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| The cast of "Penny Dreadful" |
Additionally, the show, historically does a very good job of depicting how mental illnesses was treated during this time, and also how it was so misunderstood, both the supernatural and medical aspect nature of treatment is shown. The show also explores how sexual trauma can impact ones view on reality and ones around them. For Vanessa, it is all too real for her and perhaps the source of her illness.
But what is the story, the genre that “Penny Dreadful” falls
into? Gothic horror. The history of Gothic
horror or romance grew its roots deep before Victorian society emerged to the
forefront. It began with the works of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, which combines genres of
romanticism, fiction, and horror. It became the foundation of the literary genre
that reached its height of popularity in the mid 18th and 19th
centuries. Other authors such as Ann Radcliffe, the Bronte sisters, Mary
Shelly, Edgar Alan Poe, and even Charles Dickens, were all gothic horror
romance novelists who later help shape the genre to what we know of it today.
In examining Walpole’s 1764 novel in which the genre is attributed, it
introduces into literary society something new. It held a host of new elements
that were pleasing in sorts of terror, and held an extension of literary
romance, which was relatively new to this period in which his novel was
introduced. His novel also introduced parody and melodrama, also including self-parody.
All are fundamental elements of all Gothic genres.
After Walpole’s introduction of the genre in England, others followed.
In France the genre was called “roman noir” and in Germany it was called
“schauerroman.” Walpole’s overall intent was to combine elements of medieval
literature, which in his mind it was too fanciful, and then with the modern
novel. To him the modern novel was too strict and confining. The combination of
the two is what he intended the story of The Castle of Otranto to be.
Walpole also introduced the basic structure for these novels. The basic
plot introduced included a threatening mystery, an ancestral curse, many
trappings or hidden passages (This is quite apparent in the later story of
“Jane Eyre” by Emily Bronte.) and off fainting heroines. There also became a
demand for romances with superstitious elements, that at times were void of
“didactical intention.” Some argued that this had no place nor was it
acceptable as a modern piece of literature.
Walpole’s novel is essential because even though named a forgery at one
point, it was a story with history and fiction, that at times contradicted the
main principles of the enlightenment. It also brought to light the relationship
with “fake” documentation and folklore. Which were very recurrent themes in
Gothic literature.
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| Eva Green as Vanessa Ives |
Many influential authors helped shaped the genre. One was Ann Radcliffe.
Her works introduced the basis of having a brooding gothic villain, whom later
became the “Byronic hero.” Her stories also introduced a theme called “supernatural
intrusion,” which eventually throughout the story, gets traced back to a
natural cause, called “explained supernatural.” All her works became
best-sellers despite the highly educated of society calling the works
“sensational entertainment.” She also
provided an atheistic value for the genre with “On The Emphasis of
Supernatural” which is poetic work. It examines the relationship and
correlation between horror and terror in Gothic fiction. Later, the genre was strengthened by many of
the major romantic poets such as Poe, who made many contributions to the Gothic
genre in terms of darkness and the unexplained.
