Gothic Atmosphere in Short Stories
Browse our curated collection of short stories featuring gothic atmosphere with literary analysis and discussion guides.
The Tell-Tale Heart
An unnamed narrator insists upon their sanity while describing the methodical killing of an old man. Driven mad by the old man's "vulture eye," the narrator commits the act with precision, dismembers the body, and hides it beneath the floorboards. When police arrive, the narrator's guilt manifests as an unbearable phantom heartbeat, leading to a confession.
The Masque of the Red Death
As a plague called the Red Death ravages his country, Prince Prospero withdraws with a thousand healthy nobles into a sealed abbey to wait out the pestilence in pleasure. Deep into their revels he throws a lavish masquerade through seven strangely colored rooms, the last of them black and blood-red and shunned by the guests. At midnight a masked figure appears in the costume of the Red Death itself. Enraged, Prospero pursues it into the black chamber and falls dead; when the revelers seize the masquer they find the costume empty. One by one they die, and the Red Death claims absolute dominion.