Guidelines for Reading Gothic & Other Novels
	How are bodies portrayed? Do they blush, tremble, gasp, decay? How do they react under physical and/or mental duress? How is the materiality of the body explored and emphasized? · Are white racial characteristics emphasized and on whom? (Watch for white skin, blonde or red hair). Are other characters portrayed in different racial and/or ethnic ways (dark or "swarthy" skin, etc.)? What sorts of mental characteristics are associated with particular racial characteristics? · What kind of class background are various characters from? Aristocrats, commoners, middle class, or what? How do characters cross class boundaries (masquerading as lower class, marrying into the upper class, etc.). What happens when characters cross class boundaries? · How are women's bodies placed under surveillance in the story? By whom: parents, church authorities, even the narrator? Are there moments when "good" surveillance (the vigilant guardian) begins to blur into "bad" surveillance (lecherous voyeurism, incarceration, etc.)? · Who has knowledge that other characters lack? Are there characters who react to things, especially physically, in ways that they don't understand? · How easy is it to separate the sacred and the perverse, the logos and the corpus, religious ideas from potentially sensuous religious iconography (statues, paintings, etc.) and rituals? Are there places where these boundaries break down? · How are mobs and threats to social order portrayed? Is social change portrayed as an easy or smooth process? · Do threatening or ghostly doubles (dopplegängers) appear? What sorts of themes do they explore? · Is homoeroticism toyed with? Do all male or female institutions, designed to promote chastity, also raise the possibility of same-sex eroticism? · How much control to people have over their own actions and/or thoughts? To what extent are they able to separate themselves from their environment? How much control do they exercise over their own bodies and destinies? · Do the male heroes seem as detached and aloof as they would in, say, a Western? How are they different than action heroes? · What role do past events and historical institutions portray in the novel? Is the past easily ignored, forgotten, or overcome? · How continuous is the form of the novel? Are there sudden breaks, shifts in narrative style, tales within tales? How does this affect you as a reader?