Gothic Fiction and Return of the Native -- Anna and Josh

                                                     Common Elements of Gothic Fiction

• Virginal maiden- Thomasin fits this role rather well. She is not the center of the story but she does embody such traits as innocence and virtue. 
• Older foolish woman- Mrs.Yeobright, while at times cunning, often lacked good judgement. For example, she chose to go walking in the heat of the day and ended up dead. 
• Stupid servant- One of the elements of gothic literature is to have a "stupid servant" character. Christian Cantle fills this role in the story, causing much havoc because of his ignorance and gullible nature. He creates the subplot of the issues with Mrs. Yeobright inheritance money, squandering it away in a gamble. 
• Clergy- The clergy characters tend to be weak and possibly evil. While Clym is not evil, he does  
• Setting- in gothic fiction, most works use the setting as a character itself, describing it in detail and basing the story around it. This trait is used in Return of the Native __, Hardy devotes large sections of the book to describe the setting thoroughly.