gothic short story essay

Oct 30, 2018

How to write a gothic short story in 20 minutes.

Last year, I was teaching my year 10 class and had asked them to write a gothic story in 200 words and in 20 minutes... The look on their faces was one of horror. However, this is an important skill in the current GCSE system. Students have 45 minutes to write a story or description at the end of a gruelling GCSE exam paper. For most students the time constraints of the first 4 questions means that they actually have far less than the 45 minutes in reality. So faced with 15 horror-struck faces, I decided I would put my money where my mouth was. The task was difficult but this is what I produced. Stay tuned for my top tips.

Under the roof of stars the old church stood, long forgotten. Its arched windows gazed out at the cemetery below. Crumbling, the roof jutted upwards, as if reaching desperately for the heavens. Grass and brambles crept through the forgotten building, the only thing still living in this macabre landscape.

Voices slowly started to penetrate the silence of the night and eventually from behind a tombstone slid a pale girl, dressed in a tatty nightdress and clutching a dirty one-eyed teddy. Her brown eyes looked like pools that went on forever and widened as she caught sight of the towering church.

“It’s okay teddy,” she spoke soothingly. “Mummy will be here soon. She said to meet her at the church. She won’t forget us.” The girl sat down on the large stone step holding her knees; her eyes shot around at the surrounding trees that seemed to loom over her and stretch witch-like hands before her.

Time went slowly.

The clock on the church refused to budge; time had stopped here long ago. The girl and her teddy waited. Night continued. No light would ever again reach this church. The girl and her teddy wait there still, hopeful for her lost mother. Trapped forever in this limbo, she wanders the graveyard, around the church, never pausing to read the gravestone that reads her name.

These are my tips on how to write a story in 20 minutes:

1) Always know where your story is going. You should know from the start what is going to happen at the climax of your story - this should be the big exciting moment that your piece is working towards. If you don't know where it is going, you won't know which direction to take it in and it will end up being a mess you can't write your way out of.

2) Keep it short. Obviously it is going to be short in length if you only have 20 minutes, or even if you have the full 45. However, it should also be short in terms of the time that you are writing a story about. There is no point trying to write an epic story spanning decades or even months or weeks in 20 minutes. Tell a story of a moment in time as I did above and then tell it in detail.

3) Have a few stories up your sleeve. The story I told is not new; there have been numerous films and books in which a character doesn't realise they are dead. Borrow and steal twists and climaxes from stories you like and make them your own. It is worth having a handful of these stories ready and revised in a story. The likelihood is that you will be able to adapt your story for the question you have been given. For example if you are asked to tell a story about a person you cared about, my story could be adapted so that it is told from the point of view of the girl and more emphasis could be on her love for her mother; if the question asked you to write a story about a time you went to the beach, the description could be of a wild beach-side cemetery again told from the point of view of the girl.

4) The description, action, speech formula. Most stories need description (of people and places), action and speech. Speech is probably the area that can be missed out most successfully but some well-placed speech can be a really effective way of developing a character. Therefore, I always try to write keeping these three areas in mind. As I start each paragraph, I ask myself which area has been missed in recent paragraphs and let this lead me. If I have not had any description for a couple of paragraphs, for example, I may decide this is the moment for a description of the place or the character that is currently the focus.

These are just a few of the ways that you can successfully write a short story. If you need help with story-writing or literacy and live in the Oxenhope, Keighley, Haworth area, then come to one of my classes for school-age students. Contact me too if you are an older aspiring or hobby writer who wants to get back into writing! Call 07743378429.

VICTORIAN GOTHIC LIBRARY

Georgina Gale
May 31, 2021

10 excellent gothic short stories you can read for free

Updated: Feb 25

In a dimly lit street, a man walks behind a skeleton, whose true form is hidden from the man by feminine clothing and a mask with a beautiful woman's face, which conceals the skull from his view.

It's a shame that it's taken me so long to realise – 5 years, in fact – just how much I love a good short story. On balance, I find that I tend to prefer gothic short stories and novellas to gothic novels, even when written by the same author. I know I’m not alone here, as one of the champions of horror, Stephen King, has a similar love of them, lamenting in his introduction to Skeleton Crew (1985) that “most of [us] have forgotten the real pleasures of the short story”. He goes on to say

“a short story is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger. That is not, of course, the same thing as an affair or a marriage, but kisses can be sweet, and their very brevity forms their own attraction.”

Don't agree? Perhaps you're reading the wrong ones. Whether you’re a sceptic or simply at a loss as to where to start, here are 10 excellent and less-known Victorian gothic short stories you can find in the library and read for free:

IRISH VAMPIRES

'Ken’s Mystery', Julian Hawthorne (1888)

“This is November-eve, when, as tradition asserts, the dead arise and walk about, and fairies, goblins, and spiritual beings of all kinds have more freedom and power than on any other day of the year. One can see you’ve never been to Ireland.”

An American artist visits the UK during his travels through Europe, but cuts his trip short after a strange encounter on Halloween in Ireland. Fascinated and amused by Irish folklore, he ignores the local’s warnings and superstitions, thereby falling foul of a centuries-old vampire who seems able to bend the laws of time. His bewitching experience haunts him every Halloween since.

HAUNTED CEMETERIES

'The Dead and the Countess', Gertrude Atherton (1902)

“All the earth beneath him was filled with lamentation. They wailed for mercy, for peace, for rest; they cursed the foul fiend who had shattered the locks of death”

A concerned priest tends to the deathbed of a local countess, who fears the fate of her soul after a railway is built through the nearby church grounds. After returning to his cemetery to bless those buried there, the priest is shocked to learn that, for the dead in his graveyard, the afterlife is not as peaceful as he imagined.

Although not the scariest I've read, it is a more creative take on a ghost narrative, and there is a melancholy sweetness about this story which stayed with me.

SINISTER FAE

'The White People', Arthur Machen (1904)

“there were other rocks that were like animals, creeping, horrible animals…others like dead people lying on the grass. I went on among them, though they frightened me, and my heart was full of wicked songs that they put into it”

If you love 'The Great God Pan' (1894), then this should be next on your TBR list. An equally horrible and fantastic narrative, 'The White People' describes the diary entries of a young woman introduced to the fae as a baby. Growing up, she witnesses and is taught about various strange, ancient rituals and magical practices, which she relays to the reader in detail. The strange things she sees and beings she meets both haunt and fascinate her throughout her short, surreal life.

I always wondered what Helen Vaughan might have said if we heard her tell her own story – this story feeds that fantasy. Also highly recommended for any fans of the film Pan’s Labyrinth (2006).

MASKED ENTITIES

'The Woman in Red' and 'Unmasked', Muriel Campbell Dyar (1899, 1900)

“There was a sharp click, as of a metal catch, and the velvet mask, loosened, fell softly to the ground...There, in the bright white moonlight, he looked full at the face of the Woman in Red and, with a terrible cry of horror, fell like one dead upon the grass.”

The first of this pair features an enchanting masked woman who enraptures the men around her after suddenly arriving at Monte Carlo with no name and only an old woman for company. It’s not long before the men begin to speculate about who the lady might be, and after one succeeds in peering behind the mask, a series of tragedies follow. It’s sequel, 'Unmasked', reveals an excellently chilling twist which makes a rather poignant remark on men’s treatment of women, which still resonates to this day.

TWISTED PLANTS

'The Giant Wisteria', Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1891)

“He strode heavily across the porch, till the loose planks creaked...his brows fiercely knit above his iron mouth. Overhead the shadows flickered mockingly across a white face among the leaves, with eyes of fire”

You may know her as the author of 'The Yellow Wallpaper' (1892), but Gilman also wrote other great short stories. This one kicks off with a teenage girl in the 1600s telling her mother in Ye Olde Pilgrim Tongue exactly where she can shove her judgement, but it quickly turns into a disturbing tale of secrecy and death. Centuries later, a group of holiday-goers in search of a ghost decide to stay in a decrepit house overrun with an unruly wisteria plant, which threads through the bones of the place and eventually reveals its secrets to the unsuspecting guests.

RUSSIAN WEREWOLF

'The White Dog', Fyodor Sologub (1903, translated into English 1915)

“The moon rose clear and full, that very same moon which rose long ago at another place, over the broad desolate steppe...now, as then, glowed eyes sick with longing; and her heart, still wild, not forgetting in town the great spaciousness of the steppe, felt oppressed; her throat was troubled with a tormenting desire to howl like a wild thing.”

Another quieter, melancholy gothic tale. This story follows a young Russian girl living with a secret she soon sees in others around her. However, as she eventually learns, it can be dangerous to embrace your true nature when so many misunderstand your existence. It’s a very brief story, but I found its unusual narrative and depiction of monstrous women (if you can call them that) to be intriguing and rather beautiful.

WITCHES IN SALEM

'Young Goodman Brown', Nathaniel Hawthorne (1835)

“The cry of grief, rage, and terror...pierc[ed] the night...There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away, leaving the clear and silent sky”

Hawthorne claimed to be descended from the notorious John Hathorne, the only Judge overseeing the Salem witch trials who refused to repent his role in the murders of various women.* Whether this is true or false, Hawthorne’s fascination and abhorrence of Salem’s history are rife in 'Young Goodman Brown', which features his rumoured ancestor. The story follows the eponymous character, who ventures out of the comfort of his wife's home in Salem village, and into the woods on an unknown mission with a mysterious companion. The further he progresses into the forest at night, the further we venture into the dark and sinister secrets of the seemingly innocent townspeople he encounters there.

* I've never been entirely clear if this was hearsay perpetuated by Hawthorne to sell his stories, or if it's a proven fact – let me know if you have the answer!

PAGAN REINCARNATIONS

'Dionea', Vernon Lee (1890)

“I saw the storm rush down the valley, a sudden blackness, and then, like a curse, a flash, a tremendous crash, re-echoed by a dozen hills. ‘I told him,’ Dionea said very quietly, when she came to stay with me the next day…‘that if he did not leave me alone Heaven would send him an accident.’”

This tale follows the chaos that ensues in a rural Italian village when, after a terrible storm, a young girl washes up on its shores and is taken in by locals. The only clue to her identity is a piece of parchment with 'Dionea' written on it. As she becomes a woman, Dionea is both admired for her beauty and feared for her strange and unconventional behaviour, with rumours flying about her origins. Eventually, pagan magic seems to resurface within the village, and lust and mischief overwhelm the villagers – young lovers elope, obsessions develop and men meet terrible fates, possessed by a fascination with the bewitching Dionea.

If you love stories with suggestions of witchcraft and pagan lore, give this one a go.

DARK COMEDY

'Curse of the Catafalques', F. Anstey (1882)

“‘It is simply astonishing to me!’ I said, ‘that you can calmly allow this hideous Curse...to have things all its own way up to the present, in the nineteenth century, and not six miles from Charing Cross!’”

Upon arriving in England for the first time, an Australian traveller spontaneously decides to assume a false identity and marry the pitiful but wealthy Chlorine Catafalques. Unfortunately for him, he gradually learns she has a family secret of the satanic variety. Having lost the set of instructions that detail how to vanquish this evil, he struggles to unearth the mystery whilst maintaining both his false identity and his bravado. Eventually, a string of comical misunderstandings lead him to the ultimate question: is it bad etiquette to have your father-in-law's demon arrested?

DISTURBING AND BIZARRE

'The New Mother', Lucy Clifford (1882)

“From beneath the bonnet there flashed a strange bright light…[her] heart sank and her cheeks turned pale, for she knew it was the flashing of two glass eyes…‘it is the new mother! She has come’”

This twisted fantasy follows two sisters' descent into darkness after they meet a mysterious girl toying with a strange box and pear drum in the woods. Wishing to gain her favour, see the box’s contents and listen to her play the instrument, the sisters become increasingly disruptive at home, not heeding their mother’s warning about the consequences of their actions.

Neil Gaiman praised this story in his review of a collection of folk tales, and it has been compared to his similarly eerie work, Coraline.

Have a different opinion of these dark tales or a favourite missed out in this list? Let me know with a comment below, or via Twitter .

10 of the Best Gothic Horror Short Stories to Read Online

Whether it’s vampires or werewolves or mysterious patterns in wallpaper, writers of Gothic short stories have used all sorts of horrors and frights to chill our blood, ever since the horror short story developed in the early nineteenth century. Below, we pick ten of the very best Gothic horror tales which you can find online. None of these is a particularly long read, and they’re all classics of the genre.

