Ghost messengers

A popular genre of literature from the early Renaissance to the early twentieth century was the Dialogues of the Dead. These were based upon the Witch of Endor story and the visions of Hades found in both Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid.

In Odyssey, Odysseus travels to Hades and sees the shades of his former colleagues, including some he did not know were dead, and pours out fresh blood, which the dead hunger for, until he can find Tiresias and get guidance on his voyages. In the Dialogues of the Dead genre, authors would somehow contrive a device for summoning the dead to a character who would then speak with them and ask them questions about philosophy or current events. These "ghosts" were under control of a great sorcerer or otherwise compelled to speak. The genre was most popular in the 18th century, and examples were written by many. Jonathan Swift satirized the genre in the third book of Gulliver's Travels by having Gulliver summon the ghosts of former kings and great conquerors and finding, instead of nobility, petty, childish, and stupid people who possessed no wisdom and who accomplished their great deeds for mean and selfish reasons. Further, he finds that the ancestors of many great lords and ladies of his day were stable boys, servants, etc.

In each of these cases, the fictional ghost offers counsel to the living and thus acts as a messenger from the implicitly greater world beyond. However, the ghost messenger can also act as a way reminiscent of the guardian angel in fiction. In some fictions, a departed relative (usually) or friend guides the living to either a moral or material benefit. Such ghosts can either act as a deus ex machina by resolving plot points with supernatural power or as a mentor who offers sagacity to the characters with a limited point of view.

Finally, the ghost messenger features in fiction as a ghost in disguise. A character otherwise regarded as living turns out, in the fiction's denouement, to be a supernatural agent. In folk music, there are songs featuring lovers and objects of affection who must leave before dawn (a variant on the Cupid and Psyche story) because they are ghosts. Additionally, some urban legends, such as the "Hitchhiking ghost," turn upon an anonymous stranger (or Elvis Presley in a common variant) who is revealed to be a ghost in the clinch of the story. Such a ghost in disguise usually, in fiction, offers statements or visions that are relevant to the plot, but not in a way comprehensible to the characters. Such gnomic or oracular statements reward the reader with knowledge greater than the fiction's participants.

Ghost stories

The malign ghost whose intent is either to set right an injustice or to be avenged upon the living, either in general or on a specific person, features in many fictions. In the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage, the vengeful ghost is a commonplace who sets plots in motion. However, the haunting and mystery/adversarial acts of the ghost appears later in the "ghost story." Hauntings feature in Eyrbyggja Saga for a section of the work, but the "Gothic novel" and later "Gothic fiction" introduced the use of ghosts for fear to literature. Horace Walpole's 1764 The Castle of Otranto was among the first to set up the rational but malign actions of a ghost to create an atmosphere of foreboding, mystery, and fear. After Edgar Allan Poe, the "ghost story" began an independent generic history, and today the genre of Horror continues the use of ghosts as villains in fiction.

Other uses of ghosts in fiction

In many stories, ghosts are often depicted as haunting the living until a certain desire is met or some grievance was settled by the haunted.

In the fiction Harry Potter, there are a number of ghosts including Nearly Headless Nick, The Bloody Baron, The Fat Friar and the Grey Lady, who might be based on Lady Jane Grey. Ghosts in the novel are also keen on having a Deathday Party on the anniversaries of their deaths.

In Shakespeare's play Hamlet, a ghost taking the form of Hamlet's recently deceased father appears to Prince Hamlet one night. The ghost says that he was in fact murdered by his brother Claudius, who now (by virtue of having married Hamlet's mother Gertrude) occupies the throne. The ghost exhorts Hamlet to take revenge on Claudius. When Hamlet sees the ghost, he is not sure if it is in fact his father's spirit or a demon whose aim is to deceive him. Julius Caesar's ghost appears to Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to warn Brutus of his impending defeat. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the title character believes he sees the "blood-bolter'd" ghost of his former friend Banquo sitting in his chair during a feast.

There are ghost superheroes who fight for justice, such as DC Comics' The Spectre and Deadman, as well as Nickelodeon's Danny Phantom.

In the film The Sixth Sense, actor Bruce Willis plays a child psychologist working with a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) who believes he can see the spirits of the dead among the living.

In the Ghostbusters film and television cartoon, the protagonists use special technology of their own design to hunt and capture/exile the ghosts they encounter.

In Ghost in the Shell, ghost is a word used to describe a person's inner being, similar to the concept of a soul.

In the controversial BBC film Ghostwatch, a ghost invades the world of the living.

Other famous ghosts in fiction include the Headless Horseman, who appears in Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn visit a haunted house in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Algernon Blackwood was a British writer who is well known for writing ghost stories. Other authors in the field include Oscar Wilde (The Canterville Ghost, 1887), M. R. James, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, H. R. Wakefield, and E. F. Benson.

In the science fiction book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams, one of the main characters, Zaphod Beeblebrox, holds a seance to summon the ghost of his great-great-grandfather to save their ship from being blown up. Also, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, another book by Douglas Adams, included a subplot about possesion by the ghost of a recently deceased software tycoon.

Theatre productions sometimes feature ghosts. One way to make the phantom appear on stage is Pepper's ghost technique.

In Asia horror cinema, the ghost stories often include adaptations of old oriental folklore set in a present day city. The recent Japanese movie The Ring and the Hong Kong movie The Eye are both inspired by old wives tales about haunting spirits.

WWE features two wrestlers, who portray men that have died and come back from the dead several times. They are The Undertaker and Kane. Despite their unrealistic and outlandish nature, these gimmicks are very popular and have led to many championship runs for both men.