Robert Arthur’s story, Getting Rid of George is a good gothic story because of
it’s various examples of required gothic elements. These requirements include
atmosphere, psychological state of mind, mystery, romance, and melodrama. All of
these combined make this story a good gothic example. To begin, the setting, at
one point, takes place at a dark secludes cabin in the mountains. Evidence of
this is found when Harry describes: “It is absolutely deserted up there at
this time of year.” As well, the disappearance of George to everyone except
Laura and Harry adds to the gloomy atmosphere. Again adding to the gloom and
terror of the story is the physical exploitation of cruelty shown by Laura when
she repeatedly beats George with a statuette until he lay dead on the floor.
Mental exploitation of cruelty is also evident when George returns from the dead
and blackmails and once again tries to ruin Laura new found life. We found clear
examples of an atmosphere of gloom and terror throughout this story proving that
Getting Rid of George is a well written gothic story. Along with a gloomy and
terrifying atmosphere, Arthur uses the element of aberrant psychological states
of mind to add to his gothic story. An example of irrational behavior is shown
when Laura becomes outraged and spontaneously murders George. We thought, as
well, that when Laura suffers a fainting spell is also an example of this
psychological state of mind. Evidence of this is found when Arthur writes:
“Harry held Laura until the nausea within her subsided.” Lastly,
hallucinations were also prevalent in the story as well. We thought a good
example was when Harry and Laura were bringing George to the cabin to dispose of
his body, Laura claims that George’s dead eye slowly opened and gave her a
knowing wink. Elements of mystery were also used throughout this story. Many
things were hidden or unknown. Some examples are when George walked into
Laura’s dressing room disguised as part of the press. His real identity, to
Laura, was unknown. Also the fact that Laura murdered George and Harry is
planning to help her was kept hidden from anyone and everyone. We also found
obvious secrecy and obscurity in the story as well. Laura’s past was kept as a
deep secret as it would more than likely hurt her new career as an actress. We
found proof of this when harry tells Laura: “As soon as Haila learns you’ve
been able to keep your past life a secret from everyone, she’ll open a
vendetta against you.” It is clearly shown that an element of mystery is used
repeatedly throughout the story. Another gothic element that was used is
romance. within the element of romance some fictions narrative is used such as
when George speaks and acts towards laura as if nothing is or should be wrong.
Our example is shown when George says: “Come on now, kiss lonesome George.”
Again: “Now come to your loving husband like a good woman should.” We found
this quite unordinary because Laura obviously wants nothing to do with George,
and he is stupid if he doesn’t realize that. As well, we noted two romantic
relationships. Laura and Harry were desperately in love and had gotten married
and George and ‘Gloria’ were a couple at one point. However along with
Laura’s new life came a new name and a new husband. Along with this romantic
element comes an exotic place or setting. The only one we thought would sort of
fit into this category is the cabin up in the mountains where harry brought
Laura for their honeymoon. Therefore, many different examples of romance were
evident in this story. The last gothic element used is melodrama. Violent
physical action is an example of melodrama, we thought the best example of this
was when Laura continuously beat George with a silver statuette. Secondly,
extravagant emotions produce melodrama as well. The emotions were noticed when
Laura described: “pain and loathing were a white fire in my mind.” She
thought this when George had barged into her room looking to ruin her life
again. Poetic justice was also served to these characters. George deserved to
die for everything he did, and Laura and Harry deserved to have everyone find
out about George’s death, they ended up getting caught in their lie. Last but
not least, credibility of the action and the character sacrificed for the
violent effect. George sacrificed his life by coming back for Laura and Harry
and Laura sacrificed their freedom and reputation by keeping George’s death a
secret. Evidently, melodrama was used to support Arthur’s gothic story. In
conclusion we found that Arthur’s story Getting Rid of George was a good
gothic story. Arthur used many gothic elements to help support and make his
story good and also a mysterious one. We found this story suspenseful and
mysterious and enjoyed reading every part of it.