1. E. T. A. Hoffmann, ‘ The Sandman ’.

The character of the Sandman from folklore supposedly throws sand into the eyes of children to get them to go to sleep, but Hoffmann’s creation is much more unsettling – indeed, ‘uncanny’, as Freud realised.

In Hoffmann’s tale, published in 1816, the Sandman can supposedly steal the eyes of children, at least according to Nathanael, the story’s doomed protagonist. Hoffmann’s tale features romance, death, sinister visits to children’s bedrooms, and lots of other things to keep anyone awake at night!

2. Washington Irving, ‘ The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ’.

Memorably filmed by Tim Burton in a 1999 adaptation that changed a number of details of Irving’s original story, this tale is, along with ‘Rip Van Winkle’, Irving’s best-known work, and was first published in 1820.

A classic American Gothic story, ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’ is about a secluded grove (the ‘Sleepy Hollow’ of the title) in a fictional New York town, which is reportedly full of ghosts – most famously, a spectral figure known as the Headless Horseman. However, the protagonist of this American folk tale is Ichabod Crane, a schoolmaster, who has designs on a local girl whom he wishes to marry so he can acquire her father’s wealth.

These two elements – the ‘courtship plot’ and the ghostly atmosphere of Sleepy Hollow – come together in a story shot through with peculiarly American detail, making it the New World’s answer to the European tales of the Brothers Grimm. Indeed, Irving was influenced by German folk tales for both this and ‘Rip Van Winkle’, and he actually wrote the story while living in Birmingham, England.

3. Edgar Allan Poe, ‘ The Fall of the House of Usher ’.

No pick of the best Gothic horror short stories would be complete without something from Poe (1809-49), who helped to pioneer the short story form (and has even been credited with introducing the term ‘short story’ itself into the language).

Many of Poe’s finest Gothic stories can be viewed as Gothic novels in miniature, and ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ are prime examples. The latter of these is regularly named one of Poe’s best stories. The story combines the Gothic house, the old aristocratic family on its last legs, the idea of the dead returning to life, and various other hallmarks of classic Gothic fiction. Go and have your spine chilled with this classic tale.

4. Charles Dickens, ‘ The Signal-Man ’.

5. Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘ The Body Snatcher ’.

This 1884 tale, written after Stevenson had become a huge celebrity following the success of Treasure Island a year before, features characters based on criminals who were employed by the real-life surgeon Robert Knox (1791–1862) around the time of the notorious Burke and Hare murders (1828). The story predates Stevenson’s 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , and shows his skill at creating an authentic setting against which the tale’s grisly events take place.

6. W. W. Jacobs, ‘ The Monkey’s Paw ’.

‘The Monkey’s Paw’ is a modern fairy tale, and indeed fairy tales and magical stories from the Arabian Nights (featuring djinn, or genies, who can grant wishes) are both mentioned by characters in the story. As in many classic fairy tales, the number three is invested with great narrative significance: there are three members of the White family, three men can use the monkey’s paw to request wishes, and each man gets three wishes.

It was first published in Harper’s Monthly Magazine in September 1902 and proved instantly popular, being reprinted later that same year and adapted for the stage a year later. The story inspired similar story-lines in both The Monkees and The Simpsons .

We have analysed this classic horror story here .

7. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘ Lot No. 249 ’.

One of the best Gothic short stories on the subject of Egyptology, this 1892 tale shows why Conan Doyle was such a master of the short-story form.

Written when ‘Egyptomania’ – European interest in all things from ancient Egypt – was at its height in late Victorian England, this tale features a reanimated mummy in what might be regarded as a riff on both Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Conan Doyle’s own Sherlock Holmes stories (there is an element of mystery and suspense in the story, with the full truth only become apparent during the story’s dramatic denouement).

8. Rudyard Kipling, ‘ The Mark of the Beast ’.

Perhaps no pick of classic Gothic horror stories would be complete without at least one werewolf tale, or story about lycanthropy. This early story by Rudyard Kipling, written when he was still in his early twenties and living in India, is our choice. Andrew Lang called the story ‘poisonous stuff which has left an extremely disagreeable impression on my mind’, while William Sharp recommended the story be burnt as a ‘detestable piece of work’.

9. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, ‘ The Yellow Wallpaper ’.

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, an 1892 short story by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, has the structure and style of a diary. This is in keeping with what the female narrator tells us: that she can only write down her experiences when her husband John is not around, since he has forbidden her to write until she is well again, believing it will overexcite her. Through a series of short instalments, we learn more about the narrator’s situation, and her treatment at the hands of her doctor husband and her sister-in-law.

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ is a Gothic horror story – it ends with the husband taking an axe to the bedroom door where his cowering wife is imprisoned – but the twist is that she has imprisoned herself in her deluded belief that she is protecting her husband from the ‘creeping women’ from behind the wallpaper, and he is prepared to beat down the door with an axe out of genuine concern for his sick wife.

We have analysed this story here .

10. Algernon Blackwood, ‘ The Wendigo ’.

Blackwood (1869-1951) was an important figure in early twentieth-century horror fiction: among other things, he created John Silence, a doctor-cum-paranormal-detective, for a series of entertainingly weird stories.

But Blackwood’s standalone horror stories are also well worth reading. Here, we’ve selected ‘The Wendigo’ (1910), which is one of the longer short stories on this list. Set amongst the Canadian wilderness, the story is about a group of men who go camping and the mysterious disappearance – and return – of one of their group.

4 thoughts on “10 of the Best Gothic Horror Short Stories to Read Online”

Mmmm I’d have included at least one more of Poe’s (The Masque maybe? The pit and the pendulum?) and possibly Young Goodman Brown, by Hawthorne.

Excellent selection. I’d vote for The Queen of Spades by Pushkin too. Is it significant how many of these writers had miserable lives ? This may have given them an affinity for the gothic.

Pingback: Let’s Rewind: March 2021 – Zezee with Books

My goodness…no Angela Carter? Surely ‘The Company of Wolves’ deserves putting on the list?!

Discover more from Interesting Literature

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Reading Books in Order

19 Early Gothic Short Stories, eerie classics of the Gothic tradition

Sometimes we just want to stroll around crumbling castles and be confronted with strange happenings for a short period.

Nothing like immersing oneself in a classic short story – and, more specifically, a Gothic one – for a few shivers down the spine, encounters with vampires, ghosts, or other monsters during a night of reading!

We invite you today to light a candle and take a warm blanket for a selection of gothic short stories, exploring madness, obsession, and ruins from classic tales by authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Algernon Blackwood, Edith Warton, and more.

Dear Reader, the following selection only contains stories in the public domain . I offer links where you can read or download the story online, but they are available on other sites, libraries, and bookshops!

The Sandman (1815) by E. T. A. Hoffmann A tale of obsession and madness, The Sandman follows Nathanael, a young student whose childhood memories are plagued by a scary old man. As a child, Nathanael believed this shadowy figure to be the mythical Sandman, who put children to sleep by snatching their eyes. When confronted with this same malevolent force as an adult, he is driven insane as he attempts to confront his childhood fears.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820), by Washington Irving In the isolated Dutch colony of Sleepy Hollow, Ichabod Crane, a timid schoolmaster, competes with the local hero for the hand of Katrina Van Tassel, the 18-year-old daughter and lone child of a wealthy farmer. As he exits a party at Van Tassel’s estate one fall evening, Crane is chased by the Headless Horseman, a ghost claiming to be the spirit of a Hessian warrior killed by a stray cannonball during the Revolutionary War.

The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), by Edgar Allan Poe In one of Poe’s most famous classic tales filled with mystery, suspense, and death, a nameless narrator is sent to care for a reclusive friend and his sister in an ancient, haunted home. Both are psychologically and physically ill, and their paranoia and agitation are worsened by bizarre events on the property. Soon after, the narrator begins to feel the creepy old house’s ghostly impulses.

Rappaccini’s Daughter (1844), by Nathaniel Hawthorne Giovanni Guasconti, a literature student in Renaissance-era Padua, is intrigued by Beatrice, the daughter of the recluse scholar Dr. Rappaccini. The Gothic atmosphere intensifies as Giovanni sees an unsettling link between Beatrice and the toxic plants in her father’s garden,

Ultor de Lacy (1861), by Sheridan Le Fanu Captain Ultor De Lacy has charmed his way into Una Ardagh’s family home and begins to seek her affections. The housekeeper recognizes Ultor as a voracious vampire focused on seducing, marrying, and sustaining himself on Una’s blood. Doctor Hesselius, disguised as a hunchbacked peddler, tries to warn Una’s father, who refuses to believe in such superstitions and therefore unknowingly thwarts the Doctor’s attempts to save his daughter before she succumbs.

The Signal-Man (1866), by Charles Dickens The title’s railway signalman tells the narrator about a ghost that has been tormenting him. The signalman’s job is to supervise the movements of passing trains from a signal-box in a deep cutting at a tunnel entrance on a lonely stretch of railway line. When there is a threat, his fellow signalmen notify him via telegraph and alarm. He receives phantom warnings of peril three times when his bell sounds in a way that only he can hear. Following each warning, a ghost appears, followed by a tragic accident.

The Body Snatcher (1884), by Robert Louis Stevenson Two student anatomists obtain human remains in the early hours of the morning. The dreary persons who transport the remains rarely speak, and the students’ worries are never spoken aloud. Until one morning, when the drapery is removed from the face of a new acquisition, and one pupil knows it as the face of a dear friend who was alive and well only a few days before. Famously influenced by Burke and Hare’s Anatomy Murders

The Horla (1886), by Guy de Maupassant The Horla depicts the gradual breakdown of a mind, from sadness to insanity – ailments with which Maupassant was intimately acquainted. The hero gradually feels invaded by another, who acts through him: the Horla, an invisible, unconscious entity that manipulates him. As a result, there is confusion, worry, and anxiety. Until the irreversible happens.

Ken’s Mystery (1888), by Julian Hawthorne Blending Gaelic stories with Gothic mystery, this is the story of Kenningale – or Ken, as his friends call him. While traveling home late on Halloween in Ireland, he encountered an intriguing and gorgeous woman in a graveyard, and she requested him to play his banjo for her. Later that night, he ran into her…or was it her? She begged him to play once more. But what was the source of her coldness and pallor? And why did she regain her vigor and colour while he was chilled to the bone?

Amour Dure (1890), by Vernon Lee This is the story of a young historian researching the counterfactual city-state of Urbania, told through diary entries. He becomes entangled with a long-dead femme fatale, the Renaissance beauty Medea di Carpi, who reaches out to him through various media across the centuries, dragging him to his doom.

The Mark of the Beast (1891), by Rudyard Kipling When a carousing Englishman desecrates the sanctified image of the Hindu god Hanuman, a leprous “Silver Man” curses him. The following night brings more terrors to the unfortunate man’s home.

The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), by Charlotte Perkins Gilman After her physician husband diagnoses her with “temporary nervous depression – a slight hysterical tendency” following the birth of her child, a woman is locked into a bedroom on the second floor of a mansion, with barred windows and fading yellow wallpaper. As the yellow wallpaper in front of her changes and the gloomy mood is accentuated, she becomes persuaded that there is a human shape in the design and that she must liberate her.

Lot No. 249 (1892), by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Abercrombie Smith, a young medical student at Oxford, is summoned to the room of fellow student Bellingham – a zealous Egyptologist who looks to have fainted due to a severe shock – and utilizes his medical talents to resuscitate him. But this is far from the first bizarre episode involving Bellingham, who appears to be becoming increasingly preoccupied with studies on a strange and spooky Mummy that he keeps in his chamber. Abercrombie Smith suspects that something otherworldly is going on after a succession of mysterious and hazardous attacks on pupils against whom Bellingham has a vendetta. He embarks on an investigation to solve the mystery…

The Duchess at Prayer (1900), by Edith Wharton An old man leads a visitor inside Duchess Violante’s apartments, where he tells the sad story of the Duchess, whose rooms have been empty since her mysterious death. Though seemingly admired for her religious devotion, the Duchess’s true motivations and the noticeable disparity between her public person and private actions gradually emerge.

