Kate Morton says that her books are similar to Victorian gothic novels such as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. What elements of the Gothic novel do you see in The Secret Keeper? In what ways does she depart from this form?
What elements of the Gothic novel do you...
Created: 07/09/13
Replies: 7
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Join Date: 10/15/10
Posts: 3310
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Join Date: 03/13/12
Posts: 523
Right off the bat, we have the remote home with secrets. There is also a sense of a controlling prophecy with the greeting of 'it's been a long time" by the mysterious visitor that that is immediately murdered by the mother. So there is that sense of a threatening, controlling male, and then later in the story there are the revealing details of the physically abusive husband.
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Join Date: 04/02/13
Posts: 78
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Join Date: 07/18/11
Posts: 68
I don't see this as a gothic novel. It has mystery but is not mysterious; terror but not that caused by the mysterious or psychological; nothing supernatural, death but not the kind caused by mysterious circumstances, doubles but not the kind that normally figure in a true gothic sense.
When I think of contemporary gothic novels I thinks of Diane Satterfield's "13th Tale," Shirley Jackson's " We Have Always Lived in the Castle," Daphne DuMaurier's "Rebecca," and Carlos Ruiz Zafon's " Shadow in the Wind."
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Join Date: 04/23/11
Posts: 118
I tend to think of gothic novels as trauma upon trauma piling on the lead character, i.e. Jane Eyre. I was just sure that Jimmy would prove to be a bad guy who would somehow ruin Dolly's life. But he was such a good guy that it threw me off. And so many of the things that happened to Dolly were of her own creation and that didn't fit for me either. So the only really Gothic elements I saw were both Dolly and Vivien being cruelly stripped of their families and left alone in the world.
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Join Date: 07/16/13
Posts: 45
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Join Date: 10/18/12
Posts: 10
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Join Date: 04/10/11
Posts: 102
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