There is little question that Hugo fully intended Quasimodo to evoke horror in… Works Cited Baldick, Chris. Yet the Mariner himself appears to be trapped in this supernatural world as a gothic literature essay of ghostly manifestations which emanate from the realms of the unknown, gothic literature essay. Their alliterative form was, of course, how poetry survived. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. While many did not manage to produce ideas that survived more than them, others succeeded and actually produced thinking that remained in society for a long period of time consequent to their death.
Extract of sample "Elements of gothic literature"
Gothic literature, a subgenre of Romantic literature, was a literary movement of the late 18th and early to mid- 19th century that employed dark imagery, melodramatic narration, and gothic literature essay atmosphere of terror and mystery. Authors of Gothic literature include Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Mary Shelley. This genre consistently shows its characters at the whim and mercy of forces which they cannot understand and are gothic literature essay to stop. This is especially true of the female characters of Gothic literature, who are portrayed as pure and naïve, unnaturally beautiful, sexually alluring, and fated for tragedy. His first victim in the novel is the beautiful Lucy Westerna, whose attractiveness is evidenced by the marriage proposals recently received from three men.
Under the influence of Dracula, Lucy begins sleepwalking and he overtakes her in a cemetery, gothic literature essay. Her helplessness is further evidenced when she is given bedrest and blood transfusions under the care of Dr. Van Helsing. When her mother unwittingly removes the cloves of garlic strung about the room, Dracula is able to come to her as a wolf, killing her and sealing her tragic fate. She confesses to the murder due to her superstition that those she loves dies because she loves them too much and because the Catholic priest she confesses to advises her she will go to hell if she does not confess. Shelley presents the character of Justine as another beautiful, gothic literature essay, powerless women of gothic literature.
When she escapes, Christine plans to run away to escape Erik for good, but not before performing a final song for him. Later, when she is trapped by Erik again, Christine allows him to kiss her and returns his kiss. When Erik dies, Christine keeps her promise to him to visit his grave and return the ring he gave her. In summary, women in Gothic literature are portrayed as beautiful, pure, gothic literature essay, and fated for tragedy. And Christine, of The Phantom of the Opera, shows the purity of women in this genre which is beautiful touch the heart of even the most monstrous of villains.
Though this gothic literature essay of women may appear to be sexist of misogynistic from a modern perspective, it is certainly a staple of female character of the Gothic novel. Leroux, G. The Phantom of the Opera. New York: Puffin Books. Shelley, M. Frankenstein, or Gothic literature essay Modern Prometheus, gothic literature essay. New York: Oxford University Press. Stoker, B. With our help, you can forget about your worries as our writers are professionals in academic writing. All you have to do is to place an order on our site including all your requirements and setting the deadline.
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My professor was completely satisfied. Fantastic work! How Are Women Depicted And Treated In Gothic Literature? References Leroux, G. Share this post:. Categories College Life Essay Samples Research Paper Writing Student's Life Studying Gothic literature essay Term Paper Writing Writing Help. Testimonials Writing Exercise 3 Dropbox freewriting If you are looking for a qualified writer, do not hesitate to choose this service and you will not be disappointed.
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These were used to mold new ideas and new ways of art in a way that was unprecedented at the time. Two examples of this kind of development are Nicola Pisano's marble pulpit of the Pisa Cathedral and Hieronymus osch's "The Last Judgment. Supported by nine columns, the pulpit is shaped like an octagon and placed on semi-circular arches. Three of the columns are supported by marble lions. The main octagon contains…. Bibliography Bio Hieronymus Bosch Biography. Nicola Pisano Most individuals fail to appreciate life to the fullest because they concentrate on being remembered as some of the greatest humans who ever lives.
This makes it difficult for them to enjoy the simple pleasures in life, considering that they waste most of their time trying to put across ideas that are appealing to the masses. While many did not manage to produce ideas that survived more than them, others succeeded and actually produced thinking that remained in society for a long period of time consequent to their death. Creativity is generally regarded as one of the most important concepts in society, considering that it generally induces intense feelings in individuals. It is responsible for progress and for the fact that humanity managed to produce a series of ideas that dominated society's thinking through time.
