I Kafka It

Franz Kafka was a predominant writer during his time by writing nearly 16 novels. He mainly focused on the oppression of bureaucracy and societies norms. This style and topic of writing closely relates to the Gothic themes of resisting empire and struggling to obtain individual importance. A peice Kafka wrote called "The Castle" displays the Gothic aesthetic of hopelessness that people feel when faced with bureaucracy or the empire because the main character K always hits a roadblock while trying to get to "The Castle". Kafka also represented the Gothic ideas of madness and death of individualism with his peice called "The Judgement". In it Georg eventually ends up going mad and jumps into a river which can be interpreted as losing his individualism. These ideas that Kafka wrote about help my understanding of the Gothic by giving me metaphorical context of what the Gothic aesthetic looks like in writing. Also by writing these two novels Kafka shows just the method by which one can actually feel oppressed within a somewhat moderate context and also helped me understand some of the political fears that were attached to the Gothic aesthetic during his time.

Picking a Bone With the Church

The Ossuary of Kutna Hera (also known as the Bone Church) is a location in Prague where a priest and a carpenter cooperated to build it out of human bones. The location is in a graveyard with the bones being arranged in decorative patterns. An example of a decoration choice is drapery. The method by which the bones were used to make decorations for the room is what makes the location creepy. Another aspect that adds to the creepiness is just the sheer volume of bones present which gives the location a supernatural feeling. Lastly the unrefinedness of the building above the church also gives the place a creepy feeling. These methods of utilizing death shows just how different people can view the afterlife within similar cultures.

Trigger Happy Ferdinand

Konopiste was the residence of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. It is a classical Gothic location because there is a large presence of death with all the animals trophies that are mounted on the wall. Also it represents a Gothic location because it has elements of sublime with the large lake and forest that surrounds it. The large hallway of animal heads also gave the location a supernatural sense and added a layer of creepiness. Konopiste is important because it shows the possible mental problems that Franz Ferdinand coud have had and displays the huge influence that he had through being able to pratically bring any amount of animals he wanted onto the compound. The location shows us that Ferdinand respresented the classic Gothic trope of evil aristocrat.

My Protagonist Sisi Top

Sisi aka Queen Elisabeth was the empress of the Austrain empire during Franz Joseph's reign. She has become a cult icon of sorts for people through her life story. She fits the idea of a Gothic heroine because she is a tragic figure who is consistently trapped by a past event that has occured to her which is her marriage. In her life Sisi had to deal with the death of several of her children with Rudolf being the most well known. Rudolf died due to double suicide with one of his mistress's named Marie. Also Sisi had to go through the restriction and lack of individuality that came along with marrying Franz Joseph. The marriage as well as the things that came from it haunted her up to the day she died. This haunting led to Sisi eventually becoming mad in a sense and be a recluse. (But who knows it could have just been that she was hysterical.)

Pick your Palace

In Vienna and London I fell witness to the three interesting palaces Schonbrunn (sorry about not putting the umlauts), Kew and Hofburg. Schonbrunn and Hofburg are both palaces where the Austrian Emperor and Empress lived while Kew is the palace where King George the 3rd resided. Schonbrunn and Hofburg are similar in the way that they are both made to impress guests and display power but differ in the method used to accomplish the goal. The Hofburg uses more of a masculine touch to show power with it's large paintings and sculptures of Franz Joseph to show guests that he was the "man of the house". This design decision was also reflected in the layout of the palace with there being larger rooms and Franz's office residing next to his bedroom. These decisions show the palace off as the place for business and display Franz as the center of power. Schonbrunn however showed power more subtly through sophistication and beauty. It had a huge garden behind the palace and many more rooms with less hallway space. Also Schonburnn had more of a comfortable feeling to it than Hofburg which added to its sophistication aesthetic. Schonnbrunn overall felt less private and said that the royal family has nothing to hide. Schonbrunn was utilized more to show guests how great royalty lived in Austria.
The last palace Kew was completely different from the other two because it felt more like an actual family home. It also had a large garden which surrounded the compund but the house itself was not nearly as big as the other two structures. Kew palace had ample oppurtunity for privacy and a personal life rather than the other two. By comparing and contrasting the various palaces one can see the priorities as well as the mindset of both royal families and how they interpreted power.

The Cathedrals

In my excursions I saw several religious buildings such as St. Vitus, St. George, Stephan's Dom and St. Wulfram. These churches all had similarities as well as differences. Stephan's Dom and St. Vitus are fairly luxurious cathedrals whose primary purposes were to show off the wealth of the rulers to others. On the other hand St. Wulfram and St. George felt more like cathedrals that were constructed solely for worshipping purposes. St. George felt the most personal out of all the religious structures though due to its smaller and more private stature rather than being absurdly large like the other buildings. I also noticed that Stephan's Dom and St. Vitus were being used more for as tourist attractions nowadays rather than being promoted as holy places. By comparing and contrasting the purposes of these religious structures it allows for us to realize the methods by which rulers of different lands displayed their wealth.

Analyzing the Psyche of the Gothic

Sigmund Freud is the father psychoanalysis and was a prominent member of cultural society in during the late 1800s all the way into the mid 1900s. Freud is viewed as being a large of part of the Gothic society that was present during his time due to him opening up the idea that people need to discuss their feelings instead of just repressing them. Freud also allowed for women as well as men the oppurtunity to speak with someone in person about their feelings in privacy. Lastly Freud contributed in a negative fashion with his idea that women could contract an illness called hysteria. These contributions make me realize that while Freud did help with pushing the positive side of the Gothic aesthic of realizing and discussing your feelings, he also contributed to the negative aspect of Gothism which is that women who speak of their feelings or feel repressed are considered mad or hysterical.