Luella Miller (1902), by Mary Wilkins Freeman Luella Miller is an enigmatic and unnerving woman who appears to have a peculiar effect on everyone around her. As the residents of the little village become involved in Luella’s life, a sequence of terrible and frightening occurrences unfolds.

The Monkey’s Paw (1902), by W.W. Jacobs One day, an old acquaintance of Mr. Zhang returns to see him and his family after spending years traveling in the mystical highlands of China’s Yunnan Province. He tells the Zhangs about a monkey’s paw that has magical abilities to give its owner three wishes. Against his better judgment, he grudgingly gives the monkey paw to the Zhang family, along with a warning that making wishes comes at an expensive price….

The White People (1904), by Arthur Machen Cotgrave and his companion Ambrose debate the thin line that divides sorcery and the sacred. Unable to agree on the essence of good and evil, or what distinguishes a sinner from a saint, Ambrose lends his colleague a book. The green book, surprisingly well-kept for its age, accompanies Cotgrave on his way home, where he opens it to discover a weird, intriguing tale. Its pages feature a journal of a young girl who immerses herself in the realm of magic. As she gains proficiency in witchcraft, the girl begins to refer to odd entities and unfamiliar places, all while attempting to conceal her hidden existence.

The Wendigo (1910), by Algernon Blackwood

Days removed from society, Five men look for moose in the snow-covered wilderness where residents dread to venture, but instead discover something more horrifying and otherworldly. One of them is swept away with a rush of wind and the stench of savage nature, leaving them to wonder: who will be next?

A Vine on a House (1913), by Ambrose Bierce When Matilda Harding mysteriously vanishes, people begin to notice that a vine growing on the Harding house bears an uncanny resemblance to her. The events that unfold next are terrifying to the Harding family…

For more Gothic Fiction, see our selection of Early Gothic Books to read for some chills and thrills .

14 of My Favorite Short Stories for Teaching Gothic Literature

the best short stories for teaching gothic literature

Gothic short stories have always been a favorite with my students. From the mystery and suspense to the old creepy buildings, to the heightened emotions and the hints of the supernatural… there is just something about the gothic genre that kids gravitate towards.

“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury

This modern day “science fiction” gothic tale will certainly give your students the shivers. George and Lydia let the virtual reality world do everything for their children, from bathing them to entertaining them. Soon they begin to notice that the virtual reality scene is continuously stuck on the African veldt, and the lions are devouring a carcass at the edge of the screen. Concerned, the parents send their children Peter and Wendy to a psychologist, who suggests turning off the virtual reality entirely. The parents do not heed this advice; this tragically results in their death when their own children feed them to the lions.

This gothic tale is rife with suspense and horror, and students love the altered vibe as they read, and the way the characters communicate so poorly. My students find the virtual reality aspect utterly relatable with today’s technology becoming so advanced. Many great discussions can come into play about our dependence on technology. And although there is no old castle, the African veldt provides the equivalent of secret doors and the supernatural, which lure the reader in a gripping way.

“Luella Miller” by Mary Wilkins Freeman

Luella Miller, through a series of roommates who end up withering away while Luella herself thrives, is a new world vampire in an old world town. Though a little bit longer than the other stories on this list, the unsettling development of person after person losing their lives after being with Luella is very gripping for students. After marrying Erastus, he soon died. And although Luella was a teacher, one of her students did most of the work. The student soon deteriorated and died too. They are not the only casualties.

The entire story is filled with unease, and students love to wonder about what is really going on. Make sure to point out the inexplicable events in the story and how they relate to the gothic theme of gloom and horror. Luella is a vampire and seems to be sucking the life out of those around her. This is also a great story to use to delve into the vocabulary of the gothic.

“Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

In this unsettling tale, an unnamed narrator is locked in a bedroom on the second floor of a mansion her husband John rented. John is a doctor and claims his wife has a nervous disorder, but readers can infer she has depression, possibly postpartum depression. The yellow wallpaper mutates in front of her eyes, and she is certain she sees a woman crawling behind the intricate design, so she decides to strip all of the wallpaper down in order to free this woman. When her husband finds her, she is scuttling around the room in a crazed manner and he promptly faints. She continues to crawl around the room and move around her husband’s unmoving body.

This psychological thriller is the epitome of a woman being overtaken by a tyrannical abusive male, and students will appreciate this vivid example. Make sure to point out the elements of the supernatural with the questionable maneuvers of the wallpaper itself, as well as the gloomy mood and setting of the story. This tale also lends itself to a great conversation on the importance of mental health.

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving

The private glen where the story is written is known to be haunted, which adds to the mysterious atmosphere of this story. Many people who live there are overcome by supernatural happenings, and strange things are known to occur. The story surrounds Ichabod Crane, who comes to the town to help out and is courting a woman named Katrina. Losing her hand to Abraham Van Brunt, he is riding home through a dark swamp region, a place ripe with superstitions, when he meets the Headless Horseman, who throws his head like a rocket at Ichabod while Ichabod is trying to escape. Ichabod is never seen again.

Students love to wonder if Van Brunt is the Horseman who drives Ichabod away, and the whole story is high on the creep-o-meter in my class. Teaching this story is a good chance to show how history and superstitions relate, and to talk about the elements of a gothic landscape.

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs

When a cursed talisman (a monkey’s paw) falls into the hands of the White family, Mr. White is tempted to make any three wishes come true. Curiosity and greed get the best of him. He tries to remain somewhat modest and wishes for 200 pounds. That night there is a knock at the door with news that the Whites’ son, Herbert, died at work and there is a 200 pound goodwill payment. The second wish is used to wish Herbert back to life, but when he appears at the door as an undead creature, Mr. White quickly wishes him away, and the family is left broken-hearted.

My students love connecting to the three wishes motif and sharing what they would choose if they had a chance at three wishes. The elements of the macabre when the “creature son” appears at the door adds to the mystery. This is a great time to teach students about theme, foreshadowing, irony, and symbolism. It is ironic that three wishes are meant to bring you happiness not despair. Students will also recognize the number three is repeated throughout the story and realize its symbolism with misfortune.

“The Mark of the Beast” by Rudyard Kipling

The main character Fleete—in a drunken stupor on New Year’s Eve—puts out his cigar on a temple of Hanuman the monkey god, setting a chain of events into motion. A leperous priest bites him in retaliation and casts a spell which causes Fleete to begin acting crazy. After forcing the priest to reverse the spell, Fleete finally returns to normal.

This gothic tale is gripping for students who can also learn some history of the time about lepers and rabies. My students delve into other stories of curses and spells as we discuss this story. The ancient prophecy and high emotion is also definitely part of the appeal for the students in my class. Doesn’t every kid enjoy a good werewolf story?

“The Outsider” by H.P. Lovecraft

In this psychological thriller, the narrator is ensconced in a castle surrounded by trees and cannot remember the last time he has encountered a human. The narrator struggles to free himself by climbing to the top of the castle. As he arrives, the crumbling stairs lead him somehow to a basement where there are many people terrified of a beast. He joins them in their fear, running from the castle, as the reader understands he has seen the beast in the mirror, which is himself.

The crumbling castle is a huge symbol in this piece and mirrors the crumbling narrator himself. My students love the heightened emotion as the man struggles to free himself from the beast, when all along the beast was himself. Point out the gloomy vocabulary and descriptions of the castle, as your students can enjoy debating whether he will ever recover from being an outsider.

“A Vine on a House” by Ambrose Bierce

For a very short gothic tale, turn to the story of Matilda Harding, a one-legged protagonist who goes to visit her mother and never returns. Her husband and sister are left behind in the house, but eventually they too disappear. A larger-than-life vine grows on the house that is strangely reminiscent of Matilda. When townspeople later try to pull up the vine, they realize it looks just like Matilda. No one wants to go to the house after that.

This story has the gothic element of gloom and suspense and a feeling of unease for the reader. This also reflects the women in distress motif, though in a mysterious way that makes the reader wonder what is going on. The giant vine is otherworldly and adds to the sense of mystery. Students love to debate what could have happened to Matilda, and what the giant vine represents, especially with the way gothic stories often portray women.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe

Students love this tale of the very creepy, depressed Roderick who calls his boyhood friend to his dilapidated house because he needs some help. Once the unnamed friend/narrator arrives, Roderick’s sister Madeline falls into a death-like trance and the two men entomb her in the walls, supposedly alive. The men spend their time listening to somber music and looking at Roderick’s art. Eventually the entire house falls into the lake, and the Usher family is no more.

This classic tale has it all: the family is falling apart, as is the house. Although not quite a castle, the house is dark, mysterious, and decrepit. There are definitely supernatural events and the overall other-wordly feeling that pervades the story. Another gothic element is the intense emotion of Roderick and the “woman in distress” angle, and my students love to point out the foreshadowing clues that show Madeline’s distress as they read.

“The Body Snatcher” by Robert Louis Stevenson

In this macabre tale, Doctor Wolfe Macfarlane and his friend Fettes become reacquainted after a long time apart. They had previously worked together cataloguing bodies for dissection, and supposedly covered up a murder to avoid being implicated themselves. When Fettes is certain Macfarlane has murdered their friend Gray, he again keeps his mouth shut while they destroy the evidence. The story ends with the body of Gray put back together and sitting in the front seat of the car.

Students love to hate this ambiguous ending as they decide how a chopped up body could end up whole again in the front seat. This supernatural event is at the heart of the story, as are the elements of mystery and suspense peppered throughout. The gloom and darkness keeps the mood gothic, as well, and this is another story that is excellent for teaching gothic vocabulary.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

Last but not least is “The Tell-Tale Heart”—arguably one of the most popular gothic short stories ever taught in school. An unnamed narrator, who claims he is not insane, makes a plan to kill an old man under the belief that this man has an “evil eye.” After stalking the old man and watching him sleep, he finally commits the crime that rids him of evil and makes the world a better place. Right?

The police stop by after someone reported a scream, but the narrator is unphased. Although he dismembered the body and hid the limbs under the floorboards, the narrator arrogantly invites the officers in to search his home and even sit above the very spot the body is concealed. The narrator succumbs to his guilt and confesses the crime after believing he can still hear the old man’s heart beating from under the planks.

This story is a staple for a reason. Mood, suspense, symbolism, theme, and figurative language all are perfect literary elements to teach students while reading this classic gothic story. Students are excited by the concept of an unreliable narrator and the bizarre motivation behind the crime. I love to have my students debate whether or not the narrator should be charged with first degree murder for his premeditated crime or if the narrator should be found not guilty by reason of insanity, since he clearly is a person that requires serious psychological help. Attachments area

“The Hand” by Guy de Maupassant

In this embedded narrative, M. Bermutier, a judge, tells credulous listeners about the mysterious murder of Sir John Rowell. Rowell was an odd man who kept to himself in the mountains. He liked to go hunting… man -hunting. In even more peculiar fashion, he kept a severed hand chained up in his home, as if it could break away at any moment. A year after Bermutier’s encounter with Sir Rowell, the hunter is found dead, strangled… and the hand… missing!

In this unnerving tale, let your students decide… is it mere coincidence or is there supernatural elements at play?

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe

From his prison cell the night before he is set to be executed, the narrator shares how his whole life fell apart. Once a gentle, loving man and husband, the narrator is overcome by alcoholism. He began divulging into atrocious and perverse acts. His love for animals dissipated. After brutally killing his dear cat Pluto, the narrator’s house sets fire… but mysteriously, an apparition of a cat is left behind. The horror does not end there.

The police arrive on scene after the narrator’s wife disappears. They are shocked to discover what they find! You’ll just have to keep reading to find out the rest. You have to love Poe’s creative take on unreliable narrators! Is the narrator insane, or is he telling the truth?

“The Landlady” Roald Dahl

In this story, your students will learn to be careful who they trust! An old, helpless woman who runs a cheap bed and breakfast has a dark, sinister secret. When you first read the short story, it may seem like there’s no imminent danger, but that would be naïve, just like the protagonist Billy Weaver. Two words about what’s happening behind closed doors in this tale: human taxidermy.

This story is so engaging for students because all the gruesomeness is implied and Dahl leaves readers with a suspenseful cliffhanger. Your students will love to go back into the text and realize all the clues that led to Billy’s fate.

Gothic Fiction History: Horror Stories With Dark and Threatening Atmosphere Essay

Introduction, the sublime in gothic fiction, the element of supernaturalism, mystery horror and suspense in gothic fiction and their significant utility, important elements in gothic fiction, gothic fiction as fantastic literature.

It is accurate to say that a gothic horror story is defined as a frightening story that has echoes of the past and has a constant theme of gloom and the supernatural, which makes it dark and rather threatening. From any perspective and point of view, gothic fiction cannot be dismissed as merely escapist and sensational on the basis that it is more than having only these two elements in it. There are many useful prospective insights which cannot be termed and delimited to mere sensational and escapist ones.

Science fiction is fiction based and claims scientific discoveries and often deals with convincing technological events, such as, space travel or life on other planets. By taking into account the definitions of the attributes, you can clearly see that one of the criteria for a gothic horror story is the use of light and darkness to create a sinister atmosphere.

In the beginning of gothic fiction era, it was not long after the translation of mythological texts that artists began experimenting with ways to elevate and transport their audiences with the use of the sublime. One group in particular began using the ideas of terror, death, and the supernatural, in combination with that which is terrible in nature to create the sublime. This group became known as the “Graveyard Poets” or the “Graveyard School”. On why these poems are effective author Fred Botting (2001:39) states, “the awful obscurity of the settings of Graveyard poetry elevate the mind to ideas of wonder and divinity”. In other words it’s the sublime imagery that produces the required effect.

“Graveyard Poetry” became increasingly popular during the early 1700’s, and paved the way for what would officially become “Gothic” literature. It was not long before the sublime idea of terrible nature grew until it included even more of the supernatural such as fantastical beings, witchcraft, and other extraordinary phenomena (Kemp, 2001, WEB). These became the components that gave Gothic literature its very definition. The first author to utilize these elements in a large literary work was Horace Walpole in his novel, The Castle of Otranto. It was the first novel to receive the title of “Gothic”, and it was also one of the first to use and develop the sublime.

In the Preface to his second edition, Walpole strives to construct a structure by which the Gothic novel can be defined. He states that in Gothic texts, it is necessary to leave, “the powers of fancy at liberty to expatiate through the boundless realms of invention, and thence of creating more interesting situations… to conduct the mortal agents… according to the rules of probability” (Walpole, 1964:7). In this description, Walpole is essentially offering a definition of the sublime as it is the sublime that elevates the “fancy” as it both fears and finds astonishment in the “boundless realms of invention”, but can delight in it as no real danger is found as it is “conducted” by “the rules of probability”. In this Walpole is demonstrating how the sublime is a necessary ingredient to the Gothic genre.

Burke defined precisely what is to be considered sublime. Some of the main Characteristics that Burke (1834) identified as ones that lead to sublimity include: obscurity, eternity and infinity, the crowded and the confused, power, vastness, magnificence, darkness, and excessiveness. He also points out that its nature that primarily conveys the sublime. These guidelines laid out by Burke became the structure by which all Gothic scenes were constructed. In this work, Burke also gave justification to the continuance of the Gothic genre as he identifies and highly emphasizes terror as being the ruling attribute of the sublime. He declares terror to be the “ruling principle” in the sublime as he states:

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime (1834: 42).

However Burke does set down the limitation that the terror, “should have no idea of danger connected with it” as this would hinder the production of “delight” (1834:74). This lends an understanding to the Gothic text then, as it is the aim of the author of a Gothic text to produce terror so that it delights the reader (Hennelly, 2001, 19). The Gothic writers who came soon after Burke display how his ideas of the sublime greatly influenced their Gothic writing.

As more time has progressed and more thought given to the idea of the sublime, the Gothic has evolved, and has even produced a number of sub genres. In all of them, the sublime is a crucial element. As it is seen, this genre as a whole would not have been made possible if not for the sublime. Furthermore, without the sublime, a complete understanding of Gothic texts would be impossible.

While assessing this evolution, Richard Davenport-Hines pronounced, “Gothic is nothing if not hostile to progressive hopes”. The Gothic plot in Dorian Gray is ultimately hostile to the progressive hopes held out by the Paterian plot of self-actualization. (Davenport, 1998, 139)

Most of the gothic fiction involves the supernatural. The monster in “Frankenstein” and the vampire in “The Vampire of Kaldenstein” both have similar qualities. Both are obviously not human and look natural and strange. The creature is described as a “catastrophe” and his creator goes on to describe the monster in full. “His yellow skin scarcely covered the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous black, and flowing; his teeth of pearly whiteness, but these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips”. This account of the monster really gives the reader a clear picture of how different the monster is. The vampire is described as “unusually tall, with a face of unnatural pallor”. The narrator also adds that the creature “cast no shadow”.

For the period of the closing years of the eighteenth century, England emerged and involved in the whirlpool of a collective unravelling. The contemporary philosophers provided the scholarly circles with such theories of inspiration and action that warranted their self-interested attitude and started to expose themselves as unendurable. The incongruity between the English philosophy in which “individual desires and collective needs participated in perfect reciprocity” (Clery, 2002, 35) and real political and economic circumstances commenced to facade.

It is out of this sociological environment that the Gothic novel emerged: an innovative, shocking and fearful genre for a prospective time. The phantom of communal uprising is obvious in the mystical “spectres” of the Gothic: a ghastly way of life emerges as a haunted and disintegrative Gothic mansion; the thrashing of English societal distinctiveness stands the Gothic hero or heroine’s quest for individuality.

Although, the Gothic is frequently reproached or even rejected for its excessively histrionic situations and absolutely expected plots, but the unbelievable attractiveness of the genre in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the regaining of gothic narratives within the past two decades, indicates to an elasticity that cannot be ignored.

The Gothic novel evolves onward rather abruptly as the rising obsession with individual awareness that starts in the early 18th century crash with the exceptional cultural apprehensions of the late 18th century. The sensations of the gothic fiction characters are exposed and externalized in a far-reaching new technique; their innermost fears and passions are literally modified as other characters, paranormal and weird phenomena, and yet lifeless objects. Simultaneously, the trait of the fright portrayed in these novels–fear of incarceration or snare, of individual breach and rape, of the victory of wickedness over good and pandemonium over order–appears to reproduce a particular historical time branded by growing disenchantment with illumination lucidity and by blood-spattered revolutions in France and America.

“The progressive myth of Frankenstein deserves the name of science-fiction, whereas Dracula can only be discarded as superstition fiction.” (Botting, 2001, 71) “We can account for Dracula’s success, and for its continuing success only in terms of the eternity of the opposition between Good and Evil, in terms of human nature, that is in the very terms in which the myth itself is couched — at the cost of dehistoricising the novel and the myth that has developed around it.

It is also unjust to the novel, by insisting on its obvious flaws, and neglecting the very qualities that have ensured its survival. For instance, Dracula, relying as it does on a multiplicity of texts and of points of view, is narratively more complex than Frankenstein, which is based on the traditional structure of embedded narratives; and to call it superstition-fiction means that we forget the advanced technology that amply compensates for the garlands of garlic — whereas Frankenstein’s bright idea was inspired by alchemy”. (Botting, 2001, 72)

The first factor included in a science fiction genre is the existence of aliens or strange creatures. The strange creature that was created in ‘Frankenstein’ was obviously the monster. “The Gothic, we find, as it enters the twentieth century just past, has performed an unusually intense enactment of the changing assumptions about signification that Baudrillard has traced in Western history since the fading of ‘the counterfeit’ from dominance.

In Frankenstein, the ghost of the counterfeit is shown giving way, as the culture did, to the sign as a manufacturable and mechanically reproducible ‘simulacrum’, the very next stage, the ‘industrial’ one, in our thinking about symbols.” (Botting, 2001, 157) The most vital criterion for a science fiction story is the connection with reality. It has to be relevant to earth or humanity and have something familiar that people can relate to.

Most of the theories developed to create the monster are realistic. Frankenstein has a combination of both elements which gives it a good diversity. The gothic component comes in mainly with the violence and romance, but the creation discovery is more science based. This makes ‘Frankenstein’ a good mix between the two genres, which makes the story more effective and helps it suit a wider audience. (Kilgour, 1997, 66)

A word or two should be said about the difference in meaning that the word ‘mystery’ has in American and British contexts. Writing of psychological ghost stories, Peter Penzoldt suggests that American authors prefer a natural explanation, while the English do not fear to intimate that there is more in the world than reason can account for. Glen Cavaliero, too, points to ‘the repeated tendency of English novelists to write about the supernatural or at any rate about mysterious and inexplicable events’. (Cavaliero, 1995, vi)

The Society considered its work in encouraging and directing restorations to be highly useful; yet none of its activities have been so offensive to succeeding generations. The encouragement which the Ecclesiologists gave to replacing medieval features by more ‘correct’ details was abused by many architects. But the Society must bear the responsibility for the wholesale destruction of great quantities of medieval art. Sir Kenneth Clark remarks: ‘It would be interesting to know if the Camden Society destroyed as much medieval architecture as Cromwell. If not it was from lack of funds, sancta paupertas, only true custodian of ancient buildings.’ (Clarke, 1962, p. 237)

The pattern of Gothic fiction, to a certain extent is the delineation of two apparently alternative spaces, the violation of boundaries between them, the overwhelming power of the more negative and deconstructive environment—is widely, almost universally shared by horror narratives, explicitly or inferentially. Horror narrative stresses the teleological implications of abjection; it is the ultimate literature of absence—from God, from substantial selfhood—and the ghost is its central character.

It is no wonder that Mary Shelley in Frankenstein parodies Paradise Lost; horror narrative records loss, paradise gone and certainly not to be regained. Kristeva goes on to note that “all abjection is in fact recognition of the want on which any being, meaning, language, or desire is founded” (Kristeva, 1982, 61). David Punter argues that “our knowledge of romantic-period Gothic drama can be informed by the politics of an increasingly plebeian theatre.” (Putner, 2000, 102)

The gothic genre, as with all genres, is made up of many elements and concepts resulting in a massively broad and varied spectrum; including the supernatural, the sublime and horror to name but a few of the more common and generally fundamental ones. Some concepts may be clearly overt, and others will be more discreetly manipulated, but nevertheless a gothic text will more often than not include many of these elements. In terms of the supernatural in the gothic genre, it generally appears in the form of some kind of other than natural being or object, such as a vampire or ghost, which is frightening due to its refusal to adhere to the laws of nature, God or man.

Returning to Frankenstein, it could be argued that there is no element of the supernatural, or alternatively that the creature is supernatural by virtue of its being a composition of dead parts then re-animated by ungodly means.( Kilgour, 1997, 69)

Elements of the supernatural may seem to be almost an obligatory component of the gothic tale. On a closer examination, the word itself suggests also a rather deeper level of meaning: beyond that of the natural, rationally explainable world. In this expanded sense the supernatural relates to another favourite gothic, and Romantic, concept: the sublime. Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) was a particularly influential treatise in this context, focussing on the human reaction to an overwhelming experience that transcends everyday normality.

It is hardly surprising that Burke’s words had such an impact, as they succinctly state what so much gothic art was striving for with greater or lesser degrees of success. “Whilst we contemplate so vast an object, under the arm, as it were, of almighty power, and invested on every side with omnipresence, we shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, and are, in manner, annihilated before him.” (Burke, 1834, 41)

The mystical and religious connotations should be clear; gothic writers also noted the link between this overwhelming, oceanic sensation and some degree of horror. In gothic narratives there are abundant examples of supernatural and sublime elements, sometimes overt and sometimes less so. There is a useful distinction to be drawn between those authors who tend to leave the supernatural elements unresolved and those who seek rational closure through explaining the apparent mystery.

