The Past and the Present: Peter Ackroyd’s Play with the Gothic in "Mr Cadmus"
The Past and the Present: Peter Ackroyd’s Play with the Gothic in "Mr Cadmus"

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to distinguish Gothic fiction conventions which Peter Ackroyd uses in Mr Cadmus (2020) in order to present English national identity juxtaposed with cultural otherness. Using parody, Ackroyd ridicules irrational fears commonly associated with immigrants and, simultaneously, outlines their role in building English national identity in the past and the present. Drawing on theories of the Gothic as an expression of cultural anxieties, this article seeks to demonstrate that Mr Cadmus can be perceived as fictional dramatisation of the ideas Ackroyd puts forward in his non-fiction – “the English genius” (2002) in particular.

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