Psychologically,
the Gothic novel serves cathartic purposes and a fundamental human need, what
Virginia Woolf called "the strange human need of feeling afraid".
In the dead of the
night, I shiver violently at blood-curling renditions of vampire folktales, I
sometimes even let out a gasp of terror when I re-read Stoker's Dracula or
another R. L. Stine novel, finding my palms clammy and my body covered in cold
sweat.
So why do people
torture themselves like this? Why are they so willing to be turned into
traumatized yet addicted consumers of fear?
I believe in
humanity's inner fascination with the grotesque and the frightening,
inexplicable, overwhelming aspects of the universe and the human soul.
As a New York Times article "Embracing Fear as Fun To Practice for Reality; Why
People Like to Terrify Themselves" by
David Blum tells us, in real life, human beings are packaged in the
flimsiest of packages, threatened by real and sometimes horrifying dangers. But
the narrative form puts those fears into a manageable series of events. It
gives us a way of thinking rationally about our fears.
As long as whatever
that is happening in the books isn't happening to us, we feel safe and want to
experience the terror and thrill without actual repercussions.
However, I think it
is worth wondering: with the volume and intensity of scary stories and movies
and arranged experiences growing so rapidly, is it getter harder to satisfy the
craving for fear?
Perhaps. That is
why many modern readers find Gothic literature not very scary but instead
rather conservative and refined.
However, I do beg
to differ. To me, Gothic classics such as Stoker's Dracula never fail to scare
me despite the long sentences and elaborate descriptions. Stoker, I believe,
mastered the arts of scaring and writing perfectly. His demonstration of
humanity's division between a finite, physical identity and the often
terrifying, bizarre forces of the infinite never can be attained by any modern
writer, even if said writer was his great grand-nephew.
