Getting Rid Of George By Arthur Essay, Research Paper

Robert Arthur?s story, Getting Rid of George is a good gothic story because of

it?s various examples of required gothic elements. These requirements include

atmosphere, psychological state of mind, mystery, romance, and melodrama. All of

these combined make this story a good gothic example. To begin, the setting, at

one point, takes place at a dark secludes cabin in the mountains. Evidence of

this is found when Harry describes: ?It is absolutely deserted up there at

this time of year.? As well, the disappearance of George to everyone except

Laura and Harry adds to the gloomy atmosphere. Again adding to the gloom and

terror of the story is the physical exploitation of cruelty shown by Laura when

she repeatedly beats George with a statuette until he lay dead on the floor.

Mental exploitation of cruelty is also evident when George returns from the dead

and blackmails and once again tries to ruin Laura new found life. We found clear

examples of an atmosphere of gloom and terror throughout this story proving that

Getting Rid of George is a well written gothic story. Along with a gloomy and

terrifying atmosphere, Arthur uses the element of aberrant psychological states

of mind to add to his gothic story. An example of irrational behavior is shown

when Laura becomes outraged and spontaneously murders George. We thought, as

well, that when Laura suffers a fainting spell is also an example of this

psychological state of mind. Evidence of this is found when Arthur writes:

?Harry held Laura until the nausea within her subsided.? Lastly,

hallucinations were also prevalent in the story as well. We thought a good

example was when Harry and Laura were bringing George to the cabin to dispose of

his body, Laura claims that George?s dead eye slowly opened and gave her a

knowing wink. Elements of mystery were also used throughout this story. Many

things were hidden or unknown. Some examples are when George walked into

Laura?s dressing room disguised as part of the press. His real identity, to

Laura, was unknown. Also the fact that Laura murdered George and Harry is

planning to help her was kept hidden from anyone and everyone. We also found

obvious secrecy and obscurity in the story as well. Laura?s past was kept as a

deep secret as it would more than likely hurt her new career as an actress. We

found proof of this when harry tells Laura: ?As soon as Haila learns you?ve

been able to keep your past life a secret from everyone, she?ll open a

vendetta against you.? It is clearly shown that an element of mystery is used

repeatedly throughout the story. Another gothic element that was used is

romance. within the element of romance some fictions narrative is used such as

when George speaks and acts towards laura as if nothing is or should be wrong.

Our example is shown when George says: ?Come on now, kiss lonesome George.?

Again: ?Now come to your loving husband like a good woman should.? We found

this quite unordinary because Laura obviously wants nothing to do with George,

and he is stupid if he doesn?t realize that. As well, we noted two romantic

relationships. Laura and Harry were desperately in love and had gotten married

and George and ?Gloria? were a couple at one point. However along with

Laura?s new life came a new name and a new husband. Along with this romantic

element comes an exotic place or setting. The only one we thought would sort of

fit into this category is the cabin up in the mountains where harry brought

Laura for their honeymoon. Therefore, many different examples of romance were

evident in this story. The last gothic element used is melodrama. Violent

physical action is an example of melodrama, we thought the best example of this

was when Laura continuously beat George with a silver statuette. Secondly,

extravagant emotions produce melodrama as well. The emotions were noticed when

Laura described: ?pain and loathing were a white fire in my mind.? She

thought this when George had barged into her room looking to ruin her life

again. Poetic justice was also served to these characters. George deserved to

die for everything he did, and Laura and Harry deserved to have everyone find

out about George?s death, they ended up getting caught in their lie. Last but

not least, credibility of the action and the character sacrificed for the

violent effect. George sacrificed his life by coming back for Laura and Harry

and Laura sacrificed their freedom and reputation by keeping George?s death a

secret. Evidently, melodrama was used to support Arthur?s gothic story. In

conclusion we found that Arthur?s story Getting Rid of George was a good

gothic story. Arthur used many gothic elements to help support and make his

story good and also a mysterious one. We found this story suspenseful and

mysterious and enjoyed reading every part of it.