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While the Duke of Ferrara is a clear Gothic tyrant in “My Last Duchess,” the tyrant in Get Out is more than just one person. But in looking at the two most prominent forces of evil, the Duke and Rose, these characters do have similar ways of gaining dominance over and ensnaring their victims.  The Duke and Rose are both extremely casual in discussing and performing their evil plans. In Get Out, Rose reveals her character shift when she sinisterly tells Chris “you know I can't give you the keys right, babe?” (Peele). Prior to this moment, Chris discovers the pictures of Rose’s previous victims, a moment that reveals that the act of courting and betraying black people is an ongoing process for Rose. Rose keeps her victims’ pictures like the Duke keeps his painting of his “last Duchess” (Browning 1). Browning uses the word “last” and not “first” which could signify that he has killed multiple wives, just like Rose has trapped multiple black people. Before Chris is even killed, Rose has hung pictures of all her victims while she conducts her search for her next one. Rose is clearly proud of these photos and just like the Duke is proud of the painting of his murdered wife. The Duke calls it a “piece of wonder” (Browning 3). During the chilling moment in which Rose searches for her next victim, she sits casually on her bed while listening to “(I've Had) The Time of My Life.” This complete lack of emotion or care is similar to the way the that Duke invites his guests to look at the other paintings in his collection after confessing that he ordered for his wife to be killed. Both characters see their treacherous acts as mundane events. We learn that the Duke is having this conversation because his is arranging his next marriage. Therefore, it seems that both he and Rose cannot wait to find their next victims.

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Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Lucille Fletcher’s Sorry, Wrong Number both exemplify that even in contemporary works people can still be isolated in physical and emotional spaces. In Get Out, Jordan Peele works to reveal the ways in which Chris is both physically and emotionally isolated. For example, Peele reminds us that Chris is as a black man in a white area and he is grappling with feeling of guiltiness over his mother’s death. In physical terms, Chris is spending time at an isolated upstate house. This isolation is enhanced by Chris’ inability to drive and by his inability to communicate with Rod as the Armitage’s plot progresses. Rose is the one to drive Chris to her family’s home and Rose being the one who takes Chris to this location later plays a very important role when Chris realizes what the family wants to do to him and that he has no way to escape from it. When Rose’s father takes Chris around the grounds, he tells him that “the nearest house is across the lake ensuring them total privacy” (Peele). This again is an example of the physical isolation Chris experiences and fulfills the common Gothic trope of the faraway home. Later, at the Armitage’s party, Chris is singled out because of his race and, unaware of the process of the brain transplantation, tries to find comfort in seeing another black man an action that revels the emotional toll such a physical isolation is having on Chris. Moreover, in another attempt to physically isolate Chris at the house, Georgina continuously unplugs his phone. Chris tells Rose that “he came here to talk to Rod” and now he has “no juice” (Peele). Rose and her family’s plan hinges upon Chris being unable to contact his friend. The use of technology as a way to isolate a person plays even more of a critical role in Fletcher’s work. People perhaps have a false allusion of how connected they really are with the outside world just because they have access to a telephone. Mrs. Stevenson relies solely on the phone as a means of staying connected to others, but it is not able to save her. She calls the operator, the police, and the hospital, but those actions still do not prevent her death. Mrs. Stevenson may live in New York City, a densely populated city, but she is still alone. Mrs. Stevenson tells the policeman that her husband tries to ease her worries about being alone by saying that she is “perfectly safe as long as [she] ha[s] [her] telephone right beside [her] bed” (13). This statement is completely undermined by the fact that Mrs. Stevenson is still murdered in spite of her attempts to preserve her safety by using her telephone. Peele and Fletcher both use their variations on the traditional Gothic theme of  isolation in order to show that even in a technological age we are still spatially and emotionally vulnerable.

