Bir öykünün karşıt karakteri antagonist , yani, ikinci önemli karakteri, önce Richardson'un ellerinde birinci önemli karakter konumuna yükselir; daha sonra da Gotik etki altında ana karakter konumuna çıkar. Bu durum Elizabet Çağı Tiyatrosunun "kötü adamının" ulaştığı o yüksek konumu çağrıştırır. Karakterin yazar tarafından bu şekilde kullanımı bilinçli veya bilinçsizce politik etki altındadır veya en azından ideolojiktir. Yeni Tarihçi veya Kültürel Maddeci yorumsal irdelemelerin de gösterdiği gibi, karşıt karakter antagonist politik etki altında ise "pişmankar" veya "meydan okuyucudur". Gotik karşıt karakter doğu yazınından, bilim-kurguya ve modern romanslara kadar çok çeşitli alt türlerdeki gotik dürtünün temelini oluşturarak diğer Gotik roman gelenekleri ışığında yorumlanır

ANTAGONIST CHARACTERS IN THE EARL Y GOTHIC NOVEL: A MATTER OF POLITICAL ANXIETY?

During the eighteenth-century, the antagonist, previously the second most important character in a story, becomes, first in Richardson's Clarissa, and then under Gothic influence, the main character in the novel. This recalls the “heavy” villain of Elizabethan drama. The use to which the character is put by the author is both consciously and unconsciously political or ideological, at least in part. Under political influence, the antagonist can be classified as either “repentant” or “unrepentant,” with very different effects, as a New Historicist or Cultural Materialist analysis can reveal. The Gothic antagonist is set within the Gothic novel, and together with other conventions of the Gothic novel became the basis of later interpretations of the Gothic impulse in novels of various sub-genres, from oriental fiction and science fiction to the modern romance novel.

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