The chief impression a Gothic text leaves us with is the loneliness of the protagonist’ Is this a view borne out by the three texts you have studied?
It can be argued that the chief impression a Gothic text leaves us with is the loneliness of the protagonist, loneliness can be revealed in physical, social and mental form or a combination of a few. However, other contributing factors may also bring about loneliness such as madness or isolation but to which leaves the chief impression is debatable.
In Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ the character Macbeth can be interpreted as the main protagonist being portrayed as a tyrant driven by his fatal flaws of greed, ambition and excessive emotion to lead to his dramatic downfall of death; typical of the tragedy that Shakespeare wrote it as. It is through over ambition and guilt that leads to a progression of loneliness throughout the play until the climatic point of his downfall being his death. He rides into battle companionless being labelled a ‘dead butcher’ by associates who were once friends which have now left to join Malcolm and the English army. The only soldiers left to ride into battle with him now does so through duty not honour or love which, exemplifies his social loneliness by the end of the play; showing the effect of his excessive ambition and greed for power. This explicitly shows that this Gothic text leaves us with the chief impression of the loneliness of the protagonist.
To support the latter further, Shakespeare’s character Macbeth even admits himself that ‘which should accompany old age as honour and love, obedience troops of friends I must not look to have’ illustrating that to accomplish his goal of King he must do it alone intrinsically showing his loneliness without support of ‘troops and friends’ due to undergoing atrocious acts such as regicide. For most of the Jacobean audience the pre meditated the act of regicide would be shocking as the King was seen as God’s representative on earth by most...