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Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess” and Lucille Fletcher’s Sorry, Wrong Number both portray women who have been killed or are about to be killed at the hands of their husbands. The works comment on the dangers of the patriarchy by positioning husbands as Gothic tyrants.  Browning presents us with a pompous and possessive male figure and an innocent female who is unjustly punished. In doing this, Browning utilizes the Gothic genre to emphasize the unbalanced power structures that exist between men and women and particularly between husband and wife. Lucille Fletcher creates an unbalanced power dynamic in Sorry, Wrong Number by having Mrs. Stevenson be “an invalid” who relies on others to do everything for her (13). In “My Last Duchess,” the Duke, “g[ives] commands” to have his wife be killed because he feels that she was not respecting him properly (Browning 45). The Duke uses his force as a man, and especially as a man of power, to give his “commands,” commands that cause “all” of the Duchess’ “smiles” to “stop together” (45-6). Mr. Stevenson also solicits outside forces to kill his wife. Mrs. Stevenson overhears her murderers say that his client wants “as little blood as possible” in the killing of his victim (Fletcher 8). Both husbands use others to perform their dirty tasks. This act of having others commit the crime perhaps represents the way in the which the patriarchy as a whole works together to suppress women.

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“The Yellow Wallpaper” and Get Out serve as allegories that speak to the ways in which marginalized groups in the 19th and 21st century are treated. Jordan Peele’s Get Out is a commentary on race relations in America and on cultural appropriation. The Armitage family and their Coagula order only the black body when it is suppressed and controlled by a white consciousness. Get Out uses the actual transplantation of white brains into black bodies in order to symbolize the act of cultural appropriation. In putting their victims into the “sunken place,” the Armitage’s and their clients strip black subjects of power just as cultural appropriation aims to strip groups of everything that is their own and displace their identities through assimilation. The Armitages’ attempt to erase their victims from the world and from their own minds mirrors the way in which cultural appropriation works to erase the origins of from where different identities, cultures, and traditions come. At the party for the Coagula members, the guests were comment on the athleticism of Tiger Woods and ask Rose and Chris’ about their intimate life because they see Chris, and see other black people, as a means enhancing themselves. One guest comments that “black is in fashion” (Peele). These people believe that if whiteness could infiltrate the physical being of the black body then they perfection will be achieved. In the video of Roman that is played before Chris is ready to undergo his transplantation, the Armitage patriarch says “with your natural gifts and our determination we could both be part of something greater” (Peele). Peele draws attention to the ways in which many white people hold perverse and paradoxical desires to simultaneously be black and be able to control and curtail black bodies, desires that make themselves manifest through the Armitages’ transplantations. While Get Out is a racial allegory, The Yellow Wallpaper” serves as an allegory for the plight of womanhood. The wallpaper takes on the role of a character that enforces the prison of the narrator’s home, and on a larger scale, the prison that is the societal expectations of women during the 19th century. When the narrator says that she sees women in the wallpaper, she adds that “nobody could climb through this pattern—it strangles so” (Gilman 654). This line emphasizes that any woman who has tried to escape the ways of domestic life will fail—they will remain forever trapped. The entrapment that Gilman portrays here is similar to the entrapment of the black mind in “the sunken place.” Both groups wish they can be free, but sexism and racism, as well as the powerful, dominant groups who perpetuate acts of aggression and violence imprison them.

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The archetypal Gothic heroine is often a curious, naive, innocent, and young woman. In addition, to having these qualities she is also often vulnerable, disbelieved, caring, or orphaned. In Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and Lucille Fletcher’s Sorry, Wrong Number, we are provided with slight variations of this classic gothic heroine. While the governess of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw is much more of a traditional gothic heroine than Mrs. Stevenson, but even she defies some of the figure’s common characteristics. The governess, “a daughter of a poor country parson,” is characteristically taken out of her normal environment when she begins her job at Bly manor (James 8). However, she is not completely powerless. As governess, she is “in supreme authority” of the affairs of the house (James 9). The governess is given much more power than most gothic heroines. Also, there is no adult male in the house that attempts to dominate her. The governess views herself as “a remarkable young woman” (James 26). She is convinced and determined in her belief that the ghosts of Miss Jessel and Peter Quint are haunting Bly manor, and convinced that Miles is possessed by Peter Quint. The governess stands by her convictions and doesn't waver. For instance, when she is questioned about whether she is sure that Peter Quint is coming for Miles, she shouts, “I know, I know, I know!” (James 43). And while many Gothic heroines are sure of their beliefs, the governess remains uncharacteristically confident. The governess remains an active character throughout the entirety of James’ novella. Even in the book’s final pages, the governess remains firm in her conviction that Peter Quint has possessed Miles. And she screams at her charge, “I just want you to help me to save you!” (James 108). The governess sees herself as a woman of power and a woman who is capable of being a savior. At the end of the novella, the governess smothers Miles which causes him to die. We do not know whether he is truly “dispossessed” of Peter Quint’s spirit, as the governess claims him to be (James 149). But the fact that the governess causes the death of another person and not herself contradicts many other classic Gothic tales. Women are the ones most commonly punished because of their active, inquisitive actions, but the novella states in the beginning, we know that the governess later works for Douglas’ sister and that Douglas found her a “charming” and “agreeable” woman, which makes us believe that she did not go mad after this incident (James 3). In Sorry, Wrong Number, Mrs. Stevenson is a victim at the hands of her husband’s murder plot. However, a large reason why she is an unconventional Gothic heroine is because she has an unlikeable nature. While the governess could very well be seen as a murderer, she has the charismatic, likeable qualities that make readers root for her. Lucille Fletcher, in her first description of Mrs. Stevenson, labels her “a querulous, self-center neurotic” (8). Mrs. Stevenson defies some of the basic makeup of a gothic heroine‒‒she is older, not newly married, and irritating. Unlike some Gothic heroines who court trouble by continuously searching for more evidence to support their beliefs, Mrs. Stevenson accidently overhears the phone conversation that plans for the killing of a human being. Upon receiving this information, Mrs. Stevenson takes the correct actions by calling back the phone operator and then the police. Mrs. Stevenson, unlike the governess, is killed at the hands of a man. But these heroines who slightly break the mold of the Gothic heroine teach the reader that women are more multiplicious than fiction make them seem. The governess is an investigator and does not truly get punished for being an active woman. On the other hand, Mrs. Stevenson shows the reader that women do not need to be sweet or likeable characters in order to deserve respect and sympathy.

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“The Yellow Wallpaper,” Sorry, Wrong Number, and “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” all provide their readers with critiques on marriage. While I think that “My Last Duchess also proved us with such a critique I chose these three works because thy, unlike Browning’s poem, have both spouses alive. Therefore, they allow us to witness the dynamics of marriage in different ways. There is more of a link between “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Sorry, Wrong Number in that the narrator and Mrs. Stevenson are mostly ignorant of the dominating, destructive ways of their husbands. For example, in describing her husband, the narrator in “The Yellow Wallpaper” says “Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick” (Gilman 651). Similarly, when describing her husband, Mrs. Stevenson tells the police officer that “he’s crazy about me—adores me—waits on me hand and foot” (Fletcher 15). Both women believe that their agents of destruction are actually good, caring men. This portrayal symbolizes the supposed “goodness” of marriage. The beliefs and expectations of marriage in the 19th century and marriage in the 20th century did not change drastically. For women, marriage still meant total submission‒‒a subjection of one’s self that was viewed as favorable. The female protagonists’ descriptions their husbands as good men calls our attention to the ways in which 19th and 20th gender ideology “poisoned” its people into believing that male tyranny was an act of love. Adrienne Rich’s “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers” provides us with a different critique of marriage by describing what appears to be an abusive relationship an outside perspective. Even with this different point of view, the poem still portrays the Gothic tyrant as the husband. Aunt Jennifer, while aware of her husband’s tyranny, is unable to escape from the marriage‒‒perhaps because of societal expectations, due to fear over what her husband would do to her. Instead she embroiders tigers who “do not fear the men” that they see in the “tree[s]” (Rich 3). All three works mobilize the Gothic tradition as a means of addressing the horrifying ways in which women were expected to submit themselves to their husbands in marriage.