Popular Culture Review 30.1
tale , as the narrator , believing that he is only temporarily ill , has decided to take a trip in order to restore his health and has apparently succeeded , as stated in the following entry : “ June 2 nd : At home again . I am cured . And besides , I have made a charming excursion . I visited the mont Saint-Michel [ sic ] where I had never been ” ( 9 ). In actuality , the beginning of this quote in the French original , “ je rentre ,” is better rendered in English by “ I ’ m on my way back home ,” hence further dissociating the gothic from the fantastic : the Horla does not manifest itself within the recognizably gothic environment of the Mont-Saint-Michel but only within the familiar space of the narrator ’ s house .
Both texts , Dracula and “ Le Horla ,” therefore separate the fantastic from gothic motifs , which , rather than enhancing the fantastic effect tend to dilute it by connoting a less realistic environment , where specters and apparitions are accepted by common folks , as are the superstitions the natives share elliptically with Jonathan Harker at the beginning of his journey or those told to the narrator of “ The Horla ” during his visit to the Mont-Saint-Michel , which involve a ghost shepherd with an invisible head herding a he-goat and a she-goat with human faces . It is precisely when they are cut off from these superstitions and fairy tales that “ The Horla ” and Dracula gain their statures of terrifying monsters , as they materialize in a reality we can identify as our own , further suggesting the real possibility of the unthinkable .
WEIRD SCIENCES
In order to enhance the suspension of disbelief , the supernatural has to be wagered against an utmost rational , if not scientific conception of reality , which tends to push away the matters of the heart , and so , rather than developing Lucy ’ s
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