Rachel’s Gothic Space

The school yard and the park in the night, are next to each other and I chose these particular space because, it definitely does fall into a category of a gothic space with many characteristic. It’s a definition of Todorov’s uncanny, which is closet to reality and it is haunting just by being around there, this spaces gives me the chills and I can see shadows of the trees and the light poles that gives me the anxiety just walking there by myself alone, when there’s hardly anyone around the park and the school yard. In the first picture, one of the characteristic that the park gives for example was the dark and gloomy sky when the clouds flow by, and the trees with no leaves and with a blurry vision it’s hard to see clear in the night time. In Todorov’s uncanny it stated that if a reader “decides that the laws of reality are being upheld and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we say that the work belongs to another genre: the uncanny.” When walking alone in the night time by park, and trees that have no leaves, when the clouds are gray and gloomy, there was also a haunting and eerie noise that went pass me that will count as the uncanny. This will also include the second picture at the chess board area, with no one around and items on the table was left deserted; like it was abandon and the rusty benches with old paint marks and scratches will explain how old the benches were.

          In the third picture, it also fall under another definition of uncanny, which was Sigmund Freud’s definition of uncanny his definition of the uncanny is if it is repressed, into anxiety, then among instances of frightening things there must be one class in which the frightening element can be shown to be something repressed which recurs  and this class of frightening things would then constitute the uncanny. I felt the anxiety and fear just walking by the park and the school yard. At the school yard there are some characteristic that makes it gothic space, with the falling leaves from not only the trees but including the bushes and the prickly branches on the trees and bushes and the branches was hanging from trees like there’s a hand. 

       One of the gothic stories that help me understand a gothic space was a graphic novel that we read called ” The Iron Tonic, 1969,” by Edward Gorey. In each page of a graphic novel there’s characteristic of a gothic spaces whether it’s in the forest or if it’s the outside of an old grey hotel, it shows characteristic like of an gothic architecture and a gothic space. There are some pages from that graphic novel that have similarities as the park and the school yard, and it is the bushes and trees with no leaves and there is also a scene where it’s gloomy and dark at night and a group of people huddling together looking lost. What I’ve also learned about investigating an actual gothic space or place is that anything can be gothic when there’s gothic characteristics, like a gothic architecture, haunted areas, rusty and old buildings, parks, or abandon places is a definition of a gothic space. And just being in the park and the school yard gives me anxiety and fear just walking pass it or inside the park area.