The next book that I read for my Gothic literature class was Caleb Williams. It is a wonderful novel about a man running away from someone who is trying to kill him. Caleb Williams is a detective story, like many of the other Gothic novels that I have read. However, this novel could truly be considered a Gothic novel. The book starts off with the main character, Caleb, telling the reader that he is trying to hide from a man who wants to kill him, but no one knows why. This got me extremely interested into the story right from the beginning.

Caleb is a young man who loses both his parents and has no one to live with, or does he have a job to help him survive. One of the men in his town, Falkland, takes him into the house to work. While working for Falkland, Caleb notices that Falkland goes through mood swings. Caleb does not understand why Falkland is so upset and why he always locks himself up for days at a time. Falkland’s servant decides to tell Caleb why Falkland is so upset. What Caleb is being told, is a secret, and once Caleb hears the secret, he wants to talk to Falkland about it, but can not. This makes Caleb snoop around Falklands stuff to find out more information about him.

One of the great things that I loved about Caleb Williams is that there are two different perspectives telling the story. The book is split into three different volumes. The first volume is told by a different narrator, Falkland’s servant. The second and third volumes are told by Caleb. The servant tells Caleb, and the reader, about how Falkland had a rival, and eventually the rival ends up dying. No one knows for sure how the rival died, but Caleb, and others, believes that Falkland killed his rival. Caleb takes it into his hands to try to figure out the mystery.

The rest of the book takes place after Caleb gets caught trying to figure out the mystery. Falkland walks in on Caleb going through a personal chest in the house. Caleb gets scared and tries to run away. He gets caught the first time, but he eventually escapes the second time and is able to stay away. If I tell anymore about the story I will be giving away the ending, but I hope you became interested in the story.

Something that I really loved about this novel was the fact that it was written in first person. A lot of the Gothic novels that I have read were in third person. I enjoyed that Caleb was the one who was actually speaking to the reader, telling what happened. It makes the reader feel more connected to the story. The reader is able to feel more connected to Caleb because the events are actually happening to him, instead of just reading a story about a “fictional” character. If anyone has read this, or wants to read it, please let me know. I would love to talk to people about it.

I wrote one of my papers about the book. I compared it to the idea of the Panopticon, if anyone knows about it. The Panopticon is the idea of someone being in the center. This person in the center is being watched by other people, but they can not see who is watching them. I used this idea because when Caleb ran away, Falkland always knew where he was, but Caleb did not know that he was being watched. I really enjoyed this idea within the novel, and it can be seen throughout other Gothic novels as well. If anyone else has noticed this theme, I would love for you to tell me. I found this idea to be very interesting.