Gothic Conventions and Educative Intention in “The Old Nurse’s Story” by E. Gaskell
Abstract
The article deals with one of the early short stories written by a famous Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell. Exploiting Gothic literary conventions, the writer enriches them with additional layers of meaning and uses them to express her didactic intention. The key to the correct perception of the story is hidden in its title, for the “Old Nurse’s Story” can also be understood as “tall-tale”. Sharing Charles Dickens’ ideas of literature and its high social purpose, Gaskell wants her readers to look for the moral core in fiction and, casting superficial literary ‘horrors’ away, see the true horrors of the real world — human cruelty, jealousy and spite. This functional usage and reinvention of Gothic conventions in the Gaskell’s story is a considerable step forward in comparison with their parody usage by the English writers of the beginning of the 19th century (J. Austen Northanger Abbey, T. L. Peacock Nightmare Abbey etc.).
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Библиография:
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Beachcroft T. O. The Modest Art: A Survey of the Short Story in English. London, Oxford University Press, 2003, 286 p.
Killick T. British Short Fiction in the Early 19th Century. The Rise of the Tale. Aldershot, Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2008, 193 p.
Bourne H. Antiquitates Vulgares, or Observations on Popular Antiquities . In: J.A.B. Brand, Observations on Popular Antiquities: Including the whole of Mr. Bourne’s Antiquitates Vulgares, With Addenda to every Chapter of that Work…, London, T. Saint Publ., 1777, 432 p.
Bennett G. Ghost and Witch in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Folklore, 1986, no. 1, pp. 3–14.
Haldane E. Mrs. Gaskell and her Friends. New York, Books for Libraries Press, 1970, 318 p.
Hartland E.S. The Forbidden Chamber. The Folk-Lore Journal, 1885, no. 3, pp. 193–242.
Logan P.M. (Ed.). The Encyclopedia of the Novel . Chichester, Wiley-Blackwell Publ., 2011, 979 p.
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