1. Elements of Gothic Literature

2. Setting Central to the mood or tone of the story
Creates a sense of dread or foreboding
Lots of descriptive language

3. Ancient Prophecy or Ancestral Curse
The burden or ripple effect of past actions
Prophecy fulfilled through actions
A link in a chain of events that has to happen in order for there to be peace or rest.

4. Supernatural Elements
Gothic authors capitalize on fear
Fascination with the unexplainable

5. Unreliable Narrator
The narrator tells the story, thus determining the point of view.
Unreliable narrators mess with our minds as readers or viewers.
An unreliable narrator doesn’t fully understands the situation or draws incorrect conclusions.
Sometimes we know more than the narrator, or sometimes we are just as confused or limited in our knowledge.

6. Pursued Protagonist
A protagonist is the leading character or most prominent character in a story.
The pursued protagonist is haunted by a curse, pressed on by a force, or experiences some unavoidable persecution.

7. Damsel in Distress
Girls were often seen as weak and squeamish, running away from danger or anything frightening
Can be a cathartic character, or a character whose reaction or actions provide a way to experience/release the fear or apprehension we feel as readers.

8. Revenge Repaying someone for a harm caused
Can be enacted by mortals or supernatural forces

9. - Secret Passageways & Doors - Mist
These elements add to suspense in the setting, allow for plot twists to develop
Fear of what we cannot see or understand

10. Sleep – Dreams - Nightmares
Sleep as a form of death
Dreams as mental activity outside the realm of control
Dreams and nightmares dredge up feelings or thoughts or questions that are suppressed or do not occur when conscious.
Dreams can reveal what a character is too afraid to realize in waking moments.
Dreams and nightmares can also be a method of foreshadowing.

11. Claustrophobia – Entrapment - Imprisonment
Claustrophobia is an extreme or irrational fear of confined spaces.
Sense of no way out.
Tombs, secret rooms, towers, closets, etc.
Victim’s sense of helplessness

12. Doppelganger German word meaning “look alike,” or “double walker.”
Can be a look-alike, a twin, a shadow of another person, the double of someone, alter ego, or their ghost.

13. Haunted House or Castle
Inhabited or visited by spirits
Abandoned or partially empty
Parts of the house do not function

14. Superstition
Beliefs or rituals held or exercised in an attempt to avoid or control outcomes.

15. Somnambulism Sleepwalking Dissociated mental state
Characters sometimes reveal intentions or desires

16. Graveyard Place where dead are buried
Cemetery, catacombs, tombs, churchyard, or crypt
A place where supernatural can occur
A place where the living can connect with the dead

17. Necromancy communing with the dead

18. Metonymy
Metonymy: noun: the substitution of the name of an attribute for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing.
Squeaky, creaky doors
Footsteps approaching
Sighs, howls, moans, etc
Clanking chains
Doors slamming suddenly shut
In Gothic Lit, it is a comparison created between the audible or visual characteristic and what it evokes in the reader.
Crazed laughter
Wolves howling
Thunder and lightning
Metonymies that suggest danger or mystery:
Ruins of buildings
Wind, especially howling
Rain