The Gothic Features In To Kill A Mockingbird

Harper Lee, the contemporary American writer, is noticeable for her great novel To Kill a Mockingbird which has been welcomed and loved by readers since its publication. This novel focuses on the trial of the black man Tom though the eyes of the little girl Scout who experiences innocence to mature in order to display the social reality and assail the social evils such as the social hierarchy, racial discrimination and the dark side of human nature, at the same time, the author convinces the reader that there is still good and justice in human being.The thesis analyzes the Gothic feature in To Kill a Mockingbird. Harper Lee gives the novel a more artistic charm by adopting of Gothic style in the whole novel. The Gothic novel is characterized by its story which happens in the past, in which the background is mostly ruined, wild and deserted. The Gothic story often takes place in a certain gloomy castle furnished with dungeons, subterranean passages, and sliding panels, in which the atmosphere is dark, mysterious, horrible and full of suspense. It puts more emphasis on the motifs, such as terrible violence, incest, haunted ghost and supernatural events. As an important way of writing, the technique of Gothic literature has been widely used by many American writers belonging to different schools, especially the Southern writers who incline to favor the Gothic writing technique and has been inherited and further developed it, among whom are well-known writers, such as William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, O'Connor, Morrison and so on. Harper Lee adds the artist charm to her novel by integrating the Gothic technique into her famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird. In this way her superb writing skills are highlighted. Gothic novel produces incisive and wide-ranging influence on American literature, which is adopted by many American writers.In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper ? Lee successfully infiltrates the Gothic feature in the novel to highlight the unique art charm of the work, which displays the author's superb writing skills. In terms of the analysis of the Gothic writing in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, this article is divided into four points, including the Gothic-style motifs, Gothic setting, Gothic plot as well as Gothic characters, demonstrates the perfecting of the characterizing, heightening of the atmosphere and deepening of the theme. The Author not only shows the terrible impact and consequences brought by through the Gothic-style terror, but also fully manifests the conflict between good and evil of human nature through the Gothic-style writing.In this paper, To Kill a Mockingbird is analyzed from its motif, setting, plot and character to show its Gothic features such as mystery, violence, the supernatural, so on and so forth. The thesis contains four parts: the first chapter is named the Gothic motifs; the second chapter is called the Gothic setting; the third is Gothic plot; the fourth is Gothic characters. The focus of the first chapter is the analysis of the Gothic Motifs such as violence, disfigured love and imprisonment. The second chapter aims to analyze the Gothic settings, mainly from two aspects: the absurdity of the social environment and the mysterious and haunted atmosphere. The third chapter analyzes the mysterious suspense, the grotesque foreboding and the supernatural episode in terms of the Gothic plot in order to show the specialty of the plot and the ingenuity of the author's writing skills. The last chapter puts emphasis on the description of the Gothic characters at two points: the insanity and the eccentricity to help the readers understand the characters deeply and makes the novel a charming one.While To Kill a Mockingbird has been a bestseller that won reader's love since it was published in 1960, and the book received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. In 1999, it was named "the best novel of the century" in an investigation launched by the library magazine. Harper ? Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007, but the study of the novel is relatively few, in view of this, the paper tries to analyze To Kill a Mockingbird from the wide range of influence on American Literature-Gothic feature to allow more readers to appreciate the charm of the novel.All in all, the use of Gothic elements in Harper ? Lee To Kill a Mockingbird enhances the readability of the novel, giving their works a special artistic charm and making it handed down among the enduring masterpiece.