In celebration of Halloween, four NEHS members at Covington Catholic High School, KY, explore the enduring appeal of Gothic literature. Brady Cox, Liam Crossen, Levi Sybert, and Jude Thamann examine how Edgar Allan Poe’s tales, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” continue to shape modern horror and our reactions to it.
The Importance of the Gothic Today
Gothic literature is a genre known for its gloomy atmosphere, mysterious storytelling, and supernatural elements. The Gothic genre continued to rise in popularity, and it is still enjoyed by readers today, but why do we still desire to hear the stories that are designed to frighten us? Gothic literature still exists because it explores how humans fear the unknown and can be dangerous from within while adapting to modern aspects of society.
The main reason that Gothic literature continues to be read is that it is based on how we fear what we cannot understand. For example, in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allan Poe uses imagery of the dark lake surrounding the house with a heavy mist to create a gloomy atmosphere isolated from the rest of the world. This fear of the unknown is the primary reason Gothic literature is so popular to this day. One of these techniques is using vague descriptions of monsters or events.
Additionally, Gothic literature frightens us because it reveals how there is a darker part of human nature that we do not always see in everyday life. Gothic writers create characters who reveal that some of the greatest monsters are within the human mind. For example, in Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator argues he is sane despite being a paranoid, unreliable narrator. Poe uses the protagonist of “The Tell-Tale Heart” to show the darker parts of humanity by making the narrator brutally kill the man because he is irrational about the man’s eye, showing how horrible the human mind can become.
Finally, the Gothic genre remains today because it continuously adapts to our society. Later, the setting of Gothic literature switched to different locations, such as factories and laboratories. For example, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is about a scientist who discovers how to reanimate dead matter, allowing him to create a dangerous creature. This novel warns us about how we need to be careful with scientific innovations because they can harm us, which is very relevant today as we keep experimenting on new technologies that could be dangerous without regulation, such as artificial intelligence.
Gothic literature is still relevant to this day because it explores human fears of isolation and the unknown, which are very common. The Gothic genre is also timeless and adapts to society over time; for example, by transitioning from castles to laboratories like those in Shelley’s Frankenstein as society’s interests change over time.
Brady Cox is a sophomore at Covington Catholic High School in northern Kentucky. He is on the tennis, bowling, and academic teams, as well as a new member of NEHS. He has a brother and two dogs, and he enjoys traveling with his family.
Poe and Influences on Modern Gothic
Each year, millions across the world celebrate the spooky season of Halloween. The most famous and influential gothic writer is renowned poet and author Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was the one behind many iconic works, including “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Raven.”
Gothic literature first emerged in England during the 18th century; from there it gained widespread popularity due to its blend of romanticism and the supernatural. The gloomy atmosphere, supernatural beings, and the rise of the genre of horror all relate back to Gothic stories, like those of Edgar Allan Poe.
First and foremost, “The Tell-Tale Heart” helped shape the use of sounds as method to invoke fear during the modern Halloween season. When you think of a creepy movie or haunted house, you probably think of heavy footsteps in the distance, creaking doors or floorboards, and the sound of a beating heart as tension rises. All of these things were partially pioneered by “The Tell-Tale Heart” and still influence horror to this day.
Moreover, “The Cask of Amontillado” helped to influence another key aspect of Halloween, which is the unsettling and eerie nature that certain buildings hold. The “Cask of Amontillado” mostly takes place in the catacombs beneath an Italian city, complete with a seemingly endless maze of tunnels and burial chambers. The descriptions found in the story helped provide the blueprint for modern day haunted attractions, such as haunted houses. So many aspects of horror, a key part of Halloween, can be traced back to the descriptions Poe provides of the catacombs in “The Cask of Amontillado.”
In addition, Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous poem, “The Raven,” provides another key aspect of Halloween, in the form of the namesake of the poem. “The Raven” is widely regarded as a symbol of Halloween. Today, the raven is still a symbol of bad things to come and is widely used as a common decoration for the Halloween season.
Edgar Allan Poe, among other Gothic writers, undoubtedly had a profound impact on the Halloween we know today.
Liam Crossen is a Junior at Covington Catholic High School in Northern Kentucky. His hobbies include running cross country, engaging in debates at mock trial, and playing baseball. He is an active member of his NEHS chapter, serving as the Public Relations officer. Liam is an avid reader and writer, and his favorite novel is The Martian by Andy Weir.
