ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -The setting is greatly influential in Gothic novels. It not only evokes the atmosphere of horror and dread, but also portrays the deterioration of its world. The decaying, ruined scenery implies that at one time there was a thriving world.

Detailed explanation-2: -The setting seems to be decaying; things will be physically falling apart, or not what they used to be. It doesn’t just have to be the setting that is decaying either – often it is the mental health of characters in the story. We can see this human decay in so many of the great Gothic novels.

Detailed explanation-3: -Usually the setting consists of a castle or manor in an isolated location, away from any city or civilization. This genre is dark, eerie, and mysterious, often containing elements of terror, horror, and the macabre and the bizarre. Common themes and motifs of the Gothic include power, confinement, and isolation.

Detailed explanation-4: -The setting is important in gothic literature because it becomes an outward, physical way, of conveying abstract and elusive qualities like decline, decay, and loss. Many gothic stories are set within decaying castles and ancestral lands that are in a state of decline.

Detailed explanation-5: -Consequently, human decay is not only a trope and aesthetic element of the Gothic, it becomes an entity, a War Gothic monster.