Unwrapping The Mummy. A Modern Example of Doomed Love and the Gothic

Seminar paper from the year 2013 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Miscellaneous grade: 10 University of Cologne language: English abstract: Ancient Egypt and the Gothic go well together - or to be more precise modern images of what most consider to be a magical and enchanted rather exotic period in history appear to find their most touching expression in what is widely considered to be a typical gothic manner of representation. This paper deals with Stephen Sommers''s movie The Mummy released in 1999 (c.f. International Movie Database IMDb). It might be considered a Blockbuster as it was able to not only regain but more than double its budget within the opening weekend alone (c.f. ibid.). What are the reasons for such a success? Two of them may already be found in the opening sentences of this introduction - The Mummy successfully unites both the audience''s visions of ancient Egypt and a typical - covert but still tangible - gothic way of narration and style. However another layer has been added that seems to have contributed to the movie''s success at international box-offices: the idea of an eternal love obviously doomed from its very beginning. It is this fatal love between a high priest and the Pharaoh''s mistress that represents the center of this paper''s argumentation. It will be examined whether this love can be called the prima causa (Conrad 1973: 17) of the catastrophe that follows it. Furthermore it will be shown how well the love-story fits into the film''s general story and to its gothic appeal. In preparation for this discussion the paper enlists criteria of what is considered being a representative gothic novel and compares these criteria with characteristics of the movie. Additionally the movie''s villainous couple and their love will be examined: Can he be seen as a typical gothic villain and is he a se (ibid: 18) evil or are the origins of his villainy to be sought in his environment? Does she truly love him or