Radical Literary Inquiry

The Gothic and the Fear of the Other

Published in Radical Literary Inquiry , Author : Carter, Mason ORCID iD : 0009-0004-6420-4114 Abstract Gothic literature constructs the Other as a concentrated reflection of cultural anxiety by elaborating figures whose difference crystallises prevailing social, racial, sexual, and epistemological fears. Drawing upon the theoretical frameworks of Murray Bookchin and Peter Kropotkin concerning hierarchy, mutual aid, and the conditions of recognition, this essay examines the ways in which Gothic narrative elaborates the Other as both threat and mirror. Through sustained analysis of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , Bram Stoker’s Dracula , and related Gothic formations, the essay demonstrates that the construction of the Other operates through the projection of hierarchical anxieties onto bodies and beings positioned outside normative boundaries of the human, the national, and the familiar, while simultaneously revealing the relational foundations of personhood that hierarchical cultures systematical…

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