Gothic and Grotesque in James Hogg’s The Mysterious Bride

The word Gothic refers back to the Dark ages in England. The Roman civilization was ruined by the Goths who were the barbarians at that time. As a result of the destruction of Roman Empire, the whole civilization underwent ignorance and darkness. Nowadays, the word Gothic has a variety of meaning and applications. Gothic novels portray exaggerated scenes, haunted castles, monsters and vampires. Scottish Gothic literature started after 1800. This paper will focus on one of the Scottish short stories by James Hogg, “The Mysterious Bride”. Some elements of Gothic and grotesque such as transgression of boundaries, suspense, uncanny and supernatural being are discussed within this short story in order to indicate Hogg’s main intention to use Gothic and grotesque elements in “The Mysterious Bride”. Among all the elemnts in Gothic and grotesque, this paper will mainly apply the presence of the opposites, uncanny, abnormal beings and supernatural events to James Hogg’s “The Mysterious Bride”.