Tag: Catholicism

Carnival Celebrations in Gothic Literature

It’s Carnival season in the Catholic liturgical year—a time for wild celebration and indulging in excess before the restrictions and solemnity of Lent. The holiday is celebrated mainly in regions with large Catholic populations, including parts of Western Europe and the Americas, but historically it has been especially associated with Italy. Celebrations usually involve parades, colorful costumes, extravagant parties, and indulgent foods and beverages. Though ostensibly a time of joy and merriment, this boisterous atmosphere can also be disorienting, overwhelming, and even frightening, and the holiday’s associations with disguise and mischief create an excellent opportunity for dastardly plots and misdirection. This—combined with Gothic literature’s love/hate relationship with all things Catholic—makes the frenetic festivities of Carnival the perfect backdrop. Below are just a few examples of works of Gothic literature that take place during Carnival or Carnival-like celebrations:

Carnival mask from Venice. Photo by Vlad Hilitanu on Unsplash

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Gothic Settings: Abbeys and Monasteries

I’ve discussed before on this blog how the Gothic literary genre takes its name from the Gothic style of architecture. Appropriately, the medieval structures that typify this architectural style are often used as the backdrop to Gothic stories. The obvious example, and the very first structure I discussed in this series on Gothic settings, is the castle. But another place we see Gothic architecture from the Middle Ages is in religious buildings, such as monasteries and abbeys. 

Photo of a monastery in ruins on a grassy hill dotted with gravestones
A monastery in ruins

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Gothic Tropes: Corrupted Clergy

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned”—But what if the one who is supposed to absolve you is even more guilty? This is an idea explored in quite some depth and from a variety of angles throughout Gothic literature. The Gothic has had a very complicated relationship with religion, and Christianity in particular, from its earliest days. Sincere religious belief is often a virtue of the best Gothic heroes and heroines. But some of the genre’s most debased villains are those who wear the cloth of the Church. Early Gothic novels were highly critical of the horrors committed in the name of religion during the Spanish Inquisition, and these works also reflect Protestant and Anglican fears around Catholicism. But even the most obvious anti-Catholic caricatures were often a bit more nuanced, as many authors relied on the acceptable depiction of evil Catholic clergy to more subtly critique the overreach of religious authorities within their own communities. And no sect is safe! You’ll find dangers in any denomination in later works of Gothic literature. Let’s take a look at how corrupted clergymen (and a few women!) have crept through these novels.

Screen-shot of Frollo from Disney's Hunchback

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