Introduction
In her book the ‘Art of Darkness’, Ann Williams
proposes that Aristotle attributed a paradigm of reality to the Pythagoreans,
consisting of the following pairs:
male/female; limited/unlimited; odd/even; one/many;
right/left; square/oblong; at rest/moving; straight/curved; light/darkness;
good/evil
Williams uses the list beginning with female and
ending with evil to discuss the Gothic as an aesthetic representing “otherness”
relative to its cultural and temporal context (Williams, 1995). In her analysis
of Twentieth Century Welsh Gothic writing in English, Kristi Bohata reiterates
this by saying that it explores “fractures, borders and hybridities” (Smith and
Wallace, 2009).
In ‘The Female Gothic’, Smith and Wallace outline
how in 1976 Moers’ ‘Literary Women’ viewed Gothic texts written by women, as an
expression of their entrapment within the patriarchally constructed confines.
They go on to say that, although these somewhat essentialist notions were later
challenged by post-structuralism, the importance of Moers’ historical
contribution of presenting the genre in a more (gender) balanced way must be
fully recognised (Smith and Wallace, 2009).
The term ‘Female’ Gothic can no longer be simply
assigned to Gothic literature written by women. There is also much debate
regarding whether the reading of (Radcliffe’s) Feminist influence is too
heavily either psychologically or historically biased. Some criticize the genre
for reinforcing conservative ideologies, which interestingly Diane Long
Hoeveler has refuted by describing ‘victim feminism’ as the heroines’ strategy
of passive aggressive actions. Brabon and Genz’s ‘Postfeminist Gothic’ urges
that “Gothic and feminist categories now demand a self-criticism with respect
to their own totalizing gestures and assumptions” (Smith and Wallace, 2009).
Despite this, ‘Female’ and ‘Male’ Gothic are still
general terms used to discuss the genre. In an attempt to distinguish them from
each other, Peter Otto makes a distinction between terror and horror by quoting
Radcliffe’s essay:
“Terror… expands the soul, and awakens the
faculties to a high degree of life; [horror] contracts, freezes, and nearly
annihilates them.” (Radcliffe, New Monthly Magazine, 1826)
Throughout most of her career, Radcliffe’s writing
was compared to (and mocked by) the work of Matthew Lewis. Radcliffe’s use of
‘terror’ referenced Edmund Burke’s philosophical concept that it directly
influenced one’s experience of the sublime (Burke, 1757). She insisted that
“uncertainty and obscurity” are necessary components of terror, making the
readers active participants in deciphering the obscure. In contrast, Lewis’
graphic use of (often misogynist) ‘horror’
“…display[ing] a voyeuristic fascination with the
pure body of the virgin, alongside an equally intense preoccupation with the
shape-changing, stomach-turning female grotesque” (Shapira, 2006)
overwhelms and stops readers in their tracks, according to Radcliffe (Otto, 2013).
overwhelms and stops readers in their tracks, according to Radcliffe (Otto, 2013).
Otto elaborates on the use of horror in the ‘Male’
Gothic plot, where the main character is overwhelmed by a violent and cruel
supernatural world without hope of salvation, “structured as an oedipal
struggle between sons and patriarchal fathers” (Otto, 2013). In the ‘Female’
Gothic storyline, the imprisoned protagonist is terrorized by and flees from a
corrupt patriarchal protector, but its supernatural elements are rationally
explained before the heroine is happily wedded at the end (Smith and Wallace,
2009).
Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe (1794)
“Mother Radcliffe” is the source of the Female Gothic
concept, according to Robert Miles, which Wallace and Smith claim “remains a
fertile ground of investigation” (Smith and Wallace, 2009). Her lead, Emily St.
Aubert, transforms from orphaned and penniless to married with the man she
loves and rich. In between, she endures a multitude of terrifying trials
instigated by her aunt’s tyrannical husband, in strange, foreign lands, the
centre of which is Monotoni’s Castle Udolpho. Carol Margaret Davison writes in
‘Haunted House/Haunted Heroine’ that Emily’s confrontation with the “maze-like” interior of the
Castle signifies a process of self-discovery, resulting in a more mature
heroine at the end of the tale. Her rightful inheritance, which Emily is under
threat of losing but regains in the end, asserts her as a woman in control of
her finances. The purpose of alienating the home environment and presenting it
as a fearful domain (Castle of Udolpho) is a critique of the patriarchal
institution, where after marriage, the woman became the husband’s property
(Davison, 2004). This still applies in many societies today.
Davison highlights Radcliffe’s literature as
intentionally educational, promoting “benevolence, Christian faith, and
moderation in all things… especially sensibility…”. The supernatural in the
story is always rationalised, sometimes a little dubiously, by the end
(Davison, 2004). Shapira contextualizes this tendency by demonstrating how important
it was for an Eighteenth Century woman author seeking respectability, to
“[mirror] the move from superstition to enlightenment” (Shapira, 2006).
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)
Hawthorne’s portrayal of his main character, the formidable
Hester Payne, is a compassionate one. Set in Puritan Boston in the 1640s,
Hester, although a woman, is the strongest and most principled participant in
the doomed triangle she shares with her weak lover Dimmesdale and her vengeful
husband Chillingworth. In her introduction to the book, Brenda Wineapple makes connections between
Payne and Hawthorne, who
as an artist identified with being marginalized (Wineapple, 1999).
“… murmurs one grey shadow of my forefathers… ’A
writer of storybooks!’ What kind of a business in life – what mode of
glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation – may
that be?’” (Hawthorne, p.12).
In the novel’s Afterword, Regina Barreca argues
that Dimmesdale is feminized by Hawthorne, as the qualities he has been
attributed like “nervous”, “tremulous” and “dewy”, usually describe women
characters. Dimmesdale’s refusal to take responsibility as the father of his
illegitimate child, and his reliance on Hester shouldering all the blame,
punishment and shame, as well as making key decisions, positions him as the
victimized heroine of the tale. Hester, on the other hand, clearly assumes the
role of the traditional male “hero” in the story; Barreca likens her scarlet
“A” to Superman’s “S”. This, to quote Hawthorne, comes with a price as “some
attribute had departed from [Hester], the permanence of which had been
essential to keep her a woman” (Barecca, 2009). This hearkens back to a
mentality expressed in John Gregory’s advice to his daughters in 1740, and used
in Shapira’s essay to explain Radcliffe’s reticence in making her heroines
“stout”:
“We so naturally associate the idea of female
softness and delicacy with a correspondent delicacy of constitution… that when
a woman speaks of her great strength… we recoil at the description...”
(Gregory, 1740)
Could it then be argued that, since the roles of
Hester and Dimmesdale are reversed, and it is probable that Hawthorne
identified with Hester’s defiant personification, the plot is fundamentally
Oedipal, following the ‘Male’ Gothic paradigm?
Barecca says:
“ “the scarlet letter was [Hester’s] passport into
regions where other women dared not tread” (Hawthorne, 1794). Dimmesdale’s
refusal to accept responsibility for his actions revokes his passport to a
fully realized humanity, and keeps him where only women dare to tread”
(Barecca, 2009).
In the society where I live, many women resort to
marriage followed by a swift divorce in order to expedite their own “passport”
to greater freedom.
Conclusion
Before her transformation into “stoutness”, Hester
is ascribed “voluptuous,
Oriental” traits, tempting Dimmesdale into sin with her irresistible sexuality
and long hair, and earning the title “temptress devil” from DH Lawrence (Wineapple,
1999). Shapira discusses the
relationship of Radcliffe’s protagonist (specifically in “The Italian”) with
her body, by which she feels encumbered, as it is objectified, evaluated and
coveted by men. The veil
(a popular metonymy for the body in constructing Gothic femininity) is used as
“an ambivalent symbol of both erotic appeal and chaste public denial”.
Its function varies according to how it is contextualized in narrative.
Radcliffe’s hesitance to refer to the corporeal directly (for fear of risking
impropriety) uses the veil “as a line of defense against the humiliating
reactions that the body is liable to trigger in public”. In ‘The Monk’,
however, Lewis uses the symbol to heighten the sensation of seduction (Shapira,
2006).
I am
interested in the act of veiling something in obscurity. The idea of entombment
within the body, frequently described symbolically by the heroine in the
‘Female’ Gothic being entrapped in womb-like dungeons or other cavernous
spaces, has direct correlations with my own work. My interest lies in exploring
both tropes, the Female and Male intentions behind revealing and concealing the body, in an attempt
to mimic my own complex experience of it.
The Gothic genre has
also had me revisit the work of two female artists I explored in the first
semester, namely Louise Bourgeois and Marlene Dumas. In Bourgeois’ “Femme
Maison” (1945 – 47) series, there is the suggestion of women simultaneously
protected and entrapped in their dwellings. For “Torso, Self portrait” (1963 –
64) Bourgeois uses lumps, bumps and shapes reminiscent of breasts, buttocks,
clitoris and labia, confronting the viewer with the duality of the subject’s
solid, formidable form, versus its exposure and therefore vulnerability (Storr
2004). Dumas, on the other hand, juxtaposes images where all is vulgarly shown,
with veiling their perception by utilizing multi-layered references, nuances
and red herrings (Van den Boogerd 2001). Presently, I am studying the work of Janet Cardiff and George
Bures Miller to better understand their language of layering image, object,
sound and fiction and will be discussing their work, through the lens of the
Gothic, in my next essay.
Word count:
1538
Bibliography
Hawthorne
N., ‘The Scarlet Letter’, Signet Classics, New York NY, 2009
Radcliffe A., ‘The Mysteries of Udolpho’,
In parentheses Publication, Ontario, 2001, www.yorku.ca/inpar/radcliffe_udolpho.pdf
Williams
G., ‘The Gothic’, Whitechapel and MIT Press, London and Cambridge Ma, 2007
Websites
Davison C., ‘Haunted House/Haunted Heroine: Female
Gothic Closets in “The Yellow Wallpaