Gothic Tales in Year 7

Please read on to learn more about Year 7’s topic of Gothic Literature:

This term, we have started learning about Gothic literature in English. We began by watching a short video on the topic – it is incredible how fascinating a six-minute clip can be! I thought to myself… “what a great way of starting online school!” Of course, we have the best teachers to help us to understand this dark topic.

We then made our own mood boards with lots of information, including many pictures and quotes, making sure we chose the appropriate fonts!

Next, we read and watched some extracts from The Woman in Black, where we found that Daniel Radcliffe played a special part!

Finally, we were split into groups to create our own gothic descriptions. We were inspired by images our teachers shared with us, which were taken from story cards called myrioramas. You can see some examples of these in the carousel below.

I have loved learning about Gothic Literature so far, and can’t wait to start reading The Hound of the Baskervilles!

Gio K, Year 7

As I meandered towards a grand gate, I halted. I observed a crucifix necklace on the floor. Perplexed as I was, I carried on. Whilst ambling on, I reflected on what I had seen. Confusion surrounding it all. Whose was that and why was it there?

Decayed bushes and crooked trees were embedded all the way throughout the passageway. I could hear crows squawking in the distance and sticks fracturing. Following the cobbled pathway, I reached an old gate. It was huge and towering above me. Scared though I was, I carried on… 

The bushes are overgrown and damp. Roots like slugs crawl into the eye holes, calling it their new home. A cackling crow eyes me. The moonlight breaking the black blanket strewn across the coal-like sky. A silhouette of trees is staring right at me, sucking my soul like dark shadowy figures with fine, spindly fingers, gnarling towards the light and me. 

As I crept quietly forward, I heard a gigantic person. Their echoing laughing like an obscure, squealing mouse. Wind brushed against my legs, tickling them. While a maleficent human stalked on while the towering treacherous trees peer down on everything keeping watch. Meandering up the puny but steep hill hosted a horrific, chilling sight of a person engraved into the hill; I felt someone touch me from behind…

Thomas, Joe and Rishi

Trees intertwine with each other as an eerie figure stands in front of it. The tension when you look into her eyes is like your worst nightmare in real life. The greyness of the ground and the sky creeps inside of me, haunting me as I shiver. A strange man peeps out mysteriously as the girl keeps menacingly staring at me as she levitates from the spiky twigs below her. The wooden fence stays stationary on the ground, rusty and ancient as the man rests his hand on it. Gloominess is everywhere and is ready to impale me and stop me from sleep.  

In the shadows, a scorpion man is lurking next to the bushes waiting for one soul to walk past. On the opposite side of a fence is a little girl pointing a baton with a snake head on the end. It looks like a soul devourer. When you look into the girl’s eyes, it looks like the demon’s world. A dreaded place. The mouldy fence is kept intact by lot of shrubs and twigs. The white sky shows that it is cloudy – impaling those that can fly. 

Gio and Henry

He was thinking of how he could murder his next victim with his scythe? Or with his bare hands? The choice was his. With a skull-like face of death and fury he looked as though he could be the embodiment of the skull and crossbones on a pirate ship. With clothes like an invisibility cloak that doesn’t work at all he could sneak up on anyone that doesn’t suspect.

The trees look like they’re going to stand up with the base of their roots and follow the reaper to take down the next victim with him. The young, sleepy girl lay there dreaming, she was dreaming of her childhood and playing with her parents. Ever since her parents died she shut herself away from every person. She was made to move up north after they died.  There was an evil man who lived up in the dark mightily feared house, who forced her to do everything he wanted . If she refused he made sleep in the cold. 

William and Thomas A

The death reaper’s sugar-white face light up his obsidian cloak. A razor shape blade appeared for his bony hand. The dark figure wore a pointy hood to hide his despicable face. 

Loarn

Mrs Clarke’s class:

Staring into the eyes of hell, the Grim Reaper waits to swing his scythe and end a poor victim’s life. The amorphous creature silently waits in the vast forest with a black sky above him. The blood on his scythe drips as he clambers through the bushes in search of prey. His gown drapes along the ground, rustling on the leaves.                    

He then stumbles across towering trees which lean over and surround the glistening treasure chest with their finger-like branches as it sits alone in the cold, misty wood. He investigates the decayed wood on the damp, soggy chest mystified as to what it is inside. The hooded figure carries on his search for more souls. 

He then stumbles across stained, crumbling stairs, holding piles of dreary, grey rubble, making the once great building a vine-covered mess with a sinister appearance. The sky spews out darkness, spitting gloom into the hazy mist as it comes across another poor victim. 

Team 1

The grim reaper himself stood lurking in the middle of the sinister wood awaiting his next victim. Fresh blood dripped to the ground from the scythe, creating a blood puddle around the hooded figure. Meanwhile, a twig broke in the distance, and with one swing of the evil figure’s scythe, that thing was gone.  

Spirits stealthily hid, waiting for animals to come so they can snatch the petrified animal and take them into the never-ending tunnel of darkness leading to the underworld so the spirits can take the soul. 

Inside the bloody wood, there he was – the grim reaper wearing a black, hooded cloak. He was as cold as a dark hole, and the scythe was like a razor as it sliced through the air. To this day the grim reaper’s whereabouts are still unknown.      

Team 2

In the graveyard there was a spooky presence to it almost like an ominous tone. Cold and scary-looking mist filled the air and there was a dark, spooky figure in the background and a crow on the gravestone making peculiar noises. The scene was bleak, chilling and petrifying.

Then between the deary mist and gloom, a hooded figure looked below upon the reeds, waiting for an unfortunate victim to venture past. Then in one silent sweep of his silver scythe, a pale body will lie morose hidden in the darkness. Underneath the sinister hood was a gaunt, hollow skull with eyes pitch black and a mouth expressionless and dead.

Meanwhile, a wretched woman appeared, sinisterly looking into the distance, wondering if someone was there. Only her bent nose to be seen. Then she continued stumbling in the weeds but again, she turned around, then continued, but the next time she turned around she was a victim… 

Team 3

Well done, Year 7 – these tales are certainly extremely spooky!