Kristina Kljajic
BBC journalist
Creaking stairs, cold hallways, high ceilings and candles that go out unexpectedly.
This is the atmosphere most often "lived" by the heroes of Gothic novels, a literary genre that originated in the 18th century and combines elements of horror and mystery.
As new film adaptations come out Nosferatu i Frankenstein, TikTok users rediscover the song Hurricane Heights (Wuthering Heights) Kate Bush from the late 1970s, and pop singers Charli XCX and Rosalie choosing castles as the backdrop for their music videos, it becomes clear that the Gothic has not been forgotten.
It just might have changed shape a little.
But what is it that keeps us coming back to this genre for decades?
"Gothic and horror narratives offer an intense experience of fear, uncertainty and emotional tension, but also a special form of aesthetic pleasure," explains Marijana Jelisavčić Karanović, a literary theorist, for BBC Serbian.
The appeal of such texts "does not rest solely on shock or intimidation, but on carefully constructed atmosphere, delayed resolution, and a constant balancing act between the rational and the irrational."
"The reader is invited to participate in the interpretation of what is happening, to question the limits of their own security, which makes this kind of literature intellectually challenging," she adds.
Here are five reasons why we love this genre.
1. Spooky atmosphere
When the hero and narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's story The fall of the house of Asher, published in 1840, on a gloomy and quiet autumn day, heading towards the home of an old friend, he will be horrified by the sight of the old and abandoned house.
It will later turn out that a heroine will be mistakenly buried alive in her basement.
The house will collapse at the end of the story, and only the narrator will be saved from it.
Based on this story, as well as several other famous motifs from Poe's work, a series was made. The fall of the house of Asher and broadcast on Netflix in 2023.
"Abandoned castles, old houses, basements, attics and fog, the whole slightly spooky atmosphere - that's why I love this genre," student Milica Branković tells BBC Serbian.
He has been reading Gothic novels since his teenage years.
"Over time, they literally became one of my favorite things," adds the redheaded girl dressed in a black corset.
- Eight Gothic novels you must read
- Frankenstein: Why the 200-year-old horror story is misunderstood
- Five ways Emily Brontë inspired today's artists
"Space in Gothic and horror narratives is never neutral, but an active participant in creating an atmosphere of fear," says Jelisavčić Karanović.
Castles, ruins, and dark houses function as examples of "a past that hides repressed traumas and various secrets."
Such spaces simultaneously attract and repel, offer refuge but also threat, and allow fear to materialize and become tangible through the environment, adds the theorist.
Attics in Gothic novels generally hide secrets.
One of the most famous literary attic dwellers appears in Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre, published in 1947.
An orphan and then a shy governess, Jane Eyre is surprised by strange sounds and events, such as a fire and the tearing of a dress, in the house of Edward Rochester, where she is employed.
Curiosity leads her to the attic, where she discovers a captive who will ruin her dreams of a peaceful life and marital happiness.
Bertha Mason, the first wife of the main character Edward Rochester, is imprisoned at the top of one of the castle's towers due to her alleged "debauchery."
Attic spaces also inspired feminist theorists to publish a study in the 1970s The Mad Woman in the Attic: Women Writers and the Literary Imagination of the 19th Century (The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination
The heroines in Gothic novels of this time were presented as either angels or monsters, and in spaces such as dark attics, heroines who disrupt the patriarchal norms of femininity, wrote theorists Sandra Gilbert and Susan Guber.
Jane Eyre has inspired numerous filmmakers, and the most famous versions of this novel are the one from 1943, where Rochester is played by Orson Welles and Jane by Joan Fontaine, the film by Frank Zeffirelli from 1996 with William Hurt and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and the latest film adaptation (2011) stars Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender, while the director is Cary Fukunaga (author of the series). T).
Gothic roots
The Gothic narrative was formed in the second half of the 18th century, primarily in English literature, with the idea that repressed fears, irrational and inexplicable, would emerge, says Mirjana Jelisavčić Karanović.
It appeared as a reaction to the Enlightenment, a social movement that was guided by the idea that reason should be the basic tool for understanding the world.
Horace Walpole is considered the founder of the Gothic genre and his book Otranto Castle of 1764..
Inspired by a nightmare, Walpole, under the guise of a stage manager, presents a work whose plot takes place in a sinister castle, says the theorist.
UPredgovor first edition The writer disclaims authorship, and says that the document was found in the library of an ancient Catholic family in the north of England and that it was printed in Gothic script in Naples in 1525.
"Then Anne Ratcliffe, MG Lewis, and later authors such as Mary Shelley further deepened its thematic dimensions."
"Later, Gothic was transformed and adapted to new historical and cultural contexts, the haunting was moved from castles and manors to the space of everyday people, so houses could be possessed, as well as the mind of an individual," adds Jelisavčić Karanović.