The two words ‘gothic’ and ‘horror’ seem to belong together, so close is their relationship. Horror however does not have to be present in a gothic text; neither does its presence necessarily make a text gothic. As Clive Bloom indicates; “Horror is the usual, but necessarily the main ingredient of gothic fiction and most gothic fiction is determined in its plotting by the need for horror and sensation. It was Gothicism, with its formality, codification, ritualistic elements and artifice……that transformed the old folk tale of terror into the modern horror story.” (Bloom, 1998, 110)

There are certain well-known definitions as regards to fantasy or the fantastic and all of these are worth considering. Eric Rabkin’s Fantastic in Literature (1976) deals largely with the same subject matter. This particular piece opens with an examination of Alice’s surprised response to the talking plants in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”. Rabkin argues that the fantastic mode is established through the reversal of the ground rules: as he says, “One of the key distinguishing marks of the fantastic is that the perspectives enforced by the ground rules of the narrative world must be diametrically contradicted.” (Rabkin, 1976, p.8)

Victor Sage, in his “Horror Fiction in the Protestant Tradition”, narrates the method in which, in the Pauline solace convention concerning the seventeenth century, the aging house implied and worked as a connotative metaphor for the body’s unavoidable decomposition and as a trope of mortality and decay in a wide-ranging implication. Sage, to further elaborate the case, refers to a seventeenth-century Huguenot content that, employing the house far-fetched simile, depicts the body assaulted and devastated by degenerative powers:

“Death labours to undermine this poor dwelling from the first moment that it is built, besieges it, and on all sides makes its approaches; in time it saps the foundation, it batters us with several diseases and unexpected accidents; every day it opens a breach, and pulls out of this building some stones.” (Sage, 1988, p.1)

In literature, for the reader to become oriented, they must search for clues as to the equilibrium of the setting. In Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the reactions of his characters provide the reader with a backdrop of that reality. When events start to go askew, we look to these characters to show us just how far askew. Utterson serves as a neutral facilitator to obtain for the reader this feedback. Stevenson first establishes these characters as reliable, and then relies on their reactionary movements (testimony and actions) to illustrate the intensity of man’s dual natures. It is in these reactions that the reader can discern just how ordinary or outlandish the actions committed by Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde really are.

It also offers an outlet for the comparison of Jekyll/Hyde’s actions to the morals and attitudes of society. The actions of the Hyde persona deviate greatly from what Stevenson has established through characters such as Poole and Dr. Lanyon as Jekyll’s basic nature.

We are shown that the divergence between the characters of Jekyll and Hyde is not a miniscule one, but capable of creating disarray and disbelief. It works as a perfect illustration, and further supports my point. Stevenson most definitely relies on the intensity of his characters’ reactions to emphasize the tremendously disparate natures of Jekyll and Hyde. It adds enormous depth and magnitude that would be lost if the reader were only shown Jekyll and Hyde’s actions, but not the reactions yielded by them. (Attack, 2003, 90) We are also shown much about the balance of the world Stevenson created for his novel. Clearly, the balance has been thrown off.

The characters react with fear and terror at this maelstrom of reality gone asunder. Stevenson valiantly achieves this effect solely by demonstrating these reactions. Were we simply shown Hyde’s actions, and then informed that Hyde was acting in ways incongruent from Jekyll’s normal behaviour the effect would be nowhere near as poignant.

The Gothic fiction cannot be assumed or declared as escapist genre of literature rather it is filled with hidden eroticism that drags the reader into a daemonic and antiquated womb which is manifestly the author’s. The partisanship of the text and the reader is reduced by the hypothetical genuineness of the author’s objective.

The soundness of the text is thus focussed to a critic’s words not the incidence of the reader. Amplifying the Gothic, psychoanalysis seems to be late gothic story that has risen to help describe twentieth-century knowledge of contradictory aloofness from the panic of others and the precedent. This relevance of language eliminates the reader from the gothic fiction text. The text has unexpectedly become a caldron of depraved sensationalism contrasted with voyeurism and exhibitionism emphasized transvestism that demarcates the misuse of Christian moralism.

The Gothic fiction has had a massive effect and influence on many genres of literature since its beginning in the middle seventeenth century. Attractiveness of the Gothic genre has progressively amplified as the mistrust of the legends of the Age of Reason has been reached us. Nevertheless, literary criticism of the past as well as present has been dawdling to recognize the Gothic as a valid genre. Previously critics have traced the immensity of Gothic to revitalize a putrefying genre, but at present modern critics have found to shed new orientation into this literary mystery by diverse literary perspectives. Numerous opinions through the years have evaluated, but the most noteworthy of them is the psychoanalytical approach.

This strives to relate Freudian, Jungian, and post-Jungian notion and words to the Gothic text. Nonetheless, by implementing this perspective to a text it gives emancipation to the hazard of misreading a text. This assumption rules out the reader from the text whereas striking the author back into it. This decreases the soundness of the text by imagining the target of the author. Such readings and involving of literary tools concentrate on extraneous features of the text and lessen it to a medium to maintain ideas not in the actual text.

One of the reasons that this always has been, still is, and always will be one of the best examples of horror/gothic fiction, is because it exploits the universal disgust at human corpses. Whether they are whole, in pieces, fresh or decaying, it is safe to assume that almost anyone would be horrified and disgusted at the sight of them. Because Victor ‘dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave’ to gain body parts to create the monster, the monster is imagined, even with no further description, as hideously ugly, revolting, and probably unfeeling. This initial assumption definitely adds to the horror of the story, and also adds to the sympathy we perhaps feel later in the novel for the monster, at the way people judge him so cruelly.

Descriptions are highly detailed and create a vivid picture; often so detailed they could form a comprehensive travel guide. Conversely, as we move from Walton’s point of view to that of Victor these locations are made strange and foreign by the use of highly melodramatic and emotive language, ‘But it was augmented… the habitations of another race of beings’ , a practice common in both gothic and melodramatic writing.

The landscapes encountered are wild, barren and untamed and we move through a world of extremes; from the towering majesty of the Alps, via the wind swept remoteness of the Orkneys, to the barren wasteland of the Arctic and each step in Victor’s journey echoes his deteriorating sanity. This, combined with Shelley’s use of the weather to evoke a dark and brooding atmosphere overlies the narrative with an implication of the paranormal, leaving the reader always aware of a sensation of impeding doom.

The Creature is driven to his later actions by the behaviour of those around him and by a society who apportions worth on physical appearance and social standing. Where the Creature would give only love and affection, humanity gives him fear, repulsion and pain.

He is rejected by everyone, even by the old, blind elder De Lacy ‘Great God… Who are you’ but, even then, he retains his innate humanity. It is only after he is shot while saving the girl child from drowning that his personality begins to change ‘The feelings of kindness… gave place to hellish rage…’ and he begins to become the monster society perceives him to be. In responding to monstrous treatment he becomes monstrous.

Attack, Richard D., Victorian People and Ideas: A Companion for the Modern Reader of Victorian Literature, Norton, 2003. 89-91.

Bloom, C. (ed) Gothic Horror: A Reader’s Guide from Poe to King and Beyond, 1998. Macmillan. 110.

Botting Fred – editor: The Gothic. Publisher: D.S. Brewer. Cambridge, England. 2001. 39, 71, 72, 156-57.

Burke, Edmund: The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke: With a Biographical and Critical Introduction. New York Public Library; 1834: Vol 1. p. 40-43, 74.

Cavaliero, Glen. The Supernatural and English Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. vi.

Clark Sir Kenneth. The Gothic Revival: an Essay in the History of Taste. (Revised and Enlarged Edition; London: Constable, 1962.) p.237.

Clery, E.J. (2002) ‘The Genesis of “Gothic” Fiction.’ In: Hogle, J.E. (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. Cambridge: Cambridge Press. 34-36.

Davenport-Hines, Richard. Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror, Evil and Ruin. New York: North Point Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 1998. 139.

Hennelly, M.M. (2001) ‘Framing the Gothic: From Pillar to Post- Structuralism’ College Literature 28(3), pp. 15-26.

Hogle, J.E. (ed) the Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, 2003. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. 243.

Kemp, J. (2001) A Glossary of Literary Gothic Terms. Web.

Kilgour, M. The Rise of the Gothic Novel, 1997. Routledge: London. 66-70.

Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. p.61.

Punter, David. Ed. A Companion to the Gothic. Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000: 94–106.

Rabkin Eric. The Fantastic in Literature. Princeton, NJ.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1976. p.8.

Shelley. M., 1998, Frankenstein (1818 Text), Oxford University Press, Reading.

Stevenson, Robert Louis; Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Signet Classics), Signet Book; Reprint edition (1994).

Victor Sage, Horror Fiction in the Protestant Tradition (Macmillan, 1988) p. 1.

Walpole, H. (1964) The Castle of Otranto; A Gothic Story. London: Oxford University Press. p7.

Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2024, April 16). Gothic Fiction History: Horror Stories With Dark and Threatening Atmosphere. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gothic-fiction-history/

"Gothic Fiction History: Horror Stories With Dark and Threatening Atmosphere." IvyPanda , 16 Apr. 2024, ivypanda.com/essays/gothic-fiction-history/.

IvyPanda . (2024) 'Gothic Fiction History: Horror Stories With Dark and Threatening Atmosphere'. 16 April.

IvyPanda . 2024. "Gothic Fiction History: Horror Stories With Dark and Threatening Atmosphere." April 16, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gothic-fiction-history/.

1. IvyPanda . "Gothic Fiction History: Horror Stories With Dark and Threatening Atmosphere." April 16, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gothic-fiction-history/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Gothic Fiction History: Horror Stories With Dark and Threatening Atmosphere." April 16, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/gothic-fiction-history/.

Duality of Soul in Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Analysis of "Dr. Jekyll and the Emergence of Mr. Hyde"
"Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by R.S. Stevenson
Doppelganger in Stevenson’s Novel “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”
Dualism in “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”
What Lurks behind the Other Side of the Coin: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’s Story, Explored
The Real Nature of the Human Psyche in “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde“ by R. L. Stevenson
Position Paper on "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde"
Human Character in «The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde»
Monsters, Reflection of Creators: Frankenstein and Mr. Hyde
"Death is the Mother of Beauty" by W. Stevens Review
A Rose for Emily Literary Analysis
The Forgotten Knight (Snatch)
Irony in Frank O'Connor's "First Confession"
Antebellum Slavery in Mark Twain’s World

TOP CATEGORIES
AS and A Level
University Degree
International Baccalaureate
Uncategorised
5 Star Essays
Study Tools
Study Guides
Meet the Team
English Literature
Prose Fiction
Miscellaneous

Gothic Story

The Darkness

The advancing darkness overwhelmed his senses and the fear of the night crept upon him. Distant screams beyond the unavoidable forest seemed to draw him towards the tall trees ahead. He fearfully entered the overpowering forest, after a few footsteps in, the trees surrounded him at every angle and there was no escape. The journey had to continue, there was no turning back now. The scattered leaves and twigs crunched below his feet as he advanced further into the colossal forest, his nose was conquered by the dominant scent of burning wood and mud. The whispering footsteps of wild beastly animals seemed to be following his every motion, then the sudden roaring wind threw him off balance and he plummeted to the ground with a colossal thud.

He rose to his feet immediately and a distance ahead of him he could see the moon light fighting through the dense trees. He proceeded in the direction in which he was originally travelling in. After a while of walking he became aware that the night was at its peak and nothing but death could be heard. He fearfully darted as rapid as he could and now the opening of the forest was near, he cleared the last of the trees, and he was now out of the mighty forest.

In front of him stood an isolated castle, he sceptically approached the mammoth cast iron gates that towered far above him. The gates had huge rusted chains securing them, but they were not locked. He heaved the gates with great difficulty and managed to open a small gap that he was able to squeeze through.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The gravel in advance of him seemed disturbed as if someone had already past over it recently, he continued anyway and the gravel crunched beneath his feet, the old cold stone castle was in front of him. He approached the huge rotting wooden doors, which were wide open and he slowly entered the vast hallway, a mighty bash was heard behind him, he spun around and realized that the doors had fastened.

The hallway was damp, with a stale smell, it was decorated with ancient wallpaper and rotting furnishings, it seemed as if the place had been abandoned years ago and any previous owners are long dead, but judging by the size of the doors and gates the people who lived here must have been humongous.

He progressed deeper into the ancient castle, he could hear dripping echoes around the corridor he had entered, the smell changed it was now a disgusting rotting smell as if something or someone had died in the area.

Further forwards he saw an object hanging in the centre of the corridor in the distance but he could not tell what it was, the smell had become more dominant as he continued it was becoming unbearable, he reached the hanging object and to his disgust and astonishment was a man’s leg dangling from a piece of wire tied to a pipe above his head, the leg had already begun rotting away but a lot of flesh still remained, it appeared as if the leg was chopped of by a butchers knife or an axe.

He had now reached the end of the corridor and was lingering at the top of a dark spiralling staircase, he descended slowly but fearfully into the darkness of the staircase that was slowly absorbing him, unable to see anything but his feet and the step he was treading on he would be unable to tell how many steps he would have to descend. Trusting himself he gripped onto the railing at one side of these stairs and went down one step at a time, he had descended masses of steps, he must have been going down for at least half an hour.

