This book is an attempt to apply Hubert Zapf s theory, literature as cultural ecology to gothic literature. The motivation of this study was to explore the transformations of gothic literature throughout the 20th century in the light of a classic literary theory, instead of the postmodern debates of cultural studies, albeit the ever-up-to-dateness of gothic literature as a perpetual criticism of culture. The gothic attributes are identified as gothic syndrome, in that they emerge as a cluster of miscellaneous syndromes in the novels. In Ian McEwan s The Comfort of Strangers, the gothic syndrome is displayed by the topography of Venice and the prospective results of a repressive perception of classicism, whereas in Peter Ackroyd s Hawksmoor it is achieved through the shifts in time and language, along with the challenge of dark anxieties. Stephen King s Misery reveals the phenomenon in problematizing the literary market in the face of a malevolent Magna Mater figure and the uncanny experience of a writer. In Chuck Palahniuk s Diary, the gothic syndrome is provided through the demonstration of how the grotesque works within the frame of gothic literature.