Gothic texts repeatedly place characters at thresholds where familiar categories become unstable: home/prison, human/monster, reason/madness, past/present.
Faglig kvalitetssikret av lærere og toppstudenter · Følger læreplanen (LK20) · Sist oppdatert 2026-09-14
Learning goal
Analyse Gothic literature through unstable boundaries, uncertainty and transgression rather than a horror-trope checklist.
How to read this model
- Find the unstable boundary.
- Identify the concrete convention or space.
- Ask what is uncertain.
- Trace who controls interpretation or movement.
- Connect to a wider fear or conflict.
Steps in the model
- Familiar / strange – The uncanny makes something known feel disturbingly wrong.
- Home / prison – Architecture can store secrets, history and power.
- Human / monstrous – Monstrosity tests unstable identity or social exclusion.
- Reason / uncertainty – Supernatural claims may remain ambiguous or contested.
- Past / present – Inherited secrets or histories return into current conflict.
- Double / transgression – A double can externalise feared or repressed possibilities.
Explanation
Gothic conventions matter because of the uncertainty and social or psychological pressure they create.
Genre convention is a question-generating lens, not proof of a fixed symbol or meaning.
Examples
- Gothic literature ≠ horror, although it can contain horror.
- A supernatural event should be analysed through certainty, interpretation and function — not simply assumed true.
For the exam
Name the Gothic convention only after showing how it destabilises a boundary in this specific text.