Colonial and Postcolonial Gothic Encounters: A Comparative Study

Abstract

Since its inception in 1764 at the hands of Horace Walpole with his novel The Castle of Otranto, Gothic literature became an instant success, particularly, with middle and lower class readership. David Punter notes that Gothic texts virtually dominated the market in the 1790s (9). He adds that in spite of the form’s success with the reading public, many critics condemned the genre on account of both its content and form (8). Dani Cavallaro explains that in the 18th and 19th centuries, it was common to associate Gothic literature with “tastelessness, and with the consumption of pulp fiction by a supposedly unrefined, albeit economically ascendant, middle-class market and particularly with women” (9). It was usually deemed as a sadistic, crude and dehistoricized genre that instead of showing engagement with England’s social and political realities, it indulged in torture, murders, dark secrets and sexual taboos; things that were considered harmful, especially to the delicate sensibilities of women and youth (Cavallaro 9). Moreover, the genre was criticized for being an exhausted form that depends only on stagnant, formulaic tropes; ludicrous, repetitive plot lines and stock characters that create an atmosphere of crude horror. For example, Edith Birkhead, while acknowledging that the Castle of Otranto satisfied the readers’ craving for the romantic and the marvelous, believes that the work lacks spo