Gothic critics

in gothic there is "tension provided by the possible violation of innocence - the concept of virtue in distress"

The rational world is left far behind

Fiction of unconscious desire and antisocial fantasies

Gothic protagonist is "usually male, the individual is a outcast, part victim, part villian."

Genre is about "excess and exaggeration"

"challenging conventional gender boundaries"

" A place where extreme actions and passions can seem oddly appropriate"

" A place where extreme actions and passions can seem oddly appropriate"

Terror "expans the soul and awakens the faculties to a higher degree of life" "horror freezes and nearly annihilates them"

purpose is to "scare its viewers in enjoyable ways"