A Genre/Form Mash-up

1. A Genre/Form Mash-up • Genres • The Gothic • Historical Fiction • The Slave Narrative • The Bildungsroman • Forms • The First Person Narrative • The Epistolary Narrative • The Embedded Narrative

2. Definition of the Gothic • A] tale should combine a fearful sense of inheritance in time with a claustrophobic sense of enclosure in space, these two dimensions reinforcing one another to produce an impression of sickening descent into disintegration. . . . [T]ypically a Gothic tale will invoke the tyranny of the past (a family curse, the survival of archaic forms of despotism and of superstition) with such weight as to stifle the hopes of the present (the liberty of the heroine or hero) within the dead-end of physical incarceration (the dungeon, the locked room, or simply the confinements of a family house closing in on itself) (Baldick xix).

3. Gothic vs. The Coming of Age Novel • “…the Gothic journey offers a darkened world where fear, oppression, and madness are the ways to knowledge and the uncontrolled transformation of one's character the quest's epiphany. While the classical quest ends in the regeneration of a decaying world and the integration of the hero into society, the Gothic quest ends in the shattering of the protagonists' [sic] image of his/her social/sexual roles and a legacy of, at best, numbing unease, or at worst, emotional paralysis and death” (Gross 1-2).

4. Historical Fiction • Historical Fiction is realistic fiction set in the historical past. While the story is imaginary, characters and events could really have occurred in this historical context. • Historical Non-Fiction includes autobiographies, diaries, biographies of historical persons, and historical accounts.

5. Interpreting Historical Fiction • As with any fiction or non-fiction text, the concepts of truth, realism, and verisimilitude need to be thought through carefully. Remember that authors choose their subjects, characters, ideas, sentences, and words very carefully in order to produce certain reactions. Thus, the above-mentioned concepts must always be viewed as SUBJECTIVE.

6. Interpreting Historical Fiction • When we read historical fiction, we have to take into account not only the author’s skill at creating a realistic story that could actually have occurred in the past, we also have to take into account the way that an author’s present experiences influence his/her portrayal of the past.

7. The Conventions of the Slave Narrative • A slave usually begins by discussing how he or she began life without a clear understanding of his/her position as a slave. Thus, coming of age becomes tied up with coming to a realization of the curtailing of freedom, not because of the onset of adult responsibilities, but because of the fact of being owned by someone else.

8. The Conventions of the Slave Narrative • Next, the slave discusses the events that lead up to escape – usually a series of indignities that lead a young man to wish to prove himself or that lead a young woman to wish to avoid sexual abuse. • While the details of the escape are left shrouded in secrecy to protect future escapees, the slave lavishes praise upon his or her Northern benefactors.

9. The Conventions of the Slave Narrative • The purpose of the slave narrative was to engender empathy among Northerners – empathy that was supposed to lead to a stronger fight against slavery. • Slave narratives were highly edited and conventional texts that were also intended to prove that individuals of African descent could write well and think well – a concept that was often denied during the slave era.

10. The Epistolary • “A novel written in the form of a series of letters exchanged among the characters of the story, with extracts from their journals sometimes included. A form of narrative often used in English and French novels of the 18th century, it has been revived only rarely since then, as in John Barth's Letters (1979). Important examples include Richardson's Pamela (1740-1) and Clarissa (1747-8), Rousseau's La Nouvelle Héloïse (1761), and Laclos's Les Liaisons dangereuses (1782)” (The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms).