Fears and tears

A lot of elements that are present in The Castle of Otranto, to me, are a bit... outdated. It's evident in some of the aspects he uses when using fear in the story; he knew how to really hit people in their fear spot when writing this. Some of these fears that Walpole is concerned with are supernatural entities, storms, and darkness. Those are some really big factors when reading the story. I believe that these really hit home with the readers during that time because, as opposed to the changes the world has gone through since the 17th century, those were legitimate fears. The understanding of the world wasn't as vast as we know it today, darkness was even darker, and storms made everything ten times more frightening. I think that when he wrote this, he was able to really dig deep into the psyche of people during the 17th century and hit the nail on the head of what would terrify them.