I would ask you to consider the end of the first story in the packet, that of Sir Bertrand. We find our hero trapped in a sort of mausoleum being attacked by animate marble statues when, all of a sudden, he dashes for a spectral woman, kisses her, and is instantly transported to a nymph-filled paradise.
My question, then, is this: where did the "gothic" go? What do you think the significance of such an abrupt turn in the story is? Also, since the story trails off at the end of the page and the reader is left wondering, how, given what you now know about the gothic, do you think it ends? Will there be a loose connection to some sort of morality, or is our hero in for a surprise?
2 comments:
I admit that during my initial readings of the stories, I was thrown by the ending of Sir Bertrand. Sure, Sir Gawan leaves the "gothic" at the end of his story too, but it is only because he returns to his horse and the path he needed to travel, thus the story seems to come around full circle, whereas we really have no idea what has happened to Sir Bertrand. I think that leaving the conventional story model behind and having an abrupt ending like that can be seen as a kind of "gothic" ending, as it goes against reason like we talked about in class on Wednesday. Also, by not really having a proper ending, the reader continues to think about the story even after it has ended, thus revealing how affected they have been by what they've read. The ability to manipulate emotions is also a gothic element, so after talking it through, the "anti-ending" seems all the more fitting.
I agree thoroughly with the past comment. "Gothic" seems to be yet another ambiguous term that was described by academics looking back on the texts. These author's I believe were not thinking or planning about writing a "gothic" text, rather it was a popular plot structure to the masses. The endings provide the reader to discuss what really happens because it is not truly known, allowing for the story to keep telling itself in new ways for each reader.
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