017Christianity and Gothic links

posted by sammy on April 22nd, 2007

Over the holidays I discovered another view of the Gothic idea after discussing it at length with people, who ultimately had different beliefs about the Gothic genre. This idea has given me another way of looking at Gothic texts, so maybe it might help everyone else also…

This idea of gothic ties into Christianity no matter how far back you look in history. It was strongly present during the Salem witch-hunt era where Christianity views were so strong that anything seen as un-Christian had to be an act of gothic. Then, and even now, there were onto two ways of looking at the world:
1) The  Christian way - there is always a bright side, everyone has good in them, your sins will be forgiven, and in the end good will always win over evil
2) The “Gothic” way -  the outlook on the world is  from the “dark side” point of view; as in there is evil in everyone, sins are everywhere we look - you can’t escape them as gluttony and greed are forever present, and the struggle between good and evil will be ultimately won by evil.

There will always be a cross-over between the “good” and “evil sides; to people who live their life with the gothic view of life there is a clear distinction between the two types of people - there is no in between. To Christian believers they will always be trying to convince others that there can be a middle ground and that good can win over evil.
Therefore, throughout history and definately continuing throughout the future, there will always be a battle of minds between Christian and Gothic outlooks on life.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2007 at 3:49 pm and is categorized in Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

 

1 Response

001: jhall,

April 25th, 2007 at 1:39 pm

This is an interesting idea, Sam. While it is certainly true that the gothic tradition has many links with Christianity and is, in many respects, a subvertive movement, I think that gothic writers probably blurred the lines between good and evil more than their traditionally Christian contemporaries. For example, Frankenstein performs a truly evil deed but is not an evil person. Nor, indeed, is his monster an entirely evil character. I would also question your assertion that in the gothic tradition “the struggle between good and evil will be ultimately won by evil”. Generally speaking, the monsters are overcome eventually.

Thanks for adding this post. It is great to see that you are exploring these ideas and looking for alternative views.

 

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