Also within this translation, the diabolus is characterized as God's personal spy who travels the earth to gather information concerning human existence. Within the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Bible, the diabolus is translated as the Hebrew "he-satan". The actual term ‘Devil' comes from the Latin term diabolus which is an adjective meaning slanderous. This spirit stands in constant opposition to God. The Devil, as portrayed in Judaism and Christianity, stands as a spirit of incarnate evil who rules over a dark kingdom. Henry James’ “The Friend of the Friends” is presented as excerpts from a young woman’s diary retrieved by an un-named narrator, when, of course, the tale is by Henry James. Jerald Hogle has written extensively about the "counterfeit" as a trope of Gothic textual instability.Įxamples: William Beckford's infamous Vathek first appeared as a counterfeit editor's recovery of an anonymous translation of an Arabian tale. Such "counterfeit" framing narratives frequently complicate the point of view and "authenticity" of Gothic stories. From the Castle of Otranto (1764) onwards, many Gothic texts present themselves as an editor's recovery and presentation of some ancient text, cloaking the true author's writing of the story. This small space without much light and no view creates a feeling of claustrophobia, but, oddly, this sense seems to afflict the narrator and reader more than it does the inscrutable scrivener.Ī playful fakery of authenticity. It has no view other than that of a brick wall. Another intriguing example can be found in Melville's "Bartelby, the Scrivener." Bartelby occupies a very small and dark cubicle. Catacombs are especially evocative Gothic spaces because they enable the living to enter below ground a dark labyrinth resonating with the presences and mysteries of the dead.Įxample: Sophia Lee's The Recess chronicles the story of two ill-fated sisters literally born into an underground recess in this novel the idea of claustrophobia extends beyond just the obvious physical entrapment to serve as a metaphor of woman's recessive existence in a world of cruel court and male intrigue. Cemeteries are widely used in Gothic Literature as oftentimes frightening places where revenance can occur. Christian belief formed the idea of the cemetery as a churchyard or crypt, but we must remember that a cemetery is any place which is used to house the dead. Paleolithic caves, temples, sanctuaries, grave mounds and necropolii are just a few different types differentiated cemeteries. All cultures seem to have participated in the idea of a cemetery in a form at some time. This term koimeterion (" place of rest") was primarily applied by early Christians to the Roman catacombs-a subterranean labyrinth of galleries with recesses for tombs originally used by the city's Jewish population-and became widely used within the 15th century. Also see revenant.Ī cemetery defines a place which is used for the burial of the dead. Although the corpse of the boy does in fact re-animate, it is controlled by an evil demon bent upon the murder of surrounding mortals. The father proceeds to re-bury the boy, Gavin, in a place known as Pet Semetary in hopes that the child will come back to life. In the novel, the father of a newly dead boy digs up the body hours after burial. The most famous example of a Gothic story which involves the theft of a corpse in order to bring it back to some form of life is Frankenstein: Victor frequents "the dissecting room and the slaughter-house" for his "workshop of filthy creation"-apparently his monster comes from some kind of assemblage.Ī more recent example of body-snatching comes from Stephen King's Pet Semetary (actually spelled this way). Stevenson's "The Body-Snatcher" employs the grisly profession of corpse stealing to weave a tale in which two grave robbers are horrified to find in their latest disinterred coffin the body of a man they had previously killed and served up to the medical profession.
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