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Robert Arthur’s story, Getting Rid of George is a good gothic story because
of it’s various examples of required gothic elements. These requirements include
atmosphere, psychological state of mind, mystery, romance, and melodrama. All of
these combined make this story a good gothic example. To begin, the setting, at
one point, takes place at a dark secludes cabin in the mountains. Evidence of
this is found when Harry describes: “It is absolutely deserted up there at this
time of year.” As well, the disappearance of George to everyone except Laura and
Harry adds to the gloomy atmosphere. Again adding to the gloom and terror of the
story is the physical exploitation of cruelty shown by Laura when she repeatedly
beats George with a statuette until he lay dead on the floor. Mental
exploitation of cruelty is also evident when George returns from the dead and
blackmails and once again tries to ruin Laura new found life. We found clear
examples of an atmosphere of gloom and terror throughout this story proving that
Getting Rid of George is a well written gothic story.
Along with a gloomy and
terrifying atmosphere, Arthur uses the element of aberrant psychological states
of mind to add to his gothic story. An example of irrational behavior is shown
when Laura becomes outraged and spontaneously murders George. We thought, as
well, that when Laura suffers a fainting spell is also an example of this
psychological state of mind. Evidence of this is found when Arthur writes:
“Harry held Laura until the nausea within her subsided.” Lastly, hallucinations
were also prevalent in the story as well. We thought a good example was when
Harry and Laura were bringing George to the cabin to dispose of his body, Laura
claims that George’s dead eye slowly opened and gave her a knowing wink.
Elements of mystery were also used throughout this story. Many things were
hidden or unknown. Some examples are when George walked into Laura’s dressing
room disguised as part of the press. His real identity, to Laura, was unknown.
Also the fact that Laura murdered George and Harry is planning to help her was
kept hidden from anyone and everyone. We also found obvious secrecy and
obscurity in the story as well. Laura’s past was kept as a deep secret as it
would more than likely hurt her new career as an actress. We found proof of this
when harry tells Laura: “As soon as Haila learns you’ve been able to keep your
past life a secret from everyone, she’ll open a vendetta against you.” It is
clearly shown that an element of mystery is used repeatedly throughout the
story.
Another gothic element that was used is romance. within the element of
romance some fictions narrative is used such as when George speaks and acts
towards laura as if nothing is or should be wrong. Our example is shown when
George says: “Come on now, kiss lonesome George.” Again: “Now come to your
loving husband like a good woman should.” We found this quite unordinary because
Laura obviously wants nothing to do with George, and he is stupid if he doesn’t
realize that. As well, we noted two romantic relationships. Laura and Harry were
desperately in love and had gotten married and George and ‘Gloria’ were a couple
at one point. However along with Laura’s new life came a new name and a new
husband. Along with this romantic element comes an exotic place or setting. The
only one we thought would sort of fit into this category is the cabin up in the
mountains where harry brought Laura for their honeymoon. Therefore, many
different examples of romance were evident in this story. The last gothic
element used is melodrama. Violent physical action is an example of melodrama,
we thought the best example of this was when Laura continuously beat George with
a silver statuette.
Secondly, extravagant emotions produce melodrama as well.
The emotions were noticed when Laura described: “pain and loathing were a white
fire in my mind.” She thought this when George had barged into her room looking
to ruin her life again. Poetic justice was also served to these characters.
George deserved to die for everything he did, and Laura and Harry deserved to
have everyone find out about George’s death, they ended up getting caught in
their lie. Last but not least, credibility of the action and the character
sacrificed for the violent effect. George sacrificed his life by coming back for
Laura and Harry and Laura sacrificed their freedom and reputation by keeping
George’s death a secret. Evidently, melodrama was used to support Arthur’s
gothic story. In conclusion we found that Arthur’s story Getting Rid of George
was a good gothic story. Arthur used many gothic elements to help support and
make his story good and also a mysterious one. We found this story suspenseful
and mysterious and enjoyed reading every part of it.
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