{"id":781,"date":"2017-09-28T12:41:37","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T16:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=781"},"modified":"2017-11-30T11:43:22","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T16:43:22","slug":"the-gothic-lens-in-the-hound-of-the-baskervilles-and-wuthering-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2017\/09\/28\/the-gothic-lens-in-the-hound-of-the-baskervilles-and-wuthering-heights\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gothic Lens in The Hound of the Baskervilles and Wuthering Heights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Both<\/span> The Hound of the Baskervilles<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Wuthering Heights<\/span><\/i> have elements of the gothic. One motif that both novels have in common is the role that houses have on its characters. \u00a0Baskerville Hall presents a foreboding setting for its inhabitants, as Baskerville \u201clooked up the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a ghost at the farther end. . . a window or a coat-of-arms broke through the dark veil [of the ivy]. \u00a0From this central block rose the twin towers, ancient, crenelated, and pierced with many loopholes. . .\u201d (Doyle, 58). \u00a0This description of Baskerville Hall suggests that it is almost otherworldly. \u00a0Comparing the Hall to a \u201cghost\u201d suggests that the evils that happened behind its walls are omnipresent. \u00a0The actions of Hugo Baskerville cast a shadow on the Baskerville family that is extended to the appearance, mood, and atmosphere of the house itself. \u00a0The house\u2019s past weighs heavily upon the characters in the present. \u00a0Although in a modern age, the house is described as though it has not changed for hundreds of years. \u00a0Despite the fact that the kind, and charismatic Charles Baskerville once lived there, its setting appears more fitting for the likes of Hugo.<\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span>Wuthering Heights<\/span><\/i>, as in <\/span>The Hound of the Baskervilles<\/span><\/i>, the mansion has a palpable effect on the characters of the novel. \u00a0First of all, the name of the mansion is \u201cWuthering Heights.\u201d \u00a0\u201cWuthering\u201d is an adjective for the weather found at the manor; it is dark, unwelcoming, harsh, and windy, much like the personality of the foreboding Heathcliff, whose personality closely mirrors that of Hugo Baskerville (both Hugo and Heathcliff kidnap women and keep them in their manors as prisoner). \u00a0In both novels mansions serves as a reminder of past atrocities. \u00a0Figuratively and literally the manor is stuck in the past. \u00a0\u201cBefore passing the threshold, I paused to admire the grotesque carving lavished over the front, and especially about the principal door; above which, among a wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date \u20181500\u2019\u201d (Bronte, 2). \u00a0Here, the sense of decay in the manor is evident with \u201ccrumbling\u201d ornaments and the fact that it was built in \u201c1500.\u201d \u00a0Likewise, in <\/span>The Hound of the Baskervilles<\/span><\/i>, Baskerville Hall is described as \u201cancient,\u201d so much so that Henry\u2019s first thought is to install electric lighting (bringing modernity to a building that is evidently stuck in the past). \u00a0In Gothic literature, houses can be as much of a character as the actual humans in the novel. \u00a0In <\/span>Wuthering Heights<\/span><\/i> the crumbling manor represents the wicked heart and depressing history of Heathcliff, while in <\/span>The Hound of the Baskervilles<\/span><\/i>, Baskerville Hall remains a stark reminder of the immoral past of the Baskerville family.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Both The Hound of the Baskervilles and Wuthering Heights have elements of the gothic. One motif that both novels have in common is the role that houses have on its characters. \u00a0Baskerville Hall presents a foreboding setting for its inhabitants, as Baskerville \u201clooked up the long, dark drive to where the house glimmered like a … Continue reading The Gothic Lens in The Hound of the Baskervilles and Wuthering Heights<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3250,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123801],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2017-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}