Interplay between Fantasy and Reality in The Gothic
Interplay between Fantasy and Reality in The GothicThe Gothic - Interplay between Realism and Fantasy
The purpose of the imagination, I believe, is to offer us solace and shelter from situations and life passages which would otherwise prove unendurable. The imagination which so often kept me awake and in terror as a child has seen me through some terrible bouts of stark raving reality as an adult.
( Stephen King Nightmares and Dreamscapes : 8 )
This quote from one of America's leading writers' highlights one of the most important reasons for the use of fantasy in gothic fiction. Fantasy cannot only create terror but can mentally protect us from real life horrors which we don't want to acknowledge - not necessarily a good thing as much gothic fiction has shown.
I will study the interplay between the elements of realism and fantasy via the use of the following texts: Angela Carter's' The Bloody Chamber focusing mainly on "The Bloody Chamber" and "The Lady of the House of Love". Stephen King's The Shining, there will also be references to Stanley Kubrick's film version of The Shining and Wes Craven's modern gothic film The People Under the Stairs.
The most obvious use of the fantasy/reality interface in gothic fiction is the fact that the fantasy almost always exists within the reality. On a basic level this means that the stereotypical gothic castle where the story ( a fantasy ) unfolds is always in a real place. Dracula is fantasy but takes place in the "real world", The Overlook Hotel and the things that go on there in The Shining are pure gothic fantasy but the hotel is set in a real region of the Colorado Rockies and is near real towns such as Sidewinder ( named after a real pass through the Rocky Mountains that really does get dangerously snowed-in in winter ). I could go on for hours but you probably get the point by now. It is very rare that a gothic text is set in a purely fantastical world - modern sci-fi gothic can be an exception. You also find that the writer very rarely begins the story in the gothic setting, it is introduced via the real world. In The Shining we travel through Colorado to get to the Overlook for instance. This helps make the distinction between real and fantasy even clearer, we have seen what is "normal" and this heightens our perceptions of what is "abnormal". There is also a more simple...
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