Theory of Gothic Fiction

9 is often related to detective or crime story, there is another kind of mystery, which is supernatural mystery. Edgar Allan Poe is one of famous writers who writes mystery fiction both detective or crime stories and supernatural mystery “Mystery fiction” c. Supernatural According to Marriam-Webster Dictionary, supernatural pertains to an order of existence beyond the scientifically visible universe “supernatural”. In fiction supernatural appears as supernatural power such as curse, spells and magic or belief to the life after death. In real life, however, supernatural beliefs exist in many societies around the world “Supernatural”. d. Ghosts Ghost means the apparition of the dead people’s spirit. There are many stories of ghosts that can be found. Many writers from many genres present ghost in their story “Ghost”. Ghost does not always appear as something fearful and scary, sometimes it can appear as something that brings happiness and hope. A famous story that presents ghosts is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. e. Murder Murder is very often presented in crime or detective stories. In gothic fiction, murder corresponds to the dark side of human being “Gothic Fiction”. Referring to Wikipedia.com, there are five circumstances of a murder. They are insanity, depression, self-defense, unintentional, and 10 diminished capacity “Murder”. From those circumstances, insanity, depression, and self-defense are common presented in gothic fiction. However, there are still some features that can be found in gothic fiction other than those mentioned above. They are haunted houses or gothic architecture, madness, and death itself. Gothic architecture reminds us to our nightmare. Madness is presented as the irrational or abnormal behavior and thoughts of characters in the story. Whereas death is presented as not only physical death, but also the death of beauty and the death of God are even more common themes in gothic fiction “Distinctive Features of Dark Romanticism”. Many critics to Edgar Allan Poe say that one of Poe’s specialties is tale about terror or in other words gothic. One of them can be seen in Daniel Hoffman’s Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe: “Where could I have read so terrifying a tale, so horrifying a predicament, so inescapable a servitude to the inexorable movement of time, but in the work of Edgar Allan Poe?” Hoffman. Therefore, it is necessary to mention the features of gothic fiction in this chapter.

B. Critical Biography of Edgar Allan Poe

Since the approach applied in this study was biographical approach, in this section I present the life of Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1809. He was the second child of Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and David Poe, Jr. He had an elder brother, William Henry Leonard Poe and a younger sister, Rosalie Poe “Edgar Allan Poe”. 11 His father left the family less than a year after Edgar’s birth and his mother who was ill died on December 8, 1811. Poe was taken into the home of John Allan who became his foster mother. This family educated Poe until they moved back to Richmond. There, little Poe made a good friendship with Ebenezer Burling. At this age Poe had showed amazing ability for remembering details and creating ideas from his own imagination. He even wrote poetry on little bits of paper. He wrote almost everything in his poetry: pretty girls he met, romanticism, and even his later specialty, horror and death Porges 2-12. Day by day passed by, because of some economic problems related to his companies, Poe’s foster father got very busy and sensitive and he spent less time with Poe. However, Poe still had companions from Rob Stanard and Robert Mayo. One day, Rob Stanard introduced his mother to Poe and somehow little Poe loved Mrs. Stanard very much. Mrs. Stanard gave her affection to Poe, she listened to his poetry and she comforted Poe. Poe adored Mrs. Stanard very much, but later Mrs. Stanard became very ill and on April 28, 1824 she died. This fact shocked and dragged Poe in a deep sorrow. He lost his first perfect love, Mrs. Jane Stanard and it was taking a long time to make him recovered from the sorrow. He recovered from his sorrow after he re-wrote the script of famous Greek story, Helen of Troy, and he changed it into To Helen which represented his great love to Mrs. Stanard. He never knew that death, terror, and evil things would always be near to him Porges 22-28. The teenage Poe continued his life but his relationship with his foster father, Allan, was not getting better. One day, Allan asked him whether he wanted