HOME | Mysite

top of page

Dramatic landscapes. Haunted houses. Tall dark strangers with a terrifying secret. These are only a few of the traditional motifs characterizing the Gothic genre. Think Jane Eyre, The Picture of Dorian Gray, or The Mysteries of Udolpho.

But recently (well okay, more like the 1930s onwards. Fight me) other authors have been putting their own spin on the classic tropes, bringing issues of race, class, and gender into the mix. Writers like Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood and Helen Oyeyemi have been challenging some of the most defining aspects of the original genre, all while retaining the sense of dark, creepy mystery so familiar to those 18th and 19th century works.