In order for someone to create a concept that will live longer than him or…. English Literature The medieval period in English history spans across some years. The Anglo-Saxon period consisted of literature that was retained in memory. The major influence of the literature up until the Norman Conquest was mainly of the religious kind. The Anglo-Saxons were primarily known for their contribution to poetry. Their alliterative form was, of course, how poetry survived. Sine they wrote nothing down until they were "Christianized," Abrams suggest that that Christian ideals influenced how things were recorded and it would also explain why some non-Christian literature did not survive.
Beowulf is what Abrams refers to as the "greatest" German epic, even though it appears to many pre-Christian ideas. Chaucer brilliantly weaves…. Works Cited Abrams, M. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Norton and Company. Encyclopedia Britannica. Chicago: William Benton Publisher. Wright, Meg. Early English Writers. New York: Marshall Cavendish Corporation. Lestat The Vampire Chronicles, Anne Rice's series of contemporary novels, contained fascinating tales of love and death using the gory and overtly sexual vampire mythology as a literary backdrop.
The vampire aesthetic of immortality, bloodlust and gothic art provide a romantic backdrop to Rice's thrilling work and character development. Throughout these novels, the vampire character, Lestat de Lioncourt, was often the focus of the violently romantic stories of these superhuman creatures that prey upon humans and drink blood to survive. Lestat, or "The Brat Prince" as he is often named, is a bisexual, immortal being, known as a fan of art and music provided the context of these stories. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast the Lestat character, and his varying levels of authority and power described in the two novels Interview with a Vampire, and Queen of the Damned.
Interview With A Vampire, Rice's first…. Poe, Fall of the House of Usher Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is perhaps the best-known American entry into the genre of Romantic and Gothic tale, yet it is worth asking what elements actually identify it as such. Spitzer describes the level of Gothic excess here: Roderick and Madeline, twins chained to each other by incestuous love, suffering separately but dying together, represent the male and the female principle in that decaying family whose members, by the law of sterility and destruction which rules them, must exterminate each other; Roderick has buried his sister alive, but the revived Madeline will bury Roderick under her falling body.
The "fall" of the House of Usher involves not only the physical fall of the mansion, but the physical and moral fall of the two protagonists. Spitzer To a certain degree, this marks Poe's story out for particular…. Works Cited Allison, John. Coleridgean Self-Development: Entrapment and Incest in "The Fall of the House of Usher. Bailey, J. Butler, David. Damon, S. Thomas Holley Chivers: Friend of Poe. New York: Harper, A description of the entrance of Elmer Stark, father of Eddy and Tony, into the world of the story makes both the masculine and the feminine exotic, other, and unknowable, while at the same time igniting tensions and passions -- outright lust, in fact -- between them in a fetishization of the other.
Nettie, the Stark matriarch, is described watching this stranger wash, "his naked shoulders, the gleam of his skin, and the lines of charred bronze where the sun had burned his neck and wrists, the faint red-gold of the hairs that edged from under his belt at his waist" Lane, p. This description makes it clear that Elmer is not being viewed as a human, but as an other, just as Nettie is creating her own distance and just as distances were created with the native peoples through such objectification. ith such beginnings as these, it is…. Works Cited Kulperger, Shelley. Familiar Ghosts: Feminist Postcolonial Gothic in Canada. Waterloo, on: Wilfird Laurier University Press, Lane, Patrick. Red Dog, Red Dog. Segal, Francesca. Ghostly Visions from the Top of an Apple Tree [review].
The Observer, 6 June Accessed 4 April All without distinction were branded as fanatics and phantasts; not only those, whose wild and exorbitant imaginations had actually engendered only extravagant and grotesque phantasms, and whose productions were, for the most part, poor copies and gross caricatures of genuine inspiration; but the truly inspired likewise, the originals themselves. And this for no other reason, but because they were the unlearned, men of humble and obscure occupations. Coleridge iographia IX To a certain extent, Coleridge's polemical point here is consistent with his early radical politics, and his emergence from the lively intellectual community of London's "dissenting academies" at a time when religious non-conformists like the Unitarian Coleridge were not permitted to attend Oxford or Cambridge: he is correct that science and philosophy were more active among "humble and obscure" persons, like Joseph Priestley or Anna Letitia arbauld, who had emerged from the dissenting academies because barred by religion or gender ….
