#gothic characters

Characters in Gothic stories are like figures in our dreams; they embody and act out conflicting, subconscious psychic energies.

The Corrupt Doctor is defined in relation to their Patient, whose illness they seek to exacerbate despite belonging to a healing profession (doctor, nurse, therapist, etc).

There will often be an older and more foolish woman who doesn't stand up to the tyrant.

A typical Gothic mother is absent or dead.

Heroes who are sometimes weak, sometimes wicked, but rarely successful saviors.

The discovery (in person, through another character’s narrative, or in a first-person manuscript), of a Good Other Woman, longsuffering and angelic, whose imprisonment and/or death was unmerited.

In reflective mood one [Gothic heroine] may lightly throw off a sonnet to the sunset or to the nocturnal gale, while another may seek refuge in her water-colours or her lute.