The Rise of Modern Gothic Horror

Post written by contributor Sophie Haslam

The world today seems dark. A pandemic has changed life as we know it, the rising cost of living hangs hauntingly over our heads, and climate change poses a dreadful threat. It makes perfect sense that gothic horror has returned from the dead.

Gothic fiction can be seen across genres, from young adult, like Gallant by V.E. Schwab, to literary fiction, such as Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield. Staples of classic horror have been retold and updated for the modern age, like S.T. Gibson’s A Dowry of Blood, a retelling of Dracula that focuses on the stories of Dracula’s brides. Gothic horror has made its way to the silver screen with Netflix shows like “The Haunting of Hill House” and “The Haunting of Bly Manor” receiving critical success and some would argue Twilight is a modern gothic romance. In a modern and technologically advanced world, why does gothic literature, with its supernatural elements and antiquated aesthetics, remain so popular?

WHAT IS GOTHIC LITERATURE?

When you think of gothic horror, you probably immediately think of creepy graveyards, women in Victorian dresses fleeing in the night and foreboding castles on misty hills. In reality, there is no one defining feature of gothic literature. However, the most common gothic themes include an oppressive, isolated environment (think of the eponymous The Castle of Otranto or Wuthering Heights), supernatural threats, disturbing, and grotesque characters or situations and the past returning to haunt the present. These are often representations of social conflicts or the fears of the time. Present in all gothic horror is an overwhelming sense of dread and paranoia that isn’t just limited to the pages of the book, but also reflects a social paranoia.

The popularity of gothic literature has ebbed and flowed over time. The Enlightenment’s focus on reason and logic meant that gothic literature’s supernatural elements were viewed with disdain. However, like a ghost, it returns to haunt the living. This new gothic horror revival begs the question—what makes it so popular in the 2020s? Here are three novels published since 2020 that perfectly show how gothic literature can adapt to the new problems modern society faces.

THE COST OF LIVING IN HOUSE OF HUNGER
“My Lord, what is blood! What is nobility!” proclaimed Horace Walpole in the first gothic novel The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764. Power imbalances and class consistently feature in gothic literature, dating back to the evil, tyrannical prince that rules said Castle of Otranto.

Walpole’s question, “what is blood! What is nobility!” is answered in Alexis Henderson’s House of Hunger (2022). Inspired by the real story of Countess Elizabeth Báthory, who killed hundreds of her female servants between 1590 and 1610, House of Hunger follows Marion Shaw, a poor labourer desperate to escape the slums. She begins to work for Countess Lisavet as a bloodmaid, a servant whose blood is drained and consumed by her employer. Countess Lisavet presides over a hedonistic court in the House of Hunger, where aristocrats live in lavish luxury at the expense of their bloodmaids. Henderson is an excellent world-builder. She seriously interrogates what life would be like if blood was seen as a resource—blood can be used as a fuel, it’s a sweetener in tea and bloodmaids are all exclusively female. Marion’s world “runs on blood. Who has good blood. Who has bad blood. Whose blood is shed and whose isn’t.”

House of Hunger presents a world where the wealthy are bloodsucking parasites that exploit those below them. Lisavet’s court is morally bankrupt and delights in the torment of the servants. The aristocracy’s opulent lifestyle is dependent on the suffering of the bloodmaids, whose profession is draining and poses drastic health risks. Does this sound familiar?

Blood in House of Hunger represents modern anxieties around class. Marion’s life as a bloodmaid is not much different from her life in the slums. The physical building of the House of Hunger keeps her in this unequal class structure, a reality for many people today. Life for the average person is getting worse while billionaires continue to live in luxury. Taylor Swift’s excessive use of private jets is horrifying when millions of Britons cannot afford to heat their homes. With the rising cost of living, inflation, economic crisis, and declining working conditions, House of Hunger reflects our world where the wealth disparity between the rich and poor is increasingly becoming a fear that preys on the mind of ordinary people.

“What is blood?” Walpole asked. Henderson replied, “wealth and power.”

A SOUTHERN GOTHIC DETOUR: WHEN THE RECKONING COMES

You may not have heard of Southern gothic, but you’ve definitely seen its influence. Recent films and television shows have incorporated elements of Southern gothic, such as HBO’s Lovecraft Country and True Blood. As the name implies, this is a gothic subgenre that often critiques the racism, religious fanaticism and poverty of the post-Confederate South. Southern gothic reveals what is really underneath the bayous and antebellum plantations—a history of oppression and slavery.

