The Integration of the Gothic Elements in the Main Stream into Victorian Fiction

Abstract

In this paper, the researcher intends to discuss the integration of the gothic elements in the mainstream into Victorian fiction with reference to “The Castle of Ortanto”. The researcher starts with a brief introduction about the notion of Gothicism, then poses the hypotheses of the topic which are Victorian fiction is highly influenced with the Gothic trend where the elements of the Gothic literature became the core of Victorian fiction. Besides, the novel of “The Castle of Otranto” written by Horace Walpole is vivid with elements of gothic literature thus marking it as a Gothic fiction itself. In order to prove these hypotheses, the researcher poses some questions for instance; what are the gothic elements? How are the Gothic elements integrated into the Victorian Fiction? How can “The Castle of Otranto” be seen as a gothic work? Then, the researcher relies thoroughly on literary approaches of analyses to conduct this study by bringing gothic elements and Victorian fiction under the spotlight as a method to investigate this topic. Finally, the researcher reaches the findings most importantly are; The movement of gothic literature appeared towards the end of the Victorian era at the end of the eighteenth century and hence after interwoven with Victorian fiction, the researcher recommended that other researchers relevant to this field will dig deep in Horace writing and search for the main ideas about Horace evil writing Inver moment his influence with Gothic traditions.