Comment on the setting of Gothic novels.

It is important to realise the psychological nature of
Gothic fiction. Gothic literature places characters in extreme, isolated and desolate
settings, that indicate symbolically the way that they are pushed to the edge of human
civilisation and of their own understanding of what they hear and see in the Gothic
novels of which they are a part. Thus it is that if we look at a range of Gothic novels,
we can see that the kind of settings that are used are those that reflect this isolation
and expose their characters' weaknesses, vulnerability and psychological understanding
of what is happening to them. Have you ever noticed that it is much easier to assume
that something spooky or supernatural is going on when it is dark or when you are all by
yourself in the middle of nowhere? So it is that novels such as The Turn of
the Screw by Henry James or Northanger Abbey by Jane
Austen are set in isolated mansions and family homes. Wuthering
Heights is set in an extremely isolated part of the Yorkshire Moors, a place
that is subject to extreme weather conditions, and the Gothic classic
Frankenstein has a variety of locations, including an isolated,
almost deserted island of the Orkneys in Scotland, the wilds of the Arctic and on top of
a mountain. All of these settings of course suggest and reinforce that the characters
are operating on the fringes of civilisation and respectability.