By mid-century, however, these forces in the use of grotesque in prose were fully integrated as a matter of style. We can contrast two convenient examples from mid-century England, in Dickens's novel David Copperfield, compared with Carlyle's notorious essay originally published in under the title "Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question. Most of Dickens' villains -- the villainous dwarf Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop, the hunchback Flintwinch in Little Dorrit, the junkshop-proprietor Krook who perishes of spontaneous combustion in Bleak House -- have names and physical characteristics that signpost them as near-perfect examples of the grotesque. The notion that this grotesquerie is, in some way, related to the streak of social criticism in Dickens' fiction is somewhat attractive, because even the social problems in these novels are configured in ways that recall the grotesque, like the Circumlocution Office in Little Dorrit, Boffin's mammoth dust-heap in Our Mutual Friend, or the philanthropist and negligent mother Mrs.
Jellaby in Bleak House who proves Dickens' polemical point about charity beginning at home by being rather grotesquely eaten by the cannibals of Borrioboola-Gha. We can see Dickens' grotesque in a less outlandish form, but still recognizable as grotesque, in the introduction of the villainous Uriah Heep in Chapter 15 of David Copperfield: When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent upon the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on the ground floor in a little round tower that formed one side of the house , and quickly disappear.
The low arched door then opened, and the face came out. It was quite as cadaverous as it had looked in the window, though in the grain of it there was that tinge of red which is sometimes to be observed in the skins of red-haired people. It belonged to a red-haired person -- a youth of fifteen, as I take it now, but looking much older -- whose hair was cropped as close as the closest stubble; who had hardly any eyebrows, and no eyelashes, and eyes of a red-brown, so unsheltered and unshaded, that I remember wondering how he went to sleep.
He was high-shouldered and bony; dressed in decent black, with a white wisp of a neckcloth; buttoned up to the throat; and had a long, lank, skeleton hand, which particularly attracted my attention, as he stood at the pony's head, rubbing his chin with it, and looking up at us in the chaise. Dickens, Chapter 15 We may note the classic elements of. Think not thy ever-obedient wife rebels against thy authority. I have no will but that of my Lord and the Church. The characters experience helplessness and terror in the face of the forces of beyond, rather than any sense of empowerment that they can control them with science.
Morality, rather than reason enables them to survive. The realism that alpole perceives in his narrative is the morality that the characters struggle with, in attempting to do the 'correct' thing. Finally, at the end of the novel, Manfred realizes his ancestor's crimes and repents: "Thou guiltless but unhappy woman! Unhappy by my crimes! Works Cited The Castle of Otranto. The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, Walpole, Horace. The Castle of Ontranto. Originally published Eliot, The Subjective over the Objective Modernism was a reaction against Realism and its focus on objective depiction of life as it was actually lived.
Modernist writers derived little artistic pleasure from describing the concrete details of the material world and the various human doings in it. They derived only a little more pleasure from describing the thoughts of those humans inhabiting the material world. Their greatest pleasure, however, was in expressing the angst, confusion, and frustration of the individual who has to live in that world. Merriam-Webster, p. Modernist writers used novel means for expressing these newly intense emotions. They did not always express the individual's confusion and frustration by relating the inner discourse of the individual. Instead, they manipulated the structure, style, and content of their works to cultivate a certain effect on the reader. aym, Vol. They wanted to convey the experience….
Snow, C. The Realists: Portraits of Eight Novelists. New York: Macmillan. Fried, M. Realism, Writing, Disfiguration: On Thomas Eakins and Stephen Crane. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Wilson, E. Encyclopedia of the enlightenment. New York, NY: Facts on File. Zafirovski, M. The Enlightenment and Its Effects on Modern Society. New York: Springer. The 'creator's dilemma' is when Shelley and Frankenstein experienced giving "birth" to life while also being responsible for its death upon its birth. This argument presented by Moers is given central focus in this paper. Using her argument that the novel "Frankenstein" presented the "creator's dilemma," where creators Shelley and Frankenstein both became creators and destructors of human life.
