Gothic Environment
In the same way it was placed in a Gothic environment due to the “neighboring hillside churchyard of St. John's” and the “Eighteenth Century gravestones” that can be seen in the churchyard. The elements of nature converge with this old house, in the same way it happened in Dracula, where the castle of the Count is placed. The yard of the house reflects the image of a dreadful forest, since the house is described as “vacant, with barren, gnarled and terrible old trees, long, queerly pale grass and nightmarishly misshapen weeds in the high terraced yard where birds never lingered.” (92) An important difference between the setting of the Gothic tradition and this story is that of the location of the house. It is located in an urban environment