Wuthering Heights shares literary elements with Frankenstein. To which literary genre do the two novels belong? A. horror B. gothic C. fantasy D. legend

Answer: B. gothic

Explanation: Both "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte and "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley, are novels that belong to the gothic genre. The main characteristics of the gothic genre are secrecy, mystery, supernatural elements, settings in ancient or isolated locations and psychologically disturbed characters.

The correct answer is B. gothic.

Indeed, the Gothic novel is a sub-part of the Romantic period. It appears in the late 18th century. It has some trends in common with Romanticism:

- Reaction against the Enlightenment Era.

- Irrationality.

The divergent Gothic trends are:

- Excessive and extreme emotions. Whether it is intense passion, jealousy, wrath, fear, etc.

-The Sublime: by Edmund Burke's (18th century philosopher) definition, "a very intense emotion we feel when confronted with immensity, vastness or the infinitesimally small. A feeling that mixes pleasure, terror and awe (awe-struck). For 18th century people, things that evoke the sublime are immense mountains, seas, forests, natural and oppressive landscapes. The immensity of nature is potentially sublime and it mirrors the intensity of talent, emotions, etc.

In Gothic novels we find elements like torture, necromancy, necrophilia, hauntings, dreams, prophecies, mysteries. However, the supernatural is always explained (realistically or supernaturally).

In every Gothic novel the handling of space and places is extremely important (intricate cities, rainy nights, maze-like structures, small alleys). Gothic authors chose distant places and times. It is a very defined movement, coded with several conventions:

1. - Setting: old churches, castles, abbeys, cemeteries. Usually takes place in Italy, Spain, our south-east France (Catholic countries considered as adding to the exoticism). Eventually, it would take place in locations closer to England.

2. - Time Setting: initially the story would take place in medieval times. Eventually, Gothic came closer to the contemporary time of the authors (late 18th, 19th centuries).

3. - Inside settings: a dark prison-like maze. Later it is the entire city that becomes a maze.

4. - Sensationalist events and language: the events are almost always too incredible and the language that is used is excessive with repeated superlatives and an accumulation of adjectives evoking horror, fear, anguish.

5. - It often plays in doubles: a duality between the villain and the heroin. Opposition between terror and horror.

6. - The uncanny (having or seeming to have a supernatural or inexplicable basis; beyond the ordinary or normal; extraordinary and thus, implying mysterious; arousing superstitious fear or dread; uncomfortably strange). Characters encounter these uncanny things and they consider them completely unfamiliar at first but then they realize they are actually familiar. Ex: a scary ghost will appear, it is an unknown being to the character but then it becomes familiar as it is discovered that that it is the ghost of a loved, dead one.

The Gothic motifs were:

• a young, beautiful, virtuous woman is the heroine.

• a foreign, old and evil villain.

• Contrast between light and shadow (light represents reason, virtue, life and shadow represents death, mystery, ignorance). The atmosphere is like a nightmare or a dream.

In the case of Frankenstein, all of this motifs and trends are present: the irrationality of creating a being out of several dead bodies, the rejection of the Enlightenment as science here is used for the creation of abominations, the emotions of the creature and Victor Frankenstein are always extreme, the sublime intensity of nature is omnipresent, the creation of the creature is akin to necrophilia, etc. In the case of Wuthering Heights, they are combined with other Victorian trends but the gothic is prevalent ((excessive feelings and passions, desolate vast landscapes, irrationality, nature, personal, individual emotions, the supernatural, the necrophilia, etc.).