Plato's Phaedo and STC's "Christabel" In Phaedo 80ff, Socrates outlines Plato's theory of Forms, particularly attempting to prove that the eternal Forms are of divine origin. Through analogy with the living body and the dead body, Socrates in dialogue with Cebes forces his interlocutor to admit that the body-soul dualism admits to a qualitative difference between the two, and then Socrates begins to describe the separation of body and soul, such as we would describe as a ghost: "And, my friend, we must believe that the corporeal is burdensome and heavy and earthly and visible. And such a soul is weighed down by this and is dragged back into the visible world, through fear of the invisible and of the other world, and so, as they say, it flits about the monuments and the tombs, where shadowy shapes of souls have been seen, figures of those souls which were not….
Works Cited Bennett, Andrew. Romantic Poets and the Culture of Posterity. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, Frede, Dorothea. The Cambridge Companion to Plato. Gamer, Michael. Romanticism and the Gothic: Genre, Reception and Canon Formation. e see the creative mind at work in "The Fall of the House of Usher" as Poe creates a parallel between the house and Roderick. The suspense with this thriller is heightened with the fact that the narrator is inches from the same fate as Roderick. There is undeniable connection between the two that is never fully disclosed. The narrator looks for logical ways to explain what occurs in the home and he also wishes to find out the reason behind Roderick's agitation. Interestingly, Roderick believes the house is the source of all of his tension, yet he rarely leaves the house.
The image of the house sinking dramatizes Roderick's sinking state of mind. In essence, both are experiencing a type of split. The house is sitting upon an unstable foundation and Roderick does not attempt to fool anyone by denying he suffers from a mental disorder that shakes his…. Works Cited Cangeri, Francesca. Aspects of Edgar Allen Poe's Cosmology and His Theory of the Short Story Hoffman, Daniel. San Diego: Greenhaven Press. Magistrale, Tony. American Writers. Parini, Jay. et al. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Yet, we also see that he still does not understand the true origin of the beast -- the human within. The fact that he dies before he is successful, yet the monster obviously goes off to end his own fate, indicates that the evil both originated, and eventually died with him -- the true source from which it sprang.
Victor Hugo's Hunchback: An Illustrative Device In Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame, there exists a strikingly similar theme -- if different in form. Although it is definitely true that Hugo's famous Quasimodo is a bit more innocuous than the Frankenstein monster, he nonetheless evokes a certain horror if only in appearance. Yet, much like in Shelley's work, Hugo brings out the monster that is human nature within the other character's interactions, motivations, and actions in the story. There is little question that Hugo fully intended Quasimodo to evoke horror in…. Works Cited Baldick, Chris. In Frankenstein's Shadow: Myth, Monstrosity, and Nineteenth-Century Writing.
Ebbs, Robert. htm Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Online version. Edgar Allen Poe is one of the most famous American authors, but many of his works are not explicitly about the American experience. His "gothic" fiction is filled with suspense, the macabre, the grotesque, and the dark side of human nature. However, a deeper analysis of Poe's works can reveal parallels between his fiction and the American experience. One of Poe's works that can particularly symbolize and exemplify the American experience is his short story "The Fall of the House of Usher. In several ways, Edgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a parable of the American experience because the author….
immanent and transcendent" Yet the Mariner himself appears to be trapped in this supernatural world as a result of ghostly manifestations which emanate from the realms of the unknown. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" was first published in Lyrical Ballads in , a collection of poetry written and published jointly by Coleridge and his good friend William Wordsworth. Yet the text of the poem generally in use today appeared…. Great Britain: Cambridge University Press, Nooden, Lars. Animal Symbolism in Celtic Mythology. November 22, Accessed February 27, Spencer, John Hill. A Coleridge Companion. London: Macmillan, Giaour is cursed to be a vampire as punishment, while Ruthven seems to revel in the power and the role this gives him. He also describes women as adulteresses and worse and treats them as fodder for his needs on every level.
Aubrey notes this and does not like it, but he also does not manage to escape from the man or his way of life. In the end, his own sister is destroyed by this man, just as was Ianthe and countless others. Of course, Giaour also indulges in illicit sex with Leila, certainly illicit in the Muslim social order, though it would be in Europe as well. Leila's relationship with Hassan would also be seen as illicit in Europe, though, which is why Byron makes the point of noting that this sort of arrangement was more common in the past than it is in his own time.