Finally some light began to creep in as he continued downwards; he could now see the vast remaining number of steps beneath him begin to reveal themselves. He touched the walls for balance as he descended; they were as cold as ice.

At last he discovered that the never-ending staircase was coming to an end. He reached the final step and felt a mixture of relief because the journey had ended and yet he was nervous as to what lay ahead.

At the end of the stair case was a poorly lit room that was damp and dirty.

There was blood everywhere; all over the walls and a huge puddle where he was standing. In the centre of the room he found a bleeding man tied to a small wooden chair with thick ropes. In the man’s leg a large butcher’s knife had been wedged deep into his flesh. The room was empty except for a large steel door at the back of the room. The door swung open and a giant man with a huge blood soaked knife stood at the door saturated in shadow.

By Vas Panayi 11ES

Document Details

Word Count 829
Page Count 2
Subject English

Related Essays

Gothic Stories

Traditionally Gothic stories are set in castles, churches, darkness or othe...

Victorian Gothic Novels

Gothic essay, monkey's paw

Skip to main content
Skip to primary sidebar

EveryWriter

A New Community of Writers

100 gothic fiction writing prompts

November 28, 2023 by Richard Leave a Comment

Here are 100 gothic fiction writing prompts that go bump in the night. Shadowy figures are lurking in crumbling mansions. Ominous family curses and disturbing secrets. Welcome to the macabre world of gothic fiction. With its atmospheric tales of horror and suspense, this haunting genre never seems to die.

And now, you can let your dark imagination run wild thanks to these 100 spine-tingling gothic fiction writing prompts. Inside, you’ll find story ideas involving haunted sanitariums, possessed dolls, vengeful spirits, bizarre experiments gone wrong, unsettling wax museums, and so much more.

Creative inspiration awaits on every chilling line, from creepy portraits and abandoned opera houses to agents of the occult and sinister doppelgangers. Not for the faint of heart, these prompts pull back the veil into spaces where the darkest dreams and nightmares dwell just out of sight.

Venture forth, if you dare. Let the ghosts and shadows guide your pen to weave deliciously dramatic tales to make readers shiver. Just be warned—once you immerse yourself in these macabre realms, you might never wish to return to the comforting glow of the light again. The spirits will eagerly await your next visit to their darkened domains.

An old mansion hides disturbing secrets and supernatural forces in the attic that slowly take control of a new homeowner.
A family curse causes a daughter to transform into a ghostly spirit every night, haunting the ancestral castle.
Gargoyles and stone figures seem to move when no one is watching in an ancient monastery turned hotel.
Mysterious scratching and cries can be heard within the walls of a creaky old plantation house at night.
An innocent mother is accused of witchcraft in 1600s Salem and condemned to death for her occult “crimes.”
A widow uncovers her dead husband’s strange double life after finding his hidden portrait stashed away in a forgotten attic.
A mental patient believes a possessed doll talks to her at night, urging her to commit violent acts.
Strange marks and blood keep appearing on a daughter after she becomes obsessed with communicating with spirits using an antique Ouija board.
A decaying sanitarium still bears unsettling traces of its horrific and bizarre medical practices on abandoned patients.
Villagers suffer violent sleepwalking fits that coincide with rumors of a vampire stalking the night.
A daughter tries to figure out if she’s going insane or truly haunted by the vengeful ghost of her dead mother.
A perilous staircase within an abbey spirals into unknown realms below.
A pallid masked ball conjures macabre visions of the past that hint at an unsolved murder.
A family becomes increasingly corrupted and haunted after moving into an ancestral home their new baby inherited.
Dogs around a village go mad after a meteor crash, savaging their masters at night.
Mysterious medicinal tinctures at an asylum seem to only make patients exhibit worsening fits of insanity.
A gravedigger realizes the corpse he just buried seems oddly still sentient and desperate to escape.
Villagers are plagued by a daemonic specter leaving behind inexplicable nocturnal phenomena like imprints of cloven hooves.
An innocent girl is abducted into a convent as punishment for her mother’s sins but discovers the nuns secretly practice witchcraft at night.
An accursed cask of Amontillado wine drives its victims murderously insane.
A troubled widow uncovers her home’s accursed foundations are strangely shifting every night.
A shadowy cabal seeks occult texts and artifacts for mysterious rituals from the catacombs below a corrupted monastery.
In the candlelit rooms of an abandoned Gothic manse, ghosts endlessly recreate a tragedy.
A prisoner is spirited away every night from his cell to a ghostly masked ball even as he awaits execution.
Sinister medieval torture devices are revived to torment victims of an obsessive cryptic society within a dungeon.
Glimpses of fatal visions in ornate mirrors drives the viewer slowly mad.
An eccentric gentleman scientist conducts deranged experiments bringing corpses to life with disastrous consequences.
A remote island filled with exotic flowers breeds an opiate-like scent that draws visitors only to never let them leave again.
A silver bell that rings unexpectedly in the night signals another soon-to-be victim marked for death by a vengeful spirit.
Eerie doppelgangers take the place of loved ones, deceiving everyone except one person who knows the truth.
A crumbling gothic tower imprisoned artists driven mad trying to capture visions of a beautiful muse who tragically perished.
An asylum patient speaks a dead language to mysterious entities living within the walls.
Sinister satanic rituals take place in the catacombs below a remote monastery.
An eccentric widow performs bizarre elaborate funerals for her dead pets left to wander restless on the grounds of her decaying estate.
Terrible secrets fester behind the boarded up windows of a foreboding Gothic manse sinking into a swamp.
A cursed ancient artifact causes a strange wasting plague to rapidly age victims until they become desiccated ghoulish remnants.
Phantasmagoric illusions plague a masked ball, showing omens of tragedy within the mirrors.
Witch hunters accuse women in a village of secret satanic pacts causing children to dance madly to macabre magical flutes only they seem to hear.
A miserable masked carnival performer transforms into a real grotesque creature when offstage after being born malformed.
An old wooden marionette begins subtly manipulating its puppeteer.
Mysterious locked rooms once used for occult rituals drive the curious to obsessively seek ways to see inside.
Winged vicious creatures stalk the elaborate stone halls of crumbling ancestral castle.
Unmarked graves in family cemeteries disturbingly sink every year even after exhumation.
A vampiric contagion spreads from rats boldly biting citizens in a shadowy slum.
A wretched foundling child suffers violent fits and harbors a cruel second soul those in the workhouse strangely indulge.
A portrait’s eyes seem to hauntingly follow you as if the spirit remains trapped within.
An intricate puzzle box found in the ashes of an old burned down asylum proves maddeningly impossible yet sinister to solve.
A masked stranger seems to mysteriously die multiple violent deaths before your eyes at the same masquerade ball over centuries.
A sleep experiment induces ghastly nightmares that continue to haunt waking victims.
A wax museum’s strikingly lifelike figures seem prone to subtly shifting when unobserved.
Mourning paintings morph the dead’s faces into cadaverous skulls if stared at too long.
Disturbing eerie echoes of macabre theater scenes continue to repeat within an abandoned Opera house attic even without players.
A widower’s pained artistic attempts at revival seem to succeeding at resurrecting his deceased wife into an uncanny creature.
A sentient schizophrenic house’s architecture keeps fantastically warping.
A broken antique kaleidoscope filled with tainted bone fragments shows macabre visions of death to owners.
An inhabitant of opiate dens seems to project their delirious dreams of a haunted palace.
Gargoyles mysteriously take the place of landlords thought to be away on extended trips.
Elaborate startling illusionist tricks at a theater inexplicably shift into real supernatural manifestations.
An ornate hand mirror shows the viewer’s face aging rapidly or glimpses their own gruesome death behind their shoulder.
Ghostly debutante dancers endlessly waltz together unable to stop until dawn breaks the spell binding them to the ballroom.
A widow uncovers her husband’s secret obsession with building uncannily perfect wind up automata replacements of recently deceased townspeople.
A physician teaches his unusual nervously sensitive ward to enter a trance to retreat from reality’s disturbing stimuli into the meticulously crafted rooms of a haunted mind palace.
Corpses of the recently deceased are stolen from cemeteries before materializing days later woven into elaborately posed configurations on church pews.
A troubled writer frequents the sprawling haunted ruins of an alchemist’s strange estate, inspiring her wildly imaginative yet disturbing stories seeming to manifest elements into reality the more she writes them.
A masked stranger haunts the private theater box night after night to bizarrely mentor an actress until she embodies her dead lover reborn onstage.
Ghostly echoes of macabre deaths plague a murderer forcing them toward the scene of their crimes for a reenactment on every anniversary.
Eerie music box melodies woven from metal pins and blood guide the imaginative inside a labyrinthine mechanical puzzle house.
A widow trapped in perpetual mourning painstakingly applies her dead daughter’s preserved face to lifelike doll effigies.
Disturbing unseen presences seem to forcibly puppeteer vulnerable drug addicts into recreating bizarre depraved theater shows.
An intricately decorated artifact using human bones and teeth seems to promise supernatural visions yet also extract sanity as payment.
A troubled detective frequents the bizarrely maze-like halls of his inherited family estate which seems to ominously shift and transform to mirror his fractured mind.
A strange idol causes bizarre uncanny doppelgangers to manifest when studying your mirrored reflection too closely by candlelight.
An ominous ancient grandfather clock always seems to countdown toward the hour of a person’s eventual mysterious death.
Eerie echoes from a deceased twin haunt a surviving sister while her parents seem obliviously content to pretend the deceased child never existed.
A troubled magician able to manifest realistic illusions finds the appearances slowly becoming autonomous entities no longer under their control.
A melancholy doll somehow houses the soul of a drowned child submerged from a past tragedy mysteriously able to animate itself.
A comatose woman’s nightmares seem to cross over into waking reality the longer she remains unable to wake up.
A grieving eccentric covertly captures apparitions on antique photographic plates by stealing close keepsakes from dead loved ones to haunt the images.
A drug addict watches a doppelganger slowly take over their life leaving them behind like a forgotten hollow shell.
An heiress who haunts a decaying mansion seems to enchant guests into staying longer each visit until they waste away becoming dusty relics imprisoned by her loneliness.
Death masks crafted from wax conceal a bizarre way for the wealthy secretly achieve eternal life by encasing souls.
An intricate puzzle box found in an asylum’s ashes proves disturbingly irresistible yet maddeningly impossible to solve.
Faded unnerving portraits hide being them twisted decaying corpse faces revealed by candlelight.
An artist’s miraculously revived daughter rapidly becomes a bizarre inhuman creature.
A grieving mother uses bodies of the recently deceased as bizarre life size macabre doll replacements for her dead daughter.
Unmarked patient graves in an asylum’s cemetery subtly sink deeper when no one watches.
A haunted portrait’s subject seems to possess those who gaze upon their beauty for too long.
An intricate anatomical theater hides disturbing occult ceremonies deep below.
A twisted sculptures garden filled with contorted stone bodies seems to come alive at night.
Ghostly debutante dancers haunt an abandoned dilapidated ballroom unable stop waltzing even as the room crumbles.
A magician’s transformative stage illusions become an addiction yet irreversibly distorts their appearance when not on stage.
A troubling ornate music box plays seemingly random eerie melodies that prove to sadly match the tune of imminent real life tragedies.
A grief stricken eccentric attempts increasingly deranged experiments to revive dead loved ones.
An intricate mechanical puzzle house ensnares victims inside its constantly shifting labyrinthine rooms and halls.
A haunted asylum’s disturbing experimental therapies leave victims in an eternally childlike regressed state even after death.
Unearthly cries emerge from the boarded up ruins of a decaying estate no one dares gets near at night.
An intricate mosaic floor patterns itself from the powdered cremation ashes of deceased institute residents.
Mourning paintings hauntingly transform to show the dead’s faces become cadaverous skulls if stared at too long.
An intricate clockwork automatons that perfectly resemble the newly dead seem to creepily enact aspects of their former living behaviors.
An intricate artful anatomy theater hides disturbing occult ceremonies deep below its secret trapdoors.

We hope you enjoyed this list of Gothic writing prompts. There are many other writing prompts on our site you may enjoy. If you have any questions or concerns please leave them in the comments below. Feel free to leave us any work you want to share that was inspired by these prompts.

