Category: Coffeehouse #3 (Page 2 of 2)

Important Ideas of Gothic Literature in Lloyd Smith’s “What is American Gothic?”

1. The background information on how to present(Pg 4-5).

2. Other extreme states in the Gothic include suppressions of past trauma, past guilt, anxieties involving class and gender. (Pg6-7)

3. The American Gothic connects deep with science occultist, and pre-scientific doctrines (Frankenstein)(Pg 6).

4. American Gothic also explores extremes like cruelty, rapacity, fear, passion, and sexual degradation.

5. American Gothic mainly use mysterious scenery for its setting within the stories.

Raymond Osoria

Important ideas in Lloyd Smith’s, “What is American Gothic?”

1. Pg. 5: American Gothic explores extremes that include cruelty, rapacity, fear, passion, sexual degradation.
2. Pg. 5: The characters in American Gothic are “free thinking,” up to no good, disbelieve in the significance of virginity.
3. Pg. 6: American Gothic connects science occultist, pre-scientific doctrines.
4. Pg. 6 and 7: Other extreme states in the Gothic include suppressions of past trauma, past guilt, anxieties involving class and gender.
5. Pg. 7: Landscapes in American Gothic explores “inhuman and pitiless” nature such as mountains and wasteland.

5 main important ideas in this chapter were, on page 2: Gothic in the 1800s wasn’t how we see it today rather than a “lifestyle” back then it was a form of description or expression. An example of this in the text was “slavery and racial issues, unprogressive societies”. Gothicism was used with a negative connotation to describe bad things. On page 3: As the history of Gothicism progresses there is a growing relationship with the gore aspect of gothic culture. It was used as a way to describe death or torture. An example given included the pursuit of a runaway slave with dogs and a man suspended in a cage with no water who will then have his eyes pecked out by birds. On page 6: Gothics were considered to be out-of-the-box individuals, as gothic became a form of a lifestyle rather than a way of description. With this lifestyle the text talks of taboos such as “profanities, demonism, occultism, necromancy, and incest”. While we don’t know how these taboos originated it’s interesting to connect the description and lifestyle to each other. Also on page 6, Gothism today is described as “dark and gloomy” usually referring to black attire, makeup, etc. The text makes the connection between dark= evil and white = virtues. It seems very apparent but it’s so subliminally introduced into texts and language that it’s overlooked. Then on page 7, a contradictory element to Gothicism was introduced in the text regarding gothic architecture. While the text talks about the aesthetic of its architecture it also puts down the landscape and bareness of it all. Gothics value stone buildings, passageways, and balconies. The text begins to describe this as a “striking” feature of Gothicism; however, it goes on to connect these pieces of architecture to prisons that share much of the same features.

CoffeHouse #3

The 5 main important ideas in this chapter was: The background info on how to present (Page 4). The way to describe a situation to represent a gothic genre demonstration (Page 5). Adding supernatural events (Page 6). Talking about a mysterious setting (Page 7). Creating a mystery suspense atmosphere (Page 4).

-SarkerNoha