Frankenstein and Gothic Horror
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein published in 1818 is a gothic horror novel that follows Doctor Victor Frankenstein as he creates life via the monster he animates and the time he spends subsequently running from the monster and trying to destroy it.
Shelley uses many literary techniques to enhance the gothic elements of the novel. She uses dark, isolated settings, storms, and descriptions of nature to develop the plot and create suspense and unease. Shelley also implements subtle foreshadowing throughout the novel to create suspense. Toward the beginning of the novel, Victor warns Robert Walton about the dangers of chasing ambition too aggressively, as it could lead to his downfall. Victor chased ambition without giving even the slightest notion to the consequences that could ensue due to his action.
Overall, Frankenstein utilizes many literary techniques to develop the gothic tone of the novel. The techniques make the novel frightening but also develop overarching themes like the consequences of unchecked ambition.
Levi Sybert is a senior at Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, KY. He serves as the Social Media Manager for his school’s NEHS chapter, which he has been a member of for the past three years. In addition to NEHS, Levi participates in VEX Robotics and lacrosse. In his free time, he enjoys hanging out with friends, playing sports, reading, and watching movies. After high school graduation, Levi plans to study mechanical engineering and pursue a career in that field.
Imagination and Terror
Imagination and stories are integral parts of human experience, and few tales are more captivating than a good ghost story heard around a warm, crackling fire. Within these spooky tales, the characters themselves tend to have overactive imaginations, which only increase their terror as they jump at every little movement or sound, conjuring ghastly images of what they could be sensing. Whether or not the spook may be real or simply perceived, there is something about the wandering imagination that only magnifies the fear a character may feel in their most unusual of circumstances.
An excellent illustration of this kind of character is Ichabod Crane from Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” It is detailed by Irving the extent to which the pedagogue got caught up in flights of fancy. Ichabod, though contented with his current life, was always rendering in his mind great fantasies of whatever may have his interest at the time, such as in the instance of his infatuation with the coquette Katrina van Tassel, in which Ichabod thinks about “every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were swimming in their own gravy; […] and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.”
Whether or not the rider chasing Ichabod Crane was a genuine ghost or simply the mischievous Brom Bones trying to run his romantic rival out of town, the fright succeeded in effectively banishing the poor pedagogue from the little, rustic village of Sleepy Hollow, thanks in large part to the teacher’s overactive imagination. When Irving described Ichabod Crane on his ride home that fateful night, he wrote, “Suddenly he heard a groan—his teeth chattered, and his knees smote against the saddle: it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about by the breeze.”
The schoolmaster’s belief in the supernatural only fueled his terror, and when the terrible creature, be it mortal or postmortal, threw the flaming head across the bridge colliding with the skull of Ichabod Crane, it ensured that the terrified pedagogue would never again be seen in that country as long as anyone lived.
The human imagination is a wonderful thing; it is the mother of all creativity and invention, but when turned to the dark, spooky, sneaky, or unknown, the power it can wield is, ironically, unimaginable. As in the tragic case of the terrified schoolmaster Ichabod Crane, an imagination can be one’s downfall. Often, the scariest things out there are in one’s own mind.
Jude Thamann is a junior at Covington Catholic High School in Northern Kentucky. He enjoys reading, writing, and linguistics. He studies Latin, physics, and history in his free time. Jude aspires to be either an author, professor, linguist, or researcher.
National English Honor Society
The National English Honor Society (NEHS), founded and sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta, is the only international organization exclusively for secondary students and faculty who, in the field of English, merit special note for past and current accomplishments. Individual secondary schools are invited to petition for a local chapter, through which individuals may be inducted into Society membership. Immediate benefits of affiliation include academic recognition, scholarship and award eligibility, and opportunities for networking with others who share enthusiasm for, and accomplishment in, the language arts.
America’s first honor society was founded in 1776, but high school students didn’t have access to such organizations for another 150 years. Since then, high school honor societies have been developed in leadership, drama, journalism, French, Spanish, mathematics, the sciences, and in various other fields, but not in English. In 2005, National English Honor Society launched and has been growing steadily since, becoming one of the largest academic societies for secondary schools.
As Joyce Carol Oates writes, “This is the time for which we have been waiting.” Or perhaps it was Shakespeare: “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer . . .” we celebrate English studies through NEHS.
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