Tag: crimson peak

Crimson Peak, and Edith herself, originate from books. Books, in particular, written by women. Young women. Girls, almost – girls like Edith. Mary Shelley, Ann Radcliffe, Daphne Du Maurier, and of course the Bronte sisters; Gothic romance has, since its conception, been the arena of female imagination. Of course men have written in the Gothic mode, but they tend to write a different type. In fact, scholars of the genre consider the line between Gothic romance and Gothic horror to be a gendered one. Where women tend to write stories of social oppression and interpersonal horror, men write ones where the supernatural is actually real, and actually the sinister force at work.

There are many theories as to why this is the case. I favour a simple one: women have long had a great deal of very real things to fear; they do not need to make up ghosts and monsters to menace them.