Unseen

• Fin de Siècle - the end of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century
• religious damnation was a concern for the majority
• there were lots of developments with technology and medicine
• 1880-1910


  the time period the text will be from
• What is free indirect style?

  free indirect style is when the voice of a third-person narrator takes on the style and ‘voice’ of one of the characters within the story or novel. It is as if a detached third-person narrator has begun to turn into a first-person narrator, i.e. one of the characters within the story (or novel). The objectivity and detachment we associate with third-person narrators dissolves into the subjective and personal style of a character. 
• it can bring us closer to the character, and it can even give us a clearer sense of their personality


  free indirect style
• Unseen prose:

  50 marks

  1 hour 15 minutes

  at least 30 minutes planning/annotating
• Unseen Poetry:

  30 marks

  45 minutes

  spend 10 minutes planning/annotating
• Gothic literature

  A genre that emerged as one of the eeriest forms of Dark Romanticism in the late 1700s, a literary genre that emerged as a part of the larger Romanticism movement
• Gothic literature

  • Employs dark and picturesque scenery
  • Startling and melodramatic narrative devices
  • Overall atmosphere of exoticism, mystery, fear, and dread
• Gothic literature developed through the Victorian period to reflect the social and historical concerns of the time
• Setting in Gothic literature

  • Wild landscapes
  • Large, often ruined, castles
  • Subterranean labyrinths
• Foreshadowing


  A literary device used to hint at events to come, occurs in the form of visions, omens, and curses
• Tragedies are often preceded by bad luck, intended to derail the lives of main characters in Gothic literature
• The supernatural in Gothic literature


  Suggestion of supernatural or inexplicable events, such as inanimate objects coming to life, ghosts, spirits, and vampires
• Gothic literature stemmed from Romantic literature


  The two genres share overlapping characteristics
• Romance in Gothic literature

  • Passionate romance that often leads to sorrow and tragedy
• Villains in Gothic literature

  • Autocratic, male characters, often in authoritative positions like that of priests or kings
  • Complex and initially sympathetic as to fool the reader of their deceptive nature
• Anti-hero

  A flawed protagonist with monstrous elements, popularized by Gothic literature
• Female protagonists in Gothic literature

  • Suffer at the expense of a villain
  • Carry feelings of sadness, oppression, and loneliness
  • Often depicted as virginal in early Gothic pieces
• Neurasthenia


  As a psychopathological term, neurasthenia was used to denote a condition with symptoms of fatigue, anxiety, headache, neuralgia and depressed mood.​
• “By the nineties … it had become clear that the “mad” rebellious woman and the “sane” dutiful woman were really inhabitants of the same body"

  Sandra M. Gilbert​