Efeitos da narrativa epistolar em histórias de horror: de Drácula aos videogames de Survival Horror

Abstract

A brief overview of epistolary writing as a tool for creating Gothic effect in the narrative of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula is proposed, in order to develop a discussion of how this effect has been produced in video game narratives of franchises of Survival Horror genre as Resident Evil 4 (2005) and Fatal Frame (2001). Methodologically, the research is undertaken through a bibliographical review of the Gothic literary genre and its characteristics – with regard to epistolary writing and corpus analysis, both composed by the novel Dracula and by images and excerpts from the messages of both games. This approach is supported by the contributions of Cultural History as studied by Roger Chartier (2002), in the perspective that the material evidence of cultural objects should be used in the analyzes of the readings undertaken by the readers. It is concluded, after review and analysis undertaken, that the effects caused by the narrative fragmentation produced by the use of written records and recorded speech that are found by the players in both games parallels the effects that are caused by the work of Stoker in the construction of the novel Dracula.