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Entrapment In Gothic Stories Essay

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Gothic writers are well known for their works that induce grotesque and demented images to enter a reader’s brain. However, blood and gore is not the only way that Gothic writers can make your skin crawl, and the hair on the back of your neck rise. Gothic literary works contain themes of supernatural occurrences, and entrapment to induce feelings of fear, and mystery into the reader. Gothic stories contain supernatural occurrences to incite an imminent feeling of darkness, and mystery. Using supernatural themes helps the reader become entrapped in the story, causing the reader to crave more of the story. For example, in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Black Cat in the short story Poe integrates the theme of supernatural by creating a dark and ominous …show more content…

Like in Edgar Allen Poe’s The Black Cat the main character is entrapped by his own mind, stuck inside the prison of his own thoughts. “I am almost ashamed to own-yes, even in this felons cell, I am almost ashamed to own-that the terror and horror which the animal inspired me” (Poe 3). There is often entrapment in gothic stories because it makes the reader wary and have a sense of paranoia. Moreover, the gothic story Prey written by Richard Matheson includes the theme of entrapment. It can be seen when the doll jammed the door, trapping the main character in her house, “she switched on the hall light and tried to open the bolt it was hopelessly wedged” (Matheson 6). This gothic work is an exemplary example of how entrapment induces fear into the reader. Another example of entrapment in gothic stories is in The Devil and Tom Walker written by Washington Irving. The writer describes the main character as being entrapped in their own house, eluding the house to a prison. “The house and its inmates had altogether a bad name” (322). These stories use entrapment as a way to draw in the reader, to entrap them in their stories they

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