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In this paper, the author intends to analyze a gothic novel written by Stephanie Meyer. There is no doubt that the Twilight series reflects feminist brilliance through the portrait of a sensitive girl named Bella, the heroine of this novel, who is stubborn but persistent and independent. Among the novels of female writers, we can usually find their common ground in response to the man centered society, which lets dissatisfaction and counterstrike become the common sense of female literature, and then the women writers give their heroines much stronger ability at the end.
Up till now, domestic researches on gothic novels have gradually improved. Xiao Minghan completely concludes the development of gothic novel from the perspective of literary tradition in his book Gothic tradition in British and American Literature (2001). Many scholars interpret gothic novels from the perspective of aesthetics and study the origin of its theory. Most of the studies about female gothic are mainly about its origin, development and influence. However this research tries to analyze the difference between modern female gothic and traditional female gothic. The author chooses this study because female gothic novels become more and more popular among people with the development of feminist movement. And one of the most representative one is Twilight. According to the survey, we can find that the stimulation brought by horrible contents in female gothic novels can change into aesthetic pleasure.
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2. Literature Review
2.1 Development of gothic
Gothic novel originated in the latter half of the 17th century in England, and became a literature genre in the 1790s. Gothic novels had a tremendous impact on English literature. The term gothic originally referred to ethnic gothic tribes of Teutonic ethnicity. In the later period of 18th century, the word has become the name of a new literature genre. Artists in the Renaissance period used it to refer to a construction style of the medieval period they didn't prefer. Gothic novels are usually on the background of castles, ruins and wilderness. The authors often describe some violent plots such as murder and revenge to reveal the horrible atmosphere. Gothic is always accompanied by ghost, vampires and other supernatural elements. It is also the name of an architecture style. As a result, Gothic has been endowed with cruelty, horror, mystery, darkness, and many other words. Gothic can be pided into several aspects according to the content including: “enlightening gothic, terror gothic, erotic gothic, historical gothic, and female gothic” (Kelly, 2002:45).
The author Horace Walpole created the first novel of gothic一The Castle of Otranto in 1764 and the Subtitle of this novel is "A Gothic Story". It was not only the beginning of gothic novel, but also set up the basic pattern of gothic novel. The Celtics had created many interesting folktales which often describe the breathtaking battles between the heroes and monsters. Those folktales not only provided plenty of materials and inspiration for the development of gothic novels, but also made it easier for the readers in England to accept the gothic fictions. The Bible and Christian legends, especially legends about hell, were also important sources of gothic novels.
Gothic novel took a root in literature from the 1790s to the early 19th century. Especially in the 1790s, it is the most important decade for the development of the gothic novel, some literary critics called this period the "Gothic decade"(Xiao Minghan, 2001:94). During that time, Anne Radcliffe published The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian and other works, and she was seen as the master of gothic novels. Especially The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian are usually put together with Lewis's The Monk as classic gothic novels. Realistic novels often cannot fully meet the needs of readers. In addition to seeing the shadow of the reality in the story, people also need to obtain pleasure from surreal and even bizarre stories. Gothic novel has just adapted to this requirement of the readers.