Works Cited Byron, Lord. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, Polidori, John. Bleiler ed. New York: Dover, Fall of the House of Usher Although Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is a work of gothic horror, it is worth noting that the story's meaning is constructed in part by the use of puns. I do not use the word "pun" to refer to a joking play on words, but rather on the conscious use of a word that plays upon two potential meanings: the effect is rhetorical rather than humorous. The first of these puns is obvious and is contained in the title: E.
Arthur Robinson notes the double meaning whereby "the House of the title refers both to Usher's lineage and to his ancestral home" Robinson In other words, Roderick Usher's death is the end of the "House of Usher" -- his family bloodline -- but it is also marked, terrifyingly, by the literal collapse of an edifice. But I would like to…. One cannot build the right sort of house -- the houses are not really adequate, "Blinds, shutter, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to keep out the star. Grant it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot in like a white-hot arrow. The inside, but for some reason, it is also the authority involved, and one that is able to ensure adequacy. In a similar vein, the "churches were freest from it," but they offer only an homage' to safety, and use their power to shut people out from the light that "made the eyes ache" and had been inhumanly oppressive.
The prison, though, is "so repulsive a place that even the obtrusive star blinked at it and left it to such refuse of reflected light as could find. Labor in Little Dorrit. Young, Arlene. This is why wars are fought with bloodletting, why torture takes place, and why neither violence nor war is limited to the physical carnage of the battlefield. Nordstrom 59 The early death of Clifton's mother, as a result of having to powerlessly rely on a liar and a letch who could not provide for his family, is the ultimate example of self-inflicted violence, as is Gillman's character resorting to an expression of madness to resist her powerlessness.
It was only slightly more "appropriate" for a women to realize madness as it was for her to throw herself from a three story window. Making Literature Matter 3rd Edition. New York: Bedford, St. Martin's, , Gelfant, Blanche H. The Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American Short Story. New York: Columbia University Press, Herndl, Diane Price. Invalid Women: Figuring Feminine Illness in American Fiction and Culture, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, age and several thousand miles separated Russian Alexander Pushkin and American Flannery O'Connor. This essay seeks to illustrate why they deserve to be considered as icons of world literature.
Pushkin's body of works spans poetry -- romantic and political, essays, and novels. Influential music composers like Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Rimsky Korsakov and Tchaikovsky adapted the lyrical and dramatic elements of Pushkin's works. Flannery O'Connor's work, on the other hand, was largely restricted to short stories. The profundity of her work lies in its uniqueness -- not volume. Her stories hide gruesomeness, truth and religious thought that is not immediately obvious at a superficial level. The short-story "The Queen of Spades," while not necessarily representative of all of Pushkin's work gives us an idea of the narrative skills that keep the reader on edge. Pushkin, The twists in the story combine elements of fantasy. ut at heart this is a story…. Bibliography Pushkin, A.
Charles Johnston. New York: Viking Penguin, Pushkin, A. Philip L. New York: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. Rosemary Edmonds. New York: Penguin, Learning Tools Study Documents Writing Guides About us FAQs Our Blog Citation Generator Flash Card Generator Login SignUp. Filter By:. Keyword s Filter by Keywords: add comma between each. Most Relevant Recently Added Most Popular. Home Topics Literature Gothic Literature Essays Gothic Literature Essays Examples. Having trouble coming up with an Essay Title? Use our essay title generator to get ideas and recommendations instantly.
Both Ann Radcliffe's The Italian… Works Cited: Austen, Jane. Contact in Canadian Literature Words: Length: 11 Pages Document Type: Essay Paper : Gothic Feminism in Wollstoncraft and Words: Length: 14 Pages Document Type: Term Paper Paper : Gothic Motifs in Christabel Samuel Words: Length: 3 Pages Document Type: Term Paper Paper : She adds to the tragedy of Christabel's life, and Coleridge makes it quite… References Ashton, Rosemary. Gothic Cathedrals and Light From the End Words: Length: 4 Pages Document Type: Essay Paper : Gothic the Flamboyant Gothic Is Words: Length: 2 Pages Document Type: Essay Paper : The preference for ornament over the simple construction elements has… Bibliography 1.
