As I read “What You See in the Dark” I did not feel like the book was overly Gothic. Though I noticed some gothic elements in the beginning of the book, it wasn’t till the second half of the book that I got an eerie feeling.
However, I did really enjoy how the characters were described and talked about. It gave me a good handle on who they were and where they came from. In the first Chapter, Dan and Teresa are described as such perfect characters, who of course made the perfect couple. Dan was the desire of every young girls heart and mind, and Teresa must have been some kind of wonderful to have ended up with him; or at least that is what others thought of her.
But later in the reading we find that Teresa was actually just the average young woman who had been abandoned at the age of 17. In particular I like how Munoz describes that struggle. That is one element in the book I found to be particular gothic. After her mother left, she was so haunted by her even though she was not even dead. For example, she kept reverting back to the last words her mother told her before she left. She told her that she would one day understand why she left to go back to her ex-husband. It was those words that left Teresa haunted. That is why she was not content with Cheno’s affection. She had to find the arms her mother was talking about, the arms that stretched out to her.
I also like the description and detail Munoz uses to describe everything. In the beginning of the novel he describes the drive in movie. It made me fee like I was there experiencing the whole scene the same way the narrator was. In particular I liked this scene because it also gave the reader an understanding of what other’s thought of Dan and Teresa. It was almost like others fantasized about being them. It was interesting how the narrator describes a young girl comparing her inexperienced lover to Dan. What I find most interesting is why everyone find the couple, in particular Dan, so desirable, so wonderful, and so perfect.
I strongly agree with Melinda’s perspective of “What You See In The Dark”. Her outlook on the novel is quite identical to mine as I too do not find the novel to be an obvious genre of gothic literature. Yet, the novel carries a sort of melancholic and, as Melinda stated, eerie tone. Going off of what Teresa’s mother said when she left her at seventeen, that one day she would understand, I feel this statement creates a sort of creepy foreshadow from such a dark memory. That statement makes me sure that Teresa, at some point in the novel, will know what her mother meant. For some reason, the possible outcome, in my opinion, carries a negative tone with it. We begin the novel with the display of a perfect couple, Dan and Teresa, which makes me almost certain that this state of perfection will tragically crumble as the novel continues hence the melancholic feeling I get from the text.