Popular Culture Review Volume 30, Number 1, Winter 2019 | Page 23

Popular Culture Review 30.1
on the contrary , generate their narrative authority from the direct opposition between what is rationally acceptable and what is not . Whereas Ann Radcliff ’ s novels present a strange reality where the apparently supernatural is often explained , those by Stephen King present an utterly normal reality suddenly subverted by the irruption of the unexplainable , which will remain unexplained , i . e ., Christine , Needful Things , or The Shining . This last example does include its share of gothic elements , such as the old fashioned hotel and the isolation of the mountains ; however , the interest of the narration resides in the progressive subversion of an acceptable reality rather than in the exploration of its protagonists ’ familial conflicts and romantic interactions , as in Radcliff ’ s novels . The paradigms we usually conceive as “ gothic ,” such as ancient ruined castles , crypts , skulls , ghostly apparitions , monsters , and strange noises in the night are not enough to create the fantastic mode , which depends upon the organization of the paradigms rather than upon the paradigms themselves : the fundamental narrative authority of the fantastic stems from the confrontation between the very possible and the utterly impossible , a confrontation which all but disappears with Ann Radcliff ’ s conception of the “ explainable supernatural .” Furthermore , in the case of Dracula , it could be argued that the narration quickly sheds its gothic trimmings , first of all by introducing the narration from the perspective of a rather unexciting fellow , whose preoccupations are more practical than romantic :
The time I waited seemed endless , and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me . What sort of place had I come to , and among what kind of people ? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked ? Was this a customary incident in the life
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