A Writer of Weird and Ghostly Things
We have come to the end of this discussion.
In past entries I have argued that Lost has all of the essential characteristics of the Gothic, that its colonial cultural critique is fundamentally Gothic, and that it uses a Gothic vocabulary for sharing the mysterious through the supernatural. All that is left is to define Gothic.
Last week, I argued both that Lost was Gothic in its inversion of colonial power structures, and that this inversion was written to be relevant in our globalized 21st century society. Today I’ll take on the use of the supernatural in Lost, and make a parallel argument: the use of the supernatural in Lost is Gothic, and this use of the supernatural is also relevant in the 21st century.
Last week, I suggested that the popular television show Lost was an essentially Gothic story in the spirit of Beckford’s Vathek, Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, and other “oriental” Romances. I claimed that the popularity of show would be a powerful argument for the continuing effectiveness of the Gothic mode. But let’s go beyond that and take a closer look at the actual gothicism of Lost, and how it responds to and acts upon a 21st century viewership. Read the rest of this entry »
When we hear the word “Gothic” our minds fall immediately into a realm of cloudy skies, naked trees, ruinous cathedrals, and demoniac pacts. With a little bit of extension, however, we can easily transfer these motifs while retaining the mood of age and decay. A cloudy sky becomes a clear sky, hostile in its emptiness. The naked trees became palms swaying in a pestilential breeze and the cathedrals are transferred to a whole shadowy region, defined by deserts and oases. And as for demoniac pacts… well, a pact is a pact.
Am I talking about Lost here? Read the rest of this entry »
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