Gothic Period Cultural and Construction Words: Length: 17 Pages Document Type: Essay Paper : Skin Shows Gothic Horror and the Technology Words: Length: 2 Pages Document Type: Essay Paper : She pinpoints the Gothic tradition as stemming from 18th century literature, and believes that this tradition has gone on to change media and reproduce itself within the medium of… References Halberstam, J. What Kinds of Gothic Femininities Are Portrayed in the Monk and How Are They Symbolized Words: Length: 2 Pages Document Type: Essay Paper : Samuel Taylor Coleridge's Christabel Gothic Words: Length: 3 Pages Document Type: Term Paper Paper : Essentially Christabel and Geraldine… Works Cited Abrahms, M.
Music Art and Literature Words: Length: 4 Pages Document Type: Term Paper Paper : Religion and British Literature Words: Length: 5 Pages Document Type: Term Paper Paper : However, the many… Works Cited: 1. Gothic and Macabre An Explication Words: Length: 3 Pages Document Type: Term Paper Paper : Nowhere is it more… Works Cited Poe, Edgar a. Literature That Is Japanese Words: Length: 3 Pages Document Type: Essay Paper : Gothic architecture thrived during the high and late medieval period. The upper echelons of the feudal system were so impressed by the looming cathedrals that they had their castles built in the same Gothic style.
These castles are striking yet, at the same time, sinister Sleep is a physically and mentally vulnerable state; the body is unconscious, unsuspecting, and the mind is visited frequently by an array of distorted images called dreams. Only devilish and cruel predators hunt sleeping prey, when struggle is least viable and victory is guaranteed. Gothic Fiction Gothic Literature. In an essay concerning the components of the Romantic novel, James P. He succinctly describes the difference as one of intent: the Romantic novel In The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson demonstrates a strong depiction of oppression towards women.
Jackson introduces the idea that women have a weaker mind and a tendency to act childish. This idea can be seen through the deteriorating mental health of the character, Gothic Literature Shirley Jackson The Haunting of Hill House. On the crisp fall evening, I attended a play at the theatre. The play was directed by Janette Gaines. The character, Ichabod Crane was played by Lucas Schmidt. The setting took place Gothic Literature The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Theatre. The idea that you could transform into something evil scares us all, therefore gothic literature uses this as a common tactic to induce greater fear.
The Monk, published in by Matthew Lewis, holds the distinction of one of the most popular and most controversial Gothic novels of all times. Set in the backdrop of the Protestant Reformation in Spain, the novel addresses and challenges many sensitive, tabooed societal norms, Gender Gothic Literature. Lewis tackles the problem of the fetishization of purity that the Catholic Church, and society outside the Church hold so highly. Lewis presents the idea that despite It is important for those with problems to seek refuge in a place where they can better sort out their difficulties and find solutions to their predicaments. Different people have different methods of coping with their problems: some attempt to distract themselves, others simply find This genre consistently shows its characters at the whim and mercy of forces which they cannot understand and are powerless to stop.
This is especially true of the female characters of Gothic literature, who are portrayed as pure and naïve, unnaturally beautiful, sexually alluring, and fated for tragedy. His first victim in the novel is the beautiful Lucy Westerna, whose attractiveness is evidenced by the marriage proposals recently received from three men. Under the influence of Dracula, Lucy begins sleepwalking and he overtakes her in a cemetery. Her helplessness is further evidenced when she is given bedrest and blood transfusions under the care of Dr. Van Helsing. When her mother unwittingly removes the cloves of garlic strung about the room, Dracula is able to come to her as a wolf, killing her and sealing her tragic fate. She confesses to the murder due to her superstition that those she loves dies because she loves them too much and because the Catholic priest she confesses to advises her she will go to hell if she does not confess.
Shelley presents the character of Justine as another beautiful, powerless women of gothic literature. When she escapes, Christine plans to run away to escape Erik for good, but not before performing a final song for him. Later, when she is trapped by Erik again, Christine allows him to kiss her and returns his kiss. When Erik dies, Christine keeps her promise to him to visit his grave and return the ring he gave her. In summary, women in Gothic literature are portrayed as beautiful, pure, and fated for tragedy. And Christine, of The Phantom of the Opera, shows the purity of women in this genre which is beautiful touch the heart of even the most monstrous of villains.
Though this portrayal of women may appear to be sexist of misogynistic from a modern perspective, it is certainly a staple of female character of the Gothic novel.
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