Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, utilizes a conventional genre in attempt to reflect relatively modern issues. The depiction of the heroine Neomi Taboada in the house of Doyle reflects various themes, namely eugenics and feminism, and the writer conveys the themes through detailed description of character‘s deeds and language.

The theme of eugenics is what made the villain in this book a villain—Howard Doyle, the prominent patriarch of High place (Doyles’ house), was a heartfelt advocate of eugenics—the selection of desired heritable characteristics in order to yield more “favourable” future generations. People who are considered to have “inferior” traits used to be prevented from reproducing through methods such as sterilization, marriage restrictions, and even euthanasia. What Howard Doyle says and does reflects his ingrained belief in his superiority. When he met Neomi for the first time, what he focused on was Neomi was “much darker than [her] cousin.”(Catalina, cousin of Neomi, was married to Howard’s son Virgil and rescuing her was why Neomi came to High Place). When Neomi explains her Mexican descendance and strongly expresses discomfort at his statement, the old man ignores it, and even worse—he smiles at her annoyance. This indicates that Howard does not view people who have ancestries similar to Neomi’s to be his equivalents; rather, Howard believes that they are inferior and can be teased. Later Howard expressed his opinion on eugenics in a straightforward manner: “Beauty attracts beauty and begets beauty. This is a means of selection.” His support for eugenics urges him to live a morbid life in which he extracts power and youth from other people so as to immortalize himself. The ultimate reason behind this deed was that he believes that the Doyles are superior and other people’s life are worthless. Through detailed and ironic depiction of the family’s elder patriarch, the author expressed an opposition to eugenics and all the immorality included.

What also startled me was this sentence: “why, Mexican women can’t even vote.” Neomi says this after she quarrels with Virgil about the treatment of Cataline. Virgil firmly claims that, just because Catalina was his wife, he could exert full control over her and decide how to treat her illness. Neomi feels helpless after losing the quarrel. The low status of women described here startled me, and this description has three main purposes. First, this serves as a reason why Catalina is mistreated and why Neomi meets so many obstacles that sounds outrageous to contemporary readers. In many cases readers felt a burning desire to call the police and prosecute the inequality and discriminations of the Doyles, and this setting provides a premise for most plot developments in the novel. Moreover, female’s low legitimate status in the book strengthened the character building of Neomi—she is able to face the Doyles and manages to rescue people away from the haunted house under such conditions. The author used this contrast to demonstrate the independence and courage of Neomi. Finally, these setting calls attention for alienated women’s rights in 1950s Mexico, thus urging young women to strive for their rights and encourage them to be as brave and intelligent as Neomi.

The novel features the detailed depiction and effective building of characters. The other innovation is that the author did not depict another love story using Gothic genre. Instead, she portraits an independent, strong-minded women of perseverance, whom we should pay our respect to.