Introducing the Gothic

By Sanjay C. Matthew

Sanjay C. Mathew has taught Literature at ACJC for approximately 16 years (he’s not sure, himself). He spends a lot of time lurking on Reddit. Contrary to the stereotype of Literature teachers he reads speculative fiction in his free time. His academic interests centre on Weird Fiction, notably the writers Fritz Leiber and Reggie Oliver, among many more, hence his attachment to the Gothic. He has two children, and is thus deeply familiar with horrors that man should not know of.

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In 2023, Jenna Ortega’s performance as Wednesday Addams in the Netflix series Wednesday kicked off a renewed interest in the Goth aesthetic. All about brooding protagonists, monochrome outfits, and a bold defiance of norms, it is understandable why the Gothic has always been a persistent influence in modern pop culture from Gothic fashion to the Dark Academia aesthetic. But where does it come from? And what does it mean?

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An easy answer to that might just be to say that it is a spooky aesthetic and that’s all there is to it. But the roots of the Gothic are far more complex. We have to start with the late Roman Empire.

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From Rome to Renaissance

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The Goths were a Germanic tribe who in the late 5th century, as the Roman Empire was crumbling, became the first enemies in a thousand years to invade and occupy the city of Rome itself. As such they were seen as the most prominent of the barbarians who had destroyed Roman rule in Western Europe. This ushered in the collapse of Roman urban civilisation and a shift toward feudal Medieval Europe, ruled by the descendants of those barbarians who had destroyed the Empire. 

Fast forwarding a millennium or so, in around the 15th century there was a resurgence of sophisticated urban life, art and culture in Western Europe. There was increasing interest in the glories of the ancient Classical Greek and Roman world and a sense that the learning and achievements of Rome were being reborn. This is a period which historians call the Renaissance (Latin for ‘rebirth’). As part of the prevailing historical narrative, the Medieval period became increasingly (and inaccurately) stereotyped as a time of superstition and backwardness, the “Dark Ages.” One rejection of the Medieval era came in the readoption of Classical-influenced architecture. As this was the new fashion, the equivalent of Renaissance influencers were quite dismissive of Medieval architecture, labelling it ‘Gothic’ (i.e. barbaric). This was where the term began to pick up some of its modern meaning. To be “Gothic” was to be against the mainstream, something which was outdated and odd.

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Reason and Rebellion

Moving on from the Renaissance, by around the 17th to 18th centuries Europe went through something of a scientific revolution. This is the period where early scientists like Newton were developing Calculus and modelling Newtonian physics, where philosophers like Voltaire, Hobbes and Hegel were laying out thoughts about human society and how it could be structured, and the earliest industrialisation started to take place. In short, the groundwork for our modern world was being constructed- this period is known as the Enlightenment. But as Newton tells us, every action generates an equal and opposite reaction, and there was a philosophical response to Enlightenment ideas of order and harmony. Some people found this was too rigid and felt that it left no room for individuality and freedom. The Romantic movement rejected what they saw as the dehumanising, rigid and cold logic of Enlightenment thought in favour of prioritising individual experience over social norms, a connection with nature rather than domination of it. The Gothic grew out of this desire to explore the irrational, emotional, defiant aspects of humanity.

Gothic literature and the Gothic aesthetic therefore are about challenging norms, putting things out of place- not necessarily out of defiance but out of a desire to express individuality. However, it does recognise that challenging norms can also often be scary.

The Uncanny and the Supernatural

This is where the uncanny and supernatural aspects of the Gothic arise from- what is more definite than the boundary between life and death? And metaphorically, this can be even more important. A ghost, after all, can be scary but perhaps it can also be symbolic of a character haunted by something…maybe even their own past? A dark and spooky Gothic building can be more than just architecture, it can convey a message about entrapment, about secrets hidden beneath the surface.

This is why we often find elements like haunted houses, odd and weird costume or set designs, characters who have dark secrets or who appear insane in Gothic fiction. Through elements like this, an artist can convey the unease that we might feel in our own lives.

Why the Gothic?

It is this unease that Gothic art seeks to explore, to let us confront our anxieties. And what do we mean by anxieties? This could be about social change, about individual change, about our own identities, about our fear of the unknown.

Dracula by Bram Stoker explored Victorian fears about female independence and foreign invasion. Count Dracula is an immortal, powerful figure from out of Eastern Europe as well as the depths of time who invades 1899 London and starts preying on the female characters. A more modern masterpiece like IT by Stephen King, explores the secrets, violence and trauma that can be present in the lives of children. 

Or to come back to Wednesday, how an unconventional person can function in a world that operates differently from how she does- we could easily see how this could be a metaphor for the experience of someone who is not neurotypical.

By using the Gothic, artists can get us to confront and examine things that we might not be comfortable with- things that can scare us but from which we can also learn.