Response 1

The “Castle Of Otranto”  is unlike anything I have ever read. It is the ancestor of all Gothic Literature.  Being the first of it’s kind, It brought new ideas and introduced a genre of literature that would shape a whole new Gothic culture. The story infuses reality with supernatural events which creates a gloomy setting and overall eerie tone to the story. The story encompasses everything you would associate with a Gothic work of literature; an old haunted castle, an atmosphere of mystery and suspense, supernatural events, damsels in distress, curses, and death. It doesn’t take very long into the book to encounter the first death. Young Conrad, son of the Prince Manfred dies from being crushed by a giant helmet. The women in this story as with other Gothic literature at this time were often shown as weak, corrupted and treated badly in comparison to their male counterparts. Prince Manfred tosses his wife Hippolita to the side because she can not birth him a heir, so he decides to marry his dead sons fiancee, Isabella. This shows how little power women held in Gothic literature which most likely reflected the reality of that time period. Other Gothic elements that are present are the supernatural events that occur throughout the story. Prince Manfred discovers that the castle is cursed and the scene where blood drops from the nose of Alfonso’s statue. There is also mentions of ghosts throughout the story which might have brought fear to the people who have not read anything like this during that time period. I personally didn’t find this piece very scary.