Gothic Fiction Today

[lewis17]

As part of my A Level coursework I am studying a few gothic novels namely Frankenstein ,Dorian Gray and some of Poe's short stories and basically explaining how the philophies behind these books and how gothic fiction was in this era has affected poular culture today. Any ideas that could help me? I'm sort of stuck for linking them except for the obvious such as Frankenstein's monsters fame as a horror character even today and Poe's stories' gothic characteristics sitll being in horror today such as castles and winding stairways and the supernatural, etc. Any thoughts would be a great help.

[Modest Proposal]

"A Level" is a term I'm not familiar with, so if you are not from the US I don't know if this will be acceptable, but we have something called 'Southern Gothic'. Most of it is 19th and 20th Century fiction like William Faulkner and Carson McCullers but there is very modern Southern Gothic as well. Have you read or seen Big Fish? This is, in my opinion, a great Southern Gothic story.

Hope it helps.

[dfloyd]

you will find what you want. Wikipedia has a fairly long writeup on what makes a gothic novel, and how some novels qualify, plus a description of the first gothic novel, Otranto's Castle. It also covers Jane Austin's Northanger Abbey which is a parody.