1000 Writing Prompts
10 Horrifying Horror Story Prompts
10 Even More Horrifying Horror Story Prompts
50 historical fiction writing prompts
365 Horrifying Horror Writing Prompts

About Richard

Richard Everywriter (pen name) has worked for literary magazines and literary websites for the last 25 years. He holds degrees in Writing, Journalism, Technology and Education. Richard has headed many writing workshops and courses, and he has taught writing and literature for the last 20 years.

In writing and publishing he has worked with independent, small, medium and large publishers for years connecting publishers to authors. He has also worked as a journalist and editor in both magazine, newspaper and trade publications as well as in the medical publishing industry. Follow him on Twitter, and check out our Submissions page .

Reader Interactions

Privacy Overview

Eleven Scary Stories of the Gothic in Literature

September 21, 2022
AP Literature , English 11 , Short Stories

High school students LOVE gothic in literature. There is just something about the darkness of the setting, characters and plot that high school students fall for, every time. So here is a list of eleven gothic stories for high school English class that will be just the thing.

What’s Gothic in Literature?

When we think about gothic in literature, the definition tends to connect a series of common elements. Gothic literature features dark settings, dark characters and dark plot lines. The stories often revolve around death, horror and decay and the main characters are often self destructive. They tend to have once grand settings that are now in disrepair and the diction in the stories is used to highlight this decay through macabre vocabulary.

And, high school students eat these stories up.

11 Scary Stories of Gothic in Literature for High School English. These 11 stories are a perfect introduction to Gothic Literature. Each with ideas on on how use them in the classroom.

Favorite Gothic Short Stories for High School Students

“a rose for emily” by william faulkner.

This is Southern Gothic at its finest. The story opens with the death of Miss Emily Grierson and the town is giddy with interest. No one, save her one servant, has been in her house for decades. Their curiosity is palpable. The story jumps from the present to Emily’s back story which includes her controlling father, a suitor who just disappears, a strange odor coming from her house and her reclusive lifestyle. And the twist at the end gets the students every time.

Teaching ideas for “A Rose for Emily”:

Consider the Point of View —the story is told through a collective first person
The group as a character —the town acts as one character who is quite influential on Emily’s life
Non-linear timelines —for more, check out this post .

“The Moonlit Road” by Ambrose Bierce

Another Souther Gothic, this story of a murder told in three voices. The son of the murder victim starts it. Then is the presumed murderer followed by the victim (through a medium). Each narrator adds details to the story so that the reader can piece together what really happened.

Teaching ideas for “The Moonlit Road”

Consider Point of View —the story is told through multiple first person narrators, so narrator reliability is big
Plot Structure —Since each narrator reveals a little more, it opens discussions of why Bierce would structure the story this way

“Strawberry Spring” by Stephen King

It’s 1968. On a college campus in Maine, a serial killer named “Springhill Jack” has resurfaced, after years of being dormant, a body is found by a janitor on a foggy night. The students are all a buzz with “did you know her” and “who do you think did it” and “I heard it was her boyfriend.”

Teaching ideas for “Strawberry Spring”

Focus on Setting —the details of the setting are brilliant in this Stephen King short story: have students examine how he uses the setting to develop the mood
Focus of Details —have students gather the details to see how King sets them up for ending
Pair with a Podcast —There is a scripted podcast based and expanding on the story. (At the time of writing this, I have not listened to this, so I cannot attest to the quality or how closely it follows the story line.) Students could listen to the first episode and then do something similar with another gothic story.

“A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf

In Virginia Woolf’s very short story, a ghostly couple prowls around the house they once lived in doing mischievous acts. The details allow us to build a picture of the couple’s life when they were alive. Although this story is lacking some of the gothic characteristics of decay and self-destruction, it fits through the darkness of the setting and fact that they main characters are ghosts.

Teaching ideas for “A Haunted House”

Focus on Imagery —the imagery in this story is gorgeous, have students choose their favorites and then explain how they help to develop the setting, characters or theme
Focus on Characterization —what do we really know about the couple? How do we know it?

This story is part of my Flash Fiction Bootcamp for AP® Literature. For more on how I use it, check out this post . Or for a done-for-you lesson plan, head here .

“I Used to Live Here Once” by Jean Rhys

The narrator is revisiting her childhood (?) home. She notices all the changes that have occurred since she has been gone including missing trees and the addition of a swing set. She approaches the children who are playing on the newly added swing set, but their only response is a comment about how it is suddenly cold. This is a flash fiction story, so students can read it under 5 minutes.

Teaching Ideas for “I Used to Live Here Once”

Focus on Details —how does Rhys use the details in the story to enlighten the reader about the true nature of the narrator

“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe

No gothic short story collection would be complete without the addition of story by Edgar Allen Poe. And every English teacher has their preferences, mine is “The House of Usher.” The story is first person and told by a friend who is visiting “The House of Usher.” The initial description of the house say it all: it is in a state of decay just like the family.

Teaching Ideas for “The Fall of the House of Usher”

Focus on Diction —in just the opening paragraphs, you can highlight how Edgar Allan Poe masterfully uses word choice to give the truly gothic sense of decay in the story. (For a done-for-you lesson, check out Passage of the Week: from “The Fall of the House of Usher”)
Focus on Characterization —help your students to see how Poe uses the methods of characterization to build the madness in the House of Usher.

“A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell

This one is longer and can be read either as a short story or a short play called “Trifles”. It is the story of a woman who’s husband has been murdered. When the neighbor discovers it, she seems to know nothing. The scene opens with a sheriff investigating at the house with both the neighbor witnesses and the wife.

Teaching Ideas for “A Jury of Her Peers”

Focus on Characterization —there is a lot to be gleaned through the dialogue in this story, especially about Minnie (the wife of the murdered). Her responses to the sheriff leave much to be inferred.
Focus on Detail —the cold plays a role throughout the story. How does Glaspell build it into the story and why does it matter?

“Bluebeard” by Charles Perrault

This is a classic fairy tale that your students will likely not know, but should. An older (ugly) neighbor has his eye on either of his young neighbors to be his bride. Neither are interested until money enters the equation. Finally the younger one agrees. He takes her to his palatial country estate, tells her he must go away on business and gives her the run of the estate. He hands her a set of keys telling her she may go anywhere she likes, except this one room. Of course, she cannot resist.

Teaching Ideas for Bluebeard

Introduce Archetypal Criticism —fairy tales are perfect for teaching students about archetypes. There are any number of character and setting archetypes in this story that make it perfect for a study of archetypes.
Pair with a Poem — Edna St. Vincent Millay has a poem by the same name that is an allusion to the fairy tale. Teach the poem (which is a sonnet) first and then enlighten them on the allusion. ( Poetry Soup has other Bluebeard poems as well ).

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The narrator is writing the story in an almost diary-like style. She is supposedly summering with her family at this mansion where her doctor/husband has locked her in a room with hideous yellow wallpaper, bars on the windows and other insidious details. The narrator is convinced that there is a woman trapped in within the “bars” of the vines in the wallpaper and she begins to work at freeing the woman who is trapped.

Teaching Ideas for “The Yellow Wallpaper”

I ntroduce Psychological Criticism —I love teaching this story when my students have previously taken AP® Psychology because they naturally gravitate to discussing the narrator’s mental stability, but even without that background you can introduce your students to psychological criticism.
Considering Reliable Narrator —how reliable is this narrator? For more on teaching point of view, check out this post

“The Summer People” by S hirley Jackson

The Allisons are an older couple who have decided to stay on at their summer cottage after Labor Day rather than return to their New York City apartment. But as they try to go about their regular (summer) lives, it becomes apparent that the townies do not welcome them staying on beyond their appointed time. The ending comes with both a twist and a lack of finality.

Teaching Ideas for “The Summer People”

Consider Dialogue —examine how the dialogue reveals the peril of the situation for the Allisons. Students can consider how the dialogue reveals their background, their values and their relationship with the environment.
Consider Suspense —examine plot structure to see how the author creates suspense in the story.

“ A Wireless Message” by Ambrose Bierce

This story begins with almost newspaper-like lead. The reader is set up with the who, what, where and when. And it’s the perfect start to the gothic in literature. The main character is estranged from his wife who is still in Chicago while he is in a small unnamed town Central New York. He has gone out for a late night walk to clear his head when he is greeted by a light on the horizon that is there regardless of the direction he faces. As he tries to get his bearings, he sees an apparition of his wife. When he finally finds himself back at his brother’s home, he gets a telegram stating his wife has died in a fire.

Teaching Ideas for “A Wireless Message”

Consider Syntax —Bierce uses a beautiful combination of short and long sentences to control the pacing of the story.

This story is part of my Flash Fiction Bootcamp for AP® Literature. For more on how I use it, check out this post . Or for a done-for-you lesson plan, head here.

Build a Unit for the Gothic in Literature

It’s easy to pull these stories into a gothic in literature unit through a genre study. Choose any three to five stories. You don’t even need to tell students that they are gothic stories, you could simply do what I did which is tell the students they are connected through some aspect. When my English 11 students worked on a gothic unit, the stories were simply connected through the idea that there were mysterious dead bodies in each.

After we had finished all of the stories, students took notes on the gothic in literature using these anchor charts, then we used a jigsaw style grouping to have students reexamine the stories in groups for each of the elements of the gothic and create collaborative posters.

After we discussed the elements of the gothic in literature, students wrote their own gothic stories. We then tied this back to our state exam by having students do some metacognition work by identifying their own central ideas and their own writer’s craft used to build the central idea.

Flash Fiction Bootcamp for AP® Literature

3 of the Best Short Stories for High School

Activities for Point of View to Help Students Understand Author’s Purpose

Exploring Gothic Poetry in High School English (Smith Teaches 9 to 12)

A Wanted Lesson Plan for “A Tell Tale Heart” (An ELA Experience)

Shop this Post for the Gothic in Literature

Literary Criticism Anchor Chart Bundle

Literary Terms Anchor Charts and Task Cards Bundle

Point of View Anchor Charts and Task Cards

Setting Anchor Charts and Task Cards Bundle

Characterization Anchor Charts

Plot Structure Anchor Charts and Task Cards Bundle

Passage of the Week: excerpt from “Fall of the House of Usher”

Gothic Literature Anchor Charts and Task Cards

more from the blog

The AP English Exam is Over–What’s Next?

It’s almost May, which means those of us who teach AP® English are wrapping up in preparation for the exams. It doesn’t matter whether that

Bell ringer ideas of high school English

Bell Ringer Ideas for High School English

The moment our students walk in the classroom, we need to make sure that they get to work. The quicker they get to work, the

Teaching allusions in literature in high school English

Teaching Allusion in Literature in High School English

Only a few years ago, I could count on that one kid to recognize the allusions in literature that we would encounter in our shared

One Response

Pingback: A Wanted Lesson Plan for "The Tell-Tale Heart" - An ELA Experience

Hi, I'm Jeanmarie!

I help AP Literature and High School English teachers create engaging classrooms so that students will be prepared college and beyond.

Learn more about me and how I can help you here

Let's Connect!

Your free guide to planning a full year of AP Literature

Grab your free copy of The Poetry Slam Guide for High School English Teachers.

AP® is a trademark registered by the College Board, which is not affiliated with, and does not endorse, this product.

John N. Williams

Well-planned online essay writing assistance by PenMyPaper

Writing my essays has long been a part and parcel of our lives but as we grow older, we enter the stage of drawing critical analysis of the subjects in the writings. This requires a lot of hard work, which includes extensive research to be done before you start drafting. But most of the students, nowadays, are already overburdened with academics and some of them also work part-time jobs. In such a scenario, it becomes impossible to write all the drafts on your own. The writing service by the experts of PenMyPaper can be your rescuer amidst such a situation. We will write my essay for me with ease. You need not face the trouble to write alone, rather leave it to the experts and they will do all that is required to write your essays. You will just have to sit back and relax. We are offering you unmatched service for drafting various kinds for my essays, everything on an online basis to write with. You will not even have to visit anywhere to order. Just a click and you can get the best writing service from us.

Human Resource
Business Strategy
Operations Management
Project Management
Business Management
Supply Chain Management
Scholarship Essay
Narrative Essay
Descriptive Essay
Buy Essay Online
College Essay Help
Help To Write Essay Online

Our team of writers is native English speakers from countries such as the US with higher education degrees and go through precise testing and trial period. When working with EssayService you can be sure that our professional writers will adhere to your requirements and overcome your expectations. Pay your hard-earned money only for educational writers.

Gustavo Almeida Correia

Finished Papers

Andersen, Jung & Co. is a San Francisco based, full-service real estate firm providing customized concierge-level services to its clients. We work to help our residential clients find their new home and our commercial clients to find and optimize each new investment property through our real estate and property management services.

Our Team of Professional Essay Writers

As we are an honest and well-paying essay writer service, writers come flying our way. Nonetheless, in the writers' community, we are known for our strict selection process. You as a client can be sure that you will be working with the best paper writer in the game no matter your subject or the difficulty of the task as all our writers go through testing and have their degrees checked. Only 3% of all applicants are accepted to work with us and even these 3% have a training program and a two-month trial period ahead. We value our reputation and only hire true experts with years of experience in academic writing behind their backs. Nonetheless, being a professional writers service has its challenges. For example, as our employer expectations are high, not all writers can handle the challenge of creating zero-plagiarism essay writing content in a short time frame, so as leading writing services we must keep everything in control.

Sharing Educational Goals

Our cheap essay service is a helping hand for those who want to reach academic success and have the perfect 4.0 GPA. Whatever kind of help you need, we will give it to you.

IMAGES

Gothic Story Sample
Compare and contrast three 19th Century gothic short stories commenting
Creative Writing
Read Gothic Short Stories Online by Wordsworth Editions
Gothic Story
WRITING A GOTHIC SHORT STORY Before you start writing, look

VIDEO

ఉగాది పండుగ ప్రాముఖ్యత#Ugadi festival importance ఉగాది పండుగ#Ugadi festival short story essay
Кратко про Gothic 3 (Часть 5)
The Book by H.P. Lovecraft
The Lady Or The Tiger Essay தமிழில் By Frank R Stockton Summary In Tamil Narration By Tamilarasan
2. Prayia's Short Story Essay on Why 🐱 Cats Are Her Favorite Animal, March 20th, 2024
The Daemon Lover🤗#shortsfeed #youtubeshorts #shorts #trending #viral

COMMENTS

How to write a gothic short story in 20 minutes.
Last year, I was teaching my year 10 class and had asked them to write a gothic story in 200 words and in 20 minutes... The look on their faces was one of horror. However, this is an important skill in the current GCSE system. Students have 45 minutes to write a story or description at the end of a gruelling GCSE exam paper. For most students the time constraints of the first 4 questions means ...
Gothic Literature
The images of "A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel" present scary elements of gothic works (Poe 1846). Poe leaves the moral judgment about revenge to the readers. Poe's two short stories bear all the elements of horrifying and chilling gothic literature.
Writing and Understanding Gothic Literature [With Examples]
Gothic literature is a genre of literature that combines dark elements, spooky settings, conflicted and disturbed characters into a whimsically horrific, often romantic, story. It's the darkest portion of Dark Romanticism, emerging soon after the Romantic literary era. Brief history lesson for gothic literature: Romanticism deals heavily with ...
10 excellent gothic short stories you can read for free
MASKED ENTITIES. 'The Woman in Red' and 'Unmasked', Muriel Campbell Dyar (1899, 1900) "There was a sharp click, as of a metal catch, and the velvet mask, loosened, fell softly to the ground...There, in the bright white moonlight, he looked full at the face of the Woman in Red and, with a terrible cry of horror, fell like one dead upon the ...
10 of the Best Gothic Horror Short Stories to Read Online
3. Edgar Allan Poe, ' The Fall of the House of Usher '. No pick of the best Gothic horror short stories would be complete without something from Poe (1809-49), who helped to pioneer the short story form (and has even been credited with introducing the term 'short story' itself into the language). Many of Poe's finest Gothic stories ...
19 Early Gothic Short Stories, eerie classics of the Gothic tradition
Sometimes we just want to stroll around crumbling castles and be confronted with strange happenings for a short period. Nothing like immersing oneself in a classic short story - and, more specifically, a Gothic one - for a few shivers down the spine, encounters with vampires, ghosts, or other monsters during a night of reading!. We invite you today to light a candle and take a warm blanket ...
5 Must-Read Gothic Short Stories for High School Students
I like to have students create a definition essay as a culminating assignment for the unit; alternatively, students can construct a presentation and/or write their own original short stories using the traits they've observed from texts in the unit. Here are five must-read Gothic short stories for high school students.
PDF Gothic and the Short Story: Revolutions in Form and Genre
Leading deﬁ nitions of the Gothic and the short story demonstrate their compat-ibility, accounting in part for the proliferation of Gothic short stories. Concluding his study of the short story, March-Russell suggests that it 'has acted at various times as a resource for writers to contest the dominant beliefs in social progress and formal
Gothic Short Stories
I have read 3 famous gothic short stories, and in my essay I am going to explore them in detail to decide how suspense has been created, and how effective this is. The three stories are: The Body-Snatcher. The Red Room. The Adventure of the Speckled Band. All of these titles start with "The"; this is to show it is a more definite article.
14 of My Favorite Short Stories for Teaching Gothic Literature
For a very short gothic tale, turn to the story of Matilda Harding, a one-legged protagonist who goes to visit her mother and never returns. Her husband and sister are left behind in the house, but eventually they too disappear. A larger-than-life vine grows on the house that is strangely reminiscent of Matilda.
Gothic Fiction: Themes and Key Elements
Most of the gothic fiction involves the supernatural. The monster in "Frankenstein" and the vampire in "The Vampire of Kaldenstein" both have similar qualities. Both are obviously not human and look natural and strange. The creature is described as a "catastrophe" and his creator goes on to describe the monster in full.
Gothic literature guide for KS3 English students
The Twilight Saga is a series of novels and one novella by the author Stephenie Meyer. This series covers many of the traditional Gothic elements together with a love story, supernatural beings ...
Gothic Story
Gothic Story. The Darkness. The advancing darkness overwhelmed his senses and the fear of the night crept upon him. Distant screams beyond the unavoidable forest seemed to draw him towards the tall trees ahead. He fearfully entered the overpowering forest, after a few footsteps in, the trees surrounded him at every angle and there was no escape.
100 gothic fiction writing prompts
100 gothic fiction writing prompts. An old mansion hides disturbing secrets and supernatural forces in the attic that slowly take control of a new homeowner. A family curse causes a daughter to transform into a ghostly spirit every night, haunting the ancestral castle. Gargoyles and stone figures seem to move when no one is watching in an ...
Examples Of Gothic Short Stories
Examples Of Gothic Short Stories. Satisfactory Essays. 222 Words. 1 Page. Open Document. I walked in the weird kitchen and stood beside Nancy and grined and she beamed back at me. When nancy smiled at me she also started to laugh for a long time. When I went up stairs I found a frightening room that said keep out and of course I walked in it to ...
Eleven Scary Stories of the Gothic in Literature
No gothic short story collection would be complete without the addition of story by Edgar Allen Poe. And every English teacher has their preferences, mine is "The House of Usher." The story is first person and told by a friend who is visiting "The House of Usher." The initial description of the house say it all: it is in a state of ...
Gothic Short Stories
Gothic Short Stories. Decent Essays. 290 Words. 2 Pages. Open Document. John pulled up to the rocky crooked edged driveway, he left his family in the car to check the house out. He came to an old brick mansion with green dull vines like sinister snakes along the sides of the outside wall. John saw the door open automatically, his bones were ...
A Narrative Essay On A Gothic Story
The novel tells the story of a vampire Dracula. This essay will focus on Dracula and show how the concept of crossing boundaries helps to create horror in Gothic stories in aspects the idea of femininity, supernatural and natural and life and death; and some evidence will be extracted from Frankenstein (1818) and Varney the vampire (1845).….
A Gothic Short Story
The setting of gothic literature is a stereotype perpetuated within all texts of the genre. A typical gothic tale will be set in a place with a dark, sinister mood and a menacing feel. An old castle especially ruined or haunted, with secret passageways, labyrinths, crypts and dungeons, is a major convention of the gothic genre.
Gothic short stories by students Free Essays
Gothic short stories. The graveyard was dark and shadowed; tulips lined the cobblestone pathway that led to the mausoleum‚ looming darkly against the feeble moon. I strode through the graveyard‚ glancing nervously around at the shadows that lay thick upon the graves like a shroud. Tulips‚ protruding like withered stakes from the ground ...
Gothic Short Story Essays
That is exactly why thousands of them come to our essay writers service for an additional study aid for their children. By working with our essay writers, you can get a high-quality essay sample and use it as a template to help them succeed. Help your kids succeed and order a paper now! REVIEWS HIRE. Gustavo Almeida Correia. #27 in Global Rating.
Gothic Short Story Essay
Gothic Short Story Essay, Creative Writing Courses Wellington, Plural Of Thesis Wiki, Great Gatsby Literary Analysis, Personal Statement Fellowship Cardiology Sample, Topic For Thesis In Environmental Engineering, Different Parts Of Job Application Letter Prices than inspire from
Gothic Short Story Essays
1 (888)814-4206. Nursing Management Business and Economics Education +117. 4.8/5. 652. Finished Papers. Gothic Short Story Essays, Examples Effective College Essays, Custom Thesis Ghostwriters For Hire Us, Sites To Find My Essays Grade Level, A Creative Learning Grid For Fictional Writing, Roadmap For Writing Character Essay, How To Structure A ...

How to write a gothic short story in 20 minutes.

Recent Posts

VICTORIAN GOTHIC LIBRARY

10 excellent gothic short stories you can read for free

IRISH VAMPIRES

HAUNTED CEMETERIES

SINISTER FAE

MASKED ENTITIES

TWISTED PLANTS

RUSSIAN WEREWOLF

WITCHES IN SALEM

PAGAN REINCARNATIONS

DARK COMEDY

DISTURBING AND BIZARRE

Recent Posts

10 of the Best Gothic Horror Short Stories to Read Online

4 thoughts on “10 of the Best Gothic Horror Short Stories to Read Online”

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Discover more from Interesting Literature

19 Early Gothic Short Stories, eerie classics of the Gothic tradition

14 of My Favorite Short Stories for Teaching Gothic Literature

“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury

“Luella Miller” by Mary Wilkins Freeman

“Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving

“The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W. Jacobs

“The Mark of the Beast” by Rudyard Kipling

“The Outsider” by H.P. Lovecraft

“A Vine on a House” by Ambrose Bierce

“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe

“The Body Snatcher” by Robert Louis Stevenson

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

“The Hand” by Guy de Maupassant

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe

“The Landlady” Roald Dahl

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Gothic Fiction History: Horror Stories With Dark and Threatening Atmosphere Essay

Gothic Story

This is a preview of the whole essay

Document Details

Related Essays

Gothic Stories

Traditionally Gothic stories are set in castles, churches, darkness or othe...

Victorian Gothic Novels

Gothic essay, monkey's paw

100 gothic fiction writing prompts

Related posts:

About Richard

Reader Interactions

Privacy Overview

Eleven Scary Stories of the Gothic in Literature

What’s Gothic in Literature?

Favorite Gothic Short Stories for High School Students

Teaching ideas for “A Rose for Emily”:

“The Moonlit Road” by Ambrose Bierce

Teaching ideas for “The Moonlit Road”

“Strawberry Spring” by Stephen King

Teaching ideas for “Strawberry Spring”

“A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf

Teaching ideas for “A Haunted House”

“I Used to Live Here Once” by Jean Rhys

Teaching Ideas for “I Used to Live Here Once”

“The Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe

Teaching Ideas for “The Fall of the House of Usher”

“A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell

Teaching Ideas for “A Jury of Her Peers”

“Bluebeard” by Charles Perrault

Teaching Ideas for Bluebeard

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Teaching Ideas for “The Yellow Wallpaper”

“The Summer People” by S hirley Jackson

Teaching Ideas for “The Summer People”

Teaching Ideas for “A Wireless Message”

Build a Unit for the Gothic in Literature

Related Posts

Shop this Post for the Gothic in Literature

more from the blog

The AP English Exam is Over–What’s Next?

Bell Ringer Ideas for High School English

Teaching Allusion in Literature in High School English