Dark Writings For Dark Readers- A Plea For Artistic Integrity

Abstract

Dark romance is an enthralling subgenre in the creative world of literature, complicatedly designed with exciting themes of love with engaging elements of danger, obsession, and moral ambiguity. Its historical roots are traced back to Gothic literature in the late 18th century, where works like Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein introduced the readers’ society to the spine-chilling ideas of horror, the paranormal, and complex emotional panorama. This laid the groundwork for Romanticism, which characterized strong emotional articulation, popularly found in the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Brontë, whose fictional tales often featured forbidden love and tragically painful fates.

During the Victorian era, writers like Charlotte Brontë and Charles Dickens expanded the exploration of dark romance within a framework of social constraints and moral dilemmas. Their works portrayed the psychological depths of love, struggles, and stormy relationships. In the early 20th century with the rise of modernism, authors like D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf examined the complexities of identity crisis and desires.

The postmodern era witnessed the strongest dark themes, often imbued with irony and metafiction, as exemplified by Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber exploring sexuality and power dynamics. In the 21st century, contemporary dark romance has gained significant popularity, particularly in young adult and adult fiction, with New York’s Best-selling writers like Colleen Hoover and Anna Zaires navigating themes of obsession and psychological manipulation.

Throughout its history, dark romance has consistently centered on themes such as obsession, forbidden love, psychological complexity, and Gothic elements, appealing to readers’ allure with the twisted facets of human relationships. This paper is an attempt to explore the evolution of dark romance writers and their reading society.  This paper also strives to throw light on how it reflects and challenges societal boundaries and psychological norms.

Dark, twisted romances like Haunting Adeline, The Ritual, Sins of Our Father, etc. have received recent hype among young audiences, especially teens and people in their early twenties. Keeping the technical power of apps like TikTok, Shots and Reels in mind contemporary dark romance writers enjoy gracious media attention through book-influencers and  PR teams by following a specific pattern of ‘Unholly’ narratives that is popularly termed as Trends. Though most adults consider this as a glory to enhance the reading habit among fresh readers, there is also a huge issue of concern to debate regarding what the book glorifies and what keeps the ‘young, amateur readers’ obsessed with the pattern of such weirdly dark and tabooed writings.

Haunting Adeline and Hunting Adeline is a dark romance sequel by H.D. Carlton. The story intensely explores the themes of obsession, trauma, love and intimacy. It also tests the water between borderline creep and the thin silver line of romance. Adeline, the female protagonist after inheriting her grandmother’s old estate encounters a creepy stalker, also the male protagonist Zade. Intense passion and complex power dynamics happen to be the utmost basis of Adeline’s obsession with her stalker and kidnapper Zade.