Psychological Gothic Horror is a blend of classic Gothic Horror and Psychological Horror. Here are some books that blend the two. Have you read any of them?
Combining the atmospheric, decaying settings of Gothic horror with the internal, maddening dread of psychological horror creates some of the most unsettling literature. If you remember what the classic features of Gothic literature are, you’ll see why they can sometimes go hand in hand with psychological horror, too. Here are books that masterfully bridge these two genres for an intense read:
- The Haunting Of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. This is a modern Gothic classic and also an unsettling ghost story. Jackson blends the classic image of a Gothic, sentient mansion that is inseparable from the crumbling sanity of its protagonist, Eleanor.
- The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. This classic psychological horror tale is told by a woman who has been confined in the ‘nursery’ of a rented old mansion house for the summer. Her physician husband has insisted that she doesn’t work or write and instead rests in the room. She fixates on the yellow peeling wallpaper as she unravels herself.
- The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James. is considered a masterpiece of psychological horror, driven by ambiguity rather than overt scares. The novella centres on a governess’s terrifying, possibly delusional, conviction that malicious ghosts are corrupting two children, leaving readers to question if the evil is supernatural or a product of her own fractured psyche.
- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. A modern Gothic classic tale set in a decaying 1950s Mexican mansion, blending social commentary with slow-burn dread and psychological torment.
- The Spider by Hanna Delaney. Frances Bryant has moved into an old Georgian house with her family in Liverpool. She senses something isn’t right, and that she is being stalked by a malevolent presence within her own home. Others around her dismiss her condition as nerves, hysteria or anxiety about the new setting. She is only allowed to speak to the reader via letters and journal entries, leading the reader to guess whether or not the ghost is real.
- Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. A classic Gothic mystery about a newly-married unnamed heroine who is haunted by the memory of her husband’s first wife. Set in an isolated gloomy mansion off the coast of Cornwall, Rebecca is a classic example of the unreliable narrator in Gothic literature.
Inner demons or outer demons? The classic traits of psychological Gothic horror:
Every book that combines Gothic with psychological horror feature one or more of these things:
- An unreliable narrator. This can either be through a single point of view throughout the novel or with a mix of narratives. Examples of this are included in Wilkie Collins novels and Richard Marsh’s The Beetle. The unreliable narrator isn’t necessarily lying to the reader: they can 100% believe that what is happening to them is really happening (think the ghosts trying to corrupt the children in The Turn Of the Screw) and this leaves the reader wondering what is real and what is imagined.
- Twists are a key element in psychological horror and can feature in novels that blend the two. Shutter Island combines Gothic elements with those of the psychological thriller, as does Psycho by Robert Bloch.
- Parallels between decaying buildings (ie mansions) and the protagonist’s state of mind. This is demonstrated in The Yellow Wallpaper especially, but we see the decay of the family as well as sanity in stories like The Fall Of the House Of Usher.
- The protagonist’s doubt blurring with the possibility of a paranormal culprit. Both in The Spider and The Haunting Of Hill House, it is unclear as to whether the protagonist is seeing paranormal activity or not. They are unreliable because they demonstrate that they are psychologically altered to other characters.
The first books to blend psychological horror with Gothic elements:
The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) and The Turn Of The Screw (1898) are often credited as the pioneers of psychological Gothic horror novels.
What is psychological horror?
Psychological horror is a sub-genre of horror that focuses on psychological vulnerabilities that are usually repressed. Examples include The Silence Of The Lambs and Misery by Stephen King. These stories usually employ elements of mystery and plenty of twists!
Further Reading:
- The Mummy’s Curse: Mummy Horror Books.
- The main difference between Horror and Gothic horror.
- Gothic Egyptomania in fiction.
Hanna Delaney is a horror author from Liverpool, UK. She is the author of the Muldoon supernatural thriller series, a series of horror books set in late-Victorian Liverpool that feature occult detective Daniel Muldoon. Hanna has also written a collection of Egyptian Gothic short stories, The Shade In The Sands And Other Stories as well as Oceanus, a science fiction mystery inspired by The Tempest. Hanna was inspired by the works of Angela Carter, Shirley Jackson and Wilkie Collins. She lives in Liverpool with her family. She is published with Tiny Worlds Publishing.
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