In both stories “The House of Asterion” and “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” we see both authors use gothic elements. They share the gothic element in both stories of suspicious and mysterious characters. We see both important characters in the stories are kind of misunderstood and as the audience we aren’t fully sure about what/who they are. For example, the audience finds out that Asterion is a Minotaur which is a supernatural creature, half bull half human body. The place where the audience thinks Asterion is trapped is a castle but the story says that the doors were unlocked which made this mysterious for readers. At the end we find out Asterion is a Minotaur leaving the audience with questions which is why he is a mysterious character. In the other story when the Old Man comes to where Pelayo is and they think he is an angel here to help Pelayo’s child. However the audience never knows if this Old Man is an angel or not, showing we are unsure of what his intentions are and who he is.

There is also gothic element use in the settings of both stories. In “The House of Asterion” we see that Asterion is actually living in a castle, it is described as having no furniture in it and oddly all the doors are unlocked but he is trapped inside of there. In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” there is more of a weather setting, it is a stormy and rainy climate where Pelayo and his family lives.

The gothic elements of plot points in the two stories is death, nine people are sent to Asterion every nine years and we see those nine individuals die. The people in the village are scared that if they don’t sacrifice people to Asterion that he will attack them. In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” death is shown when he comes to where Pelayo’s family is living and they think he is an angel who is going to help his sick son. It can also be seen when they describe the appearence of the Old Man and how he looks like he is suffering and is hurt, his wings and feathers are all messed up showing near death.