Synthesis Littérature Anglaise

Mélissa Dall’Angelo P°2

SYNTHESIS

The three documents under study are : an excerpt from a novel by Ann Radcliffe in 1794 called « The Mysteries of Udolpho » ; another extract from a novel by Jane Austen in 1818 called « Northanger Abbey » and a comic book drawn by Nick Cardy in 1972 to illustrate « The Secret Of Sinister House » .

This excerpt from Northanger Abbey (Document A), written in 1803 by Jane Austen, perfectly illustrates the great vogue that England experienced from the late 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century, from the black novel called Gothic. This literature, now little known - apart from a few titles, who knows the aforementioned novels? Yet is at the origine of a whole section of literature from the current imagination, from the fantasy and vampiric novel, to the science fiction.

We will see to what extent these documents allow the reader to understand the main characteristics of the construction about Gothic Fiction.

We may wonder ourselves on which elements of the basics (which become stereotypes) are based on the Gothic  novel.

On the one hand, the main character of text A is Catherine Morland on the other, the heroine in text B is Emily, both are damsel in distress, as in every gothic novel.

While the atmosphere in Document A is characterized by the place which is an abbey with imaginary characters and sounds described like « tempest » «rain » ; « wind » ; « murmurse »..

, Document B depicts a much more scary & agonizing stage scene with stuff like the light : « obscurity » ; « dimly » ; « torch » . As well the place and description is also of great importance in the sense of the feeling reader.

However, Document A & B aren’t parody compared to Document C.

In the excerpt from « The Mysteries of Udolpho » the reader feels anxious whereas in the drawn, the viewer experiences is different and more funny, it's harder to make you feel fear through a drawing (but not a movie !!!).

Unlike the main character from the text B (Emily) , the main character from the text A (Catherine) appears to be more dreamer.

Even if there are some differences, there are similarities too, like I said above : the light is always sifted, or the characters are always in the dark, dimly-light →candles, torch, lamp…

Indeed, in the three documents, we are seeing some style figures like metaphor or hyppalage.

As a conclusion, we can say that these 3 documents show that the interpretation of gothic story can be interpreted in different ways, with the same elments of the first stories were writting but, with some versions more or less compliant.

→ In all the stories we've studied there were ALWAYS damsel in distress, it’s a pillar of a good gothic story.

To conclude, the confrontation between these documents allow us to see that Gothic genre deals with several chacracteristics whiwh stay the same despite the authors who were many according to the eras.

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