The Gothic Genre Test February 2021 The Gothic

The Gothic Genre Test February 2021

The Gothic Exam • Remember, this comprises two parts – the first is the critical appreciation, and the second is the choice of comparison between ‘Dracula’ and ‘Dorian Gray’ • For the critical appreciation you must explore the writer’s methods and effects of their writing (AO 2), linking it to your wider understanding of Gothic writing (AO 3). • Having a good understanding of how gothic writers contributed to the development of the genre in their own ways is really important • We have looked at a variety of Gothic fiction over the past few weeks. You must include links to this literary context (AO 3) in your answer.

Example extract/response Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher (1840) The opening mention of ‘what must have been a dream’ indicates a possible reference to the classic Gothic trope of a supernatural visitation, reminding the reader of the spirits in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol and Dracula’s night time manifestations wrapped in silver mist, immediately establishing a tone of foreboding and suspense at the start of the passage. We note also the narrator’s desire to shake off this vision with an attempt to offer a dispassionate description of the building’s ‘principal features of antiquity’, thereby gaining, to some extent, the trust and sympathy of the reader.

Test essay Read the extract, taken from chapter one of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764). Write a critical appreciation of this passage, relating your discussion to your reading of the Gothic. [30] • 15 minutes planning • 1 hour writing