Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier can be read through the lens of formalist criticism, which requires the readers to analyze the structure of a particular text that also shows the author's style, tone, imagery etc. This novel revolves around suspense and Max De Winter’s mysterious late wife, Rebecca. The moment in the book when the new Mrs. De Winter runs into a mentally challenged man named Ben, foreshadows or reveals the dual personality of Rebecca when he says “don’t take me to the asylum” hinting
he calls his father “boy”. Moreover, in the most significant scene of the story, John takes on a “fatherly voice” (23) when he and Bethany witness his very confused, stumbling, drunk father – whose demeanour in this scene is likened to that of Frankenstein: “a frightened, blind, monstrosity” (23). Bethany also picks up on the ways in which John works to subdue and control the power of those who dare to undermine him – namely, his sister
explanation of the origin of life. Moreover, as naturalism suggested that life is only an accident which leads life meaningless, this can be argued by the fact that most people living on the Earth say they are living in a meaningful life and also by the Frankenstein example. Pros and Cons of
Learning Journal: Week 1: Romanticism: • Rose in the 1790s in Germany and Britain, and in the 1820s in France and elsewhere, it is known as the Romantic Movement or Romantic Revival • Writers of the time thought of them self as free spirits that wrote of the imaginative truth within them self, and repudiated the aristocratic way of life. • The creative imagination occupied the centre of Romantic views of art Writers and texts: William Blake: Songs of Innocence, Lewis: Tales of Terror Jane
The Gothic is the study of the otherness; the unseen. It disturbs us as it is associated with anxiety, chaos, darkness, the grotesque and evokes images of death, destruction and decay. (Steele, 1997)According to Catherine Spooner in ‘Contemporary Gothic’ 2006, “The Gothic lurks in all sorts of unexpected corners.” It is incredibly broad - superstitions, the uncanny, the monstrous, the forgotten past, the Gothic feminine - to name but a few are all elements which combine to form this theme. The Gothic