LaTanya McQueen’s debut novel When The Reckoning Comes (2021) is a classic Southern gothic ghost story. Mira is a black woman who grew up in the racist Southern town of Kipsen. She returns many years later for the wedding of her white childhood friend Celine, which takes place on the rebuilt Woodsman Plantation. Celine, Mira and her old flame Jesse are all forced to reckon with the past, so they don’t repeat the same mistakes.

When the Reckoning Comes features all the trappings of a gothic horror—an isolated house, a heroine thrust into a mystery and ghosts returning to haunt the present. But more importantly, McQueen draws connections between the past and the present. History repeats itself and Mira cannot help seeing echoes of the past in the modern-day.

Mistakes returning to haunt the present is a common trope in classic gothic literature. Victor Frankenstein can never be rid of his creation and the sins of his past, while the eponymous Rebecca haunts the narrator, her lack of name and identity showing how overwhelming Rebecca’s presence is from beyond the grave. When the Reckoning Comes is no different. While the wealthy whites try to ignore the plantation’s history, some ghosts don’t stay buried. Likewise, the Black Lives Matter movement of 2020 showed that racism hasn’t gone away, it’s simply just changed.

McQueen warns against complacency regarding social progress, as Mira and Jesse are both forced to relive the experiences of their slave ancestors. In Mira’s case, this is quite literal and Jesse is witch-hunted by a racist mob for a crime he didn’t commit, the only evidence that damns him is his skin colour. McQueen forces us to reckon with a past steeped in racist violence because if we don’t, it may happen again.

THE HOLLOW PLACES: A HEART-WARMING EVOLUTION
Hopeful and heart-warming aren’t normally words associated with horror, but gothic horror has always been a genre for subverting tropes and centering the outcasts. For instance, female authors and characters have always been instrumental in the gothic tradition. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, one of the most genre-defining horror novels, at a time when female authors had to publish under pseudonyms. Mina is instrumental in plotting Dracula’s downfall and Le Fanu’s Carmilla was progressive when compared to its contemporaries for its depiction of female relationships and sexuality. H.P. Lovecraft blended gothic horror with science fiction and existentialism to create an entirely new genre of horror—cosmic horror. Of course, gothic horror is the perfect genre for authors to experiment with new types of horror.

Gothic horror reflects the worst aspects of society and humanity. But what if a gothic novel presented a positive view of the world instead? The Hollow Places (2020) by T. Kingfisher is a Lovecraftian gothic story that follows Kara, who runs her uncle’s creepy Wonder Museum, full of taxidermied animals, while he has surgery. She and her neighbour Simon discover a hole in the wall that leads to an evil dimension that puts the Wonder Museum in danger.

In her other works, such as Nettle and Bone, Kingfisher takes characters who would be comic relief or side characters in other novels and turns them into heroes. The Hollow Places is no exception. Kara is a 35-year-old divorcee who writes fan-fiction and Simon is an eccentric gay man in his 40s that runs a coffee shop and wears fishnets. They’re not the traditional Byronic heroes of classic gothic literature. They’re oddballs. The Wonder Museum is not like the claustrophobic House of Hunger or the Woodsman Plantation—it’s Kara’s home and all she wants is to return. The taxidermied animals aren’t creepy, they’re Kara’s childhood friends. Kingfisher throws our expectations of gothic horror out the window and instead turns gothic tropes into a source of safety.

The Hollow Places might be the only cosy horror novel ever written. It’s the scariest novel in this article, yet it doesn’t leave readers depressed about the world. Instead, it wraps them in a blanket and gives them a warm mug of hot chocolate. Given the state of the world, isn’t that what we need right now? Life is scary but we can still find comfort, even in gothic and grotesque times.

If you’ve never read a gothic horror novel, now is the perfect time. The genre doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. Gothic literature explores the terrifying issues of modern life—and there’s plenty of issues to explore in today’s world! But gothic horror is also a genre poised for interesting experimentation with classic tropes. So whether you’re a horror veteran or a complete newbie to the genre, keep an eye on new gothic novels. You never know what else might lurk in the dark.