Aquila | 2019-2020

A genre itself is, in the words of the official dictionary definition: ‘A style or category of art, music or literature.’ Some examples of genres in literature include fantasy, fiction and non-fiction. On the surface, this seems dull. However, what most of us tend to forget is that these are umbrella terms, for such diverse ranges of intricate, delicate little subgenres, that you can only see if you look very, very closely. Horror is no exception; there are, in total, around 30 different horror subgenres. However, Horror is one of the most layered and complex genres imaginable, as every subgenre has fine lines to walk in order to send shivers down a reader’s back.

This article explores a very old, very controversial subgenre of horror - Gothic Literature, which due to its way of scaring readers (using society’s fears at the time and twisting them, as well as rebelling against humanity’s normal boundaries) has acquired a reputation for trashiness and worn stereotypes. To explore this, we will look at one very specific, very famous Gothic novel - The Woman in Black, written

by Susan Hill.

One way Gothic Literature creates fear is by taking societal tensions at the time of writing and twisting them into dark fantasies. This is a rebellion against society’s unspoken stigma subjects. In The Woman in Black, a civilised, prolific lawyer is sent to organise a recently deceased woman’s paperwork. He is plagued by glimpses of a woman dressed “in deepest black, in the style of full mourning that had rather gone out of fashion except, I imagined, in court circles on the most formal of occasions”.

This quote is from the first instance that the narrator, Arthur Kipps, sees this woman.

Throughout the book she is also referred to using words such as ‘emaciated’ and appears before a person when they are about to die.

This book was published in 1983. The 1970s to 80s was the period in time when the media was beginning to seriously develop the modern idealised version of women as thin; consequently, the number of eating disorders shot through the roof. The most notable rise was in Anorexia Nervosa. Eating disorders, however, simultaneously became a taboo subject; most people were afraid to talk about it. The fact that the Woman in Black herself - a symbol of death - is shown as thin and emaciated taps into the societal fear of women dying of starvation, from being unable to escape the vicious circles that lead to eating disorders. Evidence for this would be that the Woman in Black appears just before a person dies. Susan Hill, as a woman herself, would most likely have been more aware of these issues, and closer to them too; rises in Anorexia were most commonly seen in female models. An emotional connection to the subject would have made it easier for her to create the image of this emaciated, tortured woman.

Even the inescapability of Anorexic cycles