Gothic Romanticism has eight basic characteristics. All of Gothic stories carry most of these traits. These traits are hero-villain conflict; a person, place or object possessing a great power; a virtue is hidden in the story-line; personal magnetism is evident; usually includes some criminal act; "explained supernatural"; an enchanted setting such as an ancient castle; and extensive and insistent literary allusion.

Edgar A. Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville are authors of Gothic Romanticism. All three authors' style has multiple levels of interpretation and is loaded with allegories, but each has a slightly different vision. Poe's "The Tale-Tell Heart", Hawthorne's "The Birth-Mark" and Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" each represents a different vision.

Poe wrote tales to sell-the more fantastic the better. These tales were often graphic horror stories with madman elements and gore. "The Tale-Tell Heart" is a great example of this version of Gothic Romanticism. In this story, a madman, the narrator, kills an old man who he is the servant of. He irrationally justifies the killing of this man because he apparently has a dead or lazy eye that drove him insane.

Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" is a story about society and it's on the lighter side of Gothic Romanticism. Bartleby does end in tragedy, but Melville throws some humor it. An example of this is when the narrator asks Turkey if "prefer" is an odd saying, he says he never uses it himself. Then the narrator then tells him to get back to work and he says, "Oh certainly, sir, if you prefer that I should" (2344). "Bartleby, the Scrivener" makes reference to how easy some people's lives are, but refuse to see that; they are expecting everything to be given to them without working for it. The narrator gives Bartleby everything. He has a place to stay rent-free, a job where he doesn't even have to work. When Bartleby is in jail, the narrator sees to it that he is given food by paying off the cook. Yet he doesn't accept this and starves to death. He's not willing take what is given to him much less do things for himself.

Melville, Herman. "Bartleby, the Scrivener". The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina

The murder scene is quite horrifying and graphic:

Baym. W.W. Norton & Company: New York, 1998. 2330-55.

Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment...And now, at the dead hour of night, and amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as t

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