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Preamble
This Gothic horror story may well be acclaimed to be true to the classic ‘Gothic’ genre of 18th Century English writing in that it contains most of the elements required for such a tale. It could also very easily be classified as a tragedy.
Herein, the tale is based upon love, infidelity, death, ghosts and vengeance. Nothing could be closer to the style of writing brought on by that first, original, Gothic Horror Story, ‘The Castle of Otranto’, written in 1764 by Horace Walpole. Only the castle is missing, and it has been replaced by a common house.
It is a tragedy in that the tormented individual, haunted by the ghost with which the lamentable being is visited, yearns to end their own miserable life. Yet, their dire situation had drastically changed after the death of their lover. Unfortunately, this individual’s infirm condition results in a rather lengthy and tumultuous period wherein they are committed to a hospital for the mentally unstable.
This gothic tale was written at a time when I had personally experienced the break-up of one of my own romantic endeavours. The pain and anguish which resulted from that miserable event was still very much in my mind throughout the process of putting this tale to pen. As a result, the insight into the characters portrayed was not only the impression derived from some vague dream, but it was indubitably drawn from my past.
As a young boy, our family lived for well over a decade in a house built just after the turn of the 19th Century. Just like in this gothic story, it did have aged, single-hung, wooden windows which would, at various unexpected times, descend with the slightest movement of air passing by one of them. Its fall resulted in a ‘thunderous’ noise being emitted in the middle of an otherwise quiet day or sombre night. Those are stark memories of being torn from one’s thoughts or one’s sleep as the frame struck home, with ample force, and are vivid impressions which linger with me to this day.
Anton Von Stefan, December 31, 2016
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