The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux was published in 1911, and is about a phantom figure haunting a theater, infatuated with a beautiful actress. Though the novel is based on real experiences that Leroux encountered, the story is a thrilling example of mystery and the supernatural. The story is also tied to its setting, an old theater where the “phantom” terrorizes actors both for the woman he loves, Christine Daaé, and to keep his privacy. The novel, like many sentiments of the gothic genre, explores how mysterious, supernatural events can be explained by natural occurrences, and also relates to human emotion and character. Unconventionality is used as an opening to introduce and express emotion. “Thematically, the Phantom story also concerns the struggle of the individual to express creativity in a world that rejects his passion for life. Those roots of nonconformity lie… in older, literary conventions and attitudes from Greco-Roman mythology and medieval folklore”(Flynn x). The gothic genre was inspired much by medieval context and imagery of architecture, and used shocking, mysterious elements to get across ideas of sentimentality and reaction, much like the novels The Mysteries of Udolpho and Frankenstein. 

Leroux, Gaston, and John L Flynn. The Phantom of the Opera, New American Library, 1987.