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The Gothic
"Take - An old castle, half of it ruinous,
A long gallery, with a great many doors, some secret ones.
Three murdered bodies, quite fresh.
As many skeletons, in chests and presses.
An old woman hanging by the neck; with her throat cut.
Assassins and desperadoes, quant suff.
Noises, whispers, and groans, threescore at least" (Terrorist Novel Writing 602).
The Uncanny
“This is the strangeness of the uncanny, a flickering moment of embroilment in the experience of something at once strange and familiar. Uncanniness entails a sense of uncertainty and suspense, however momentary and unstable. As such it is often associated with an experience of the threshold, liminality, margins, borders, frontiers” (Royle vii).
Trauma and Haunting
“The momentous nature of threats and harm to the body dictates that violence and trauma nevertheless leave the survivor preoccupied with the memory of it, which itself seems both absent and entirely too present. Most disturbingly, bits of memory, flashing like clipped pieces of film held to the light, appear unbidden and in surprising ways, as if possessed of a life independent of will or consciousness. These undeniable presences nevertheless have an aura of unbelievability: though presenting themselves as clearly past, real, and fully embodied, they appear in nonnarrative forms that seem to meet no standard test for truth or comprehensibility” (Culbertson 169).
