For a long time, I've said that the thing I love about the gothic novel, in its eighteenth-century form, is that it appealed to young women particularly because it suggests that their fears are not stupid or insignificant; there really is a conspiracy against you, and you must act, now. (The conspiracy is patriarchy! They're not wrong!)
Teaching The Turn of the Screw today, it's like the perfect meta-gothic. The real danger is how we act on our certainty of danger!
