ruin” represents the decay and collapse of human faith.
Morality v/s scientific advancement. Frankenstein: Who can create human life? Only God? Does the end justify the means? How immoral is it to profane human body parts? / Jekyll: What are the consequences of Jekyll’s invention? Are Hyde crimes justified?
Image: Milan cathedral

3. Historical context Queen Victoria’s reign (1837-1901)
Significant discoveries and inventions of the era:
Discovery of Neptune (1846)
Evolution (Charles Darwin) (1859)
Telephone (Alexander Graham Bell) (1876)
Light bulb (Thomas Edison) (1879)
Radioactivity (Marie Curie) (1898)
Telephone: Alexander Graham Bell
Light Bulb: Thomas Alva Edison
Radioactivity: Mary Curie
schizo… 1911 Eugen Bleuler
[Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species]: “The gradual removal of God-talk from professional scientific publications can be dated and documented. This was clearly a post-Darwinian development, since On the origin of species (1859) both began and ended with references to God”.
(1921) [Freud, Sigmund. Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego]
DID (Pierre Félix)

4. Religious position
Some sectors of christianity are more afraid of atheism, than scientific evolution and as a consequence, new manifestations of Evangelical protestantism, Roman Catholicism and Anglo-Catholicism arise in the 19th century, spreading views strongly based on the bible.
“If ideas bearing religious heterodoxy were embraced, published, or advocated, then atheism, immorality and social disruption might follow” (Frank M. Turner).
Religious journals
Religious education at schools.
Intervention of the Catholic Church.
La nueva ilustración: Los pensadores de la Ilustración sostenían que la razón humana podía combatir la ignorancia, la superstición y la tiranía para construir un mundo mejor. 

5. Frankenstein (1818)
Victor Frankenstein, a science student at Ingolstadt University , designs a technique to create life. Frankenstein profanes body parts in order to assemble a living creature whom he will irresponsibly abandon.

6. Dracula (1897) A novel written in epistolary format.
Jonathan Harker is a solicitor who visits Count Dracula’s Castle in order to prepare the paperwork for a number of properties he has bought in London.
Harker will be abandoned and Dracula will leave the castle mysteriously.

7. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde (1886)
Henry Jekyll, a remarkable physician, invents a chemical formula to separate the good from evil in the human personality. His aim is to purify the soul and thus, set men free. He applies the potion to himself, giving birth to a dual personality called Edward Hyde.

8. Works cited
Czyzewska, Urszula. Robert Louis Stevenson Philosophically: Dualism and Existentialism within the gothic convention. Roczniki Filozoficzne, Tom LXII, numer
Dixon, Thomas. Introduction. In Science and Religion, New historical perspectives, ed. By Dixon, Cantor & Pumfrey. Cambridge University Press
McLeod, Saul. Sigmund Freud. Simply Psychology, Available 21 July 2016 <
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor & Jones, Gradifco
Stevenson, Robert L. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde. Longman
Stoker, Bram. Dracula. Constable & Robinson
Turner, Frank M. The late Victorian conflict of science and religion as an event in nineteenth- century intellectual and cultural history. In Science and Religion: New historical perspectives, ed. By Dixon, Cantor & Pumfrey. Cambridge University Press
Xiao, Bin. Morality in Victorian Period. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, Vol. 5, No. 9, pp , September 2015.