Over time, horror frees itself from necessarily fantastic explanations.
"It increasingly turns to psychological, social, and internal sources of fear, which makes it extremely adaptable to the modern age," he concludes.
_____________________________________________________________________________
2. Eccentric heroes
Milica Branković has the most interesting heroes in Gothic literature.
"They are always between passion and prohibition, reason and instinct, love and destruction."
"Since I'm hypersensitive myself, I easily identify with such characters," she says.
Gothic hero doesn't try to be exemplary - he is vulnerable, obsessed, sometimes dangerous.
That's how Heathcliff is from Romanian Hurricane Heights Emily Brontë, published in 1847, which forever remains stuck between longing and revenge.
Driven by passion and motivated by anger, he is the epitome of a cinematic antihero, which is why top actors like Laurence Olivier, Richard Burton, Ralph Fiennes, and Tom Hardy have accepted the role of Heathcliff.
On the other hand, a Gothic heroine can be just as complex and intriguing.
"For example, heroines are under constant pressure from society, but they carry a strong, often dark inner world," she adds.
Mina Harker from the novel Dracula (1897) Bram Stoker's is a rational, educated, and decent woman of the Victorian era, but she stands on the border of worlds - between science and superstition, reason and the supernatural.
- Bram Stoker's Dracula: The Bloodthirsty Stranger and the First Neighbor
- Take a peek into Kate Bush's alternate universe
- 'Karmadon' as a horror satirical critique of contemporary society: Aleksandar Radivojević for the BBC
3. Facing fear
Gothic and horror narratives enable a controlled confrontation with fear, points out Jelisavčić Karanović.
"The reader is in a safe position of observer, but at the same time intensely experiences the world of books," he adds.
It is this distance that allows fear to be viewed and "processed," and we can say that this literary genre serves not only to disturb, but also to provide a space for understanding what is repressed or unnamed in reality, she says.
A similar process can be significant for the authors themselves.
"The basements and attics of human consciousness are inhabited by numerous unresolved conflicts, complexes and fixations," says writer Mladen Milosavljević, a writer of Gothic and horror novels. Kal too, Anger, Eternal house i Right away.
"Visual representations from folk beliefs can give them a form, which will make it easier for us to recognize them in ourselves," he explains to the BBC in Serbian.
4. Mythology and mystery
What makes us read pages full of darkness and mystery before going to bed?
The Gothic novel has a magic that is not easy to explain - it forces us to look at what scares us, at what we would otherwise suppress or ignore.
In Gothic and horror narratives, it plays a particularly important role. suspense, or rather, delaying the dismissal, says Jelisavčić Karanović.
Techniques for achieving this "such as gradual revelation of information and parallel plot threads allow suspense to persist and deepen the reading experience."
It is this prolonged sense of tension that creates space for the introduction of mythology and folklore.
Writer and ethnologist Mladen Milosavljević says that his upbringing in Veliko Orašje, a picturesque village in Šumadija, had an influence on his artistic imagination.
"I was surrounded by excellent storytellers whose stories were often inhabited by mythical creatures from folk beliefs and traditions."
"Later I built on that base with studies in ethnology and anthropology, and it remained an indispensable part of most of my later literary and film works," he says.
5. Forbidden desires
In the novel Frankenstein Mary Shelley (1818), the main character, Doctor Victor Frankenstein, retreats into dark rooms and laboratories, surrounded by parts of dead bodies, obsessed with the idea of penetrating the secret of the creation of life.
His world is marked by sleepless nights, cemeteries, storms and a constant sense of guilt, while the act of creation, instead of triumph, creates horror and rejection.
The creature, born from forbidden knowledge, becomes a reminder that the doctor has crossed the line.
Death, madness, incest, forbidden love and paranormal phenomena - themes that can often appear in Gothic literature be taboo or disturbing.
Exploring these topics often serves to shock and provoke, but also provides an opportunity for deeper explorations. psychological and social issues.
Therefore, it should not surprise us that a new adaptation has been released. Frankenstein directed by Guillermo del Toro, while Emily Bronte fans expects latest version Hurricane Heights Margo Robi.
And similar motifs live in music.
A new album by Japanese-American singer Micki has been released, and in August 2025, the singer-songwriter under the pseudonym Ethel Kane released an album Cain Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You, about the first imaginary partner and religious traumas.
Their music continues to be a subgenre of art which combines the American South and elements of the Gothic, and themes of melancholy, rejection, and a sense of not belonging are common.
And as darkness falls earlier and temperatures drop, maybe this is just a good time to return to Gothic novels.
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube i Viber. If you have a topic suggestion for us, please contact bbcnasrpskom@bbc.co.uk
- All the faces of witches on film
- From the Bronze Age to the Vile: The centuries-old origins of the witch's hat
- Half a century of "Butterflies", the film that "left a greater impression on viewers than on cinematography"
Bonus video:
