The Role of Women in Gothic Literature: Empowerment or Entrapment?

Gothic literature, which emerged in the late eighteenth century, has long served as a site for negotiating cultural anxieties related to gender, power, and identity. The portrayal of women within this genre is particularly fraught, as they often oscillate between figures of victimhood and subversion. While many texts depict women as passive, entrapped beings confined by societal and supernatural forces, others present them as agents of resistance, psychological complexity, and even rebellion. Drawing upon feminist literary criticism, psychoanalysis, and close textual analysis, this paper examines how Gothic literature both reinforces and challenges patriarchal norms. By analyzing classical and modern Gothic texts, this study explores how women evolve from silent sufferers to empowered voices within a genre obsessed with the uncanny and the transgressive.