Gothic is a literary aesthetic and genre marked by fear and paranoia. The Castle of Otranto, a 1764 novel by Horace Walpole, is often credited as the origin of the genre. Many aesthetics and tropes in The Castle of Otranto—such as decaying buildings, entombed characters, and ghosts—have gone on to become genre mainstays. Later works by Bram Stoker and Daphne du Maurier developed the Gothic genre, providing a foundation for modern writers like father-son duo Stephen King and Joe Hill, whose works reflect 21st-century concerns.

Hill’s Heart-Shaped Box is a contemporary Gothic story, with its primary antagonist taking the form of a specter. Gothic scholars often borrow neurologist Sigmund Freud’s concept of “the return of the repressed” to describe ghosts in horror stories: The archetypal “ghost” is a past trauma that interrupts the present, forcing characters to deal with their trauma. Heart-Shaped Box makes ample use of this trope through Craddock’s ghost: He was a serial abuser in life, and his attempted sexual assault of Georgia triggers her history as a survivor. Furthermore, he resembles Jude’s abusive father, Martin. In grappling with Craddock, Florida, Georgia, and Jude must face their pasts.