Notes on the Gothic Mode, Angela Carter
Carter wrote Notes on the Gothic Mode in 1975. It addresses the categorisation of her early work as âGothicâ, and her deliberate attempt to create a Gothic novel with Heroes and Villains. The ânon-naturalistic formulaâ of the âGothic modeâ, Carter writes, provided âa wonderful sense of freedomâ.Â
Further on, Carter defines her current ambitions as a writer in relation to the Gothic. Arguing that all art is political, Carter characterises the Gothic as a radical genre. She, âbelieve[s] that a fiction absolutely self-conscious of itself as a different form of human experience than reality (that is, not a logbook of events) can help to transform reality itself.â Unlike naturalism â which, in Carterâs view, tends to affirm the status quo â the Gothic offers imagined alternatives. It draws no moral lessons but has a single moral function: âprovoking uneaseâ. It also never commits âthe greatest crime against the human spiritâ â to be boring. Quoting the Marquis de Sade, Carter concludes by declaring that she aspires to ââthe perpetual immoral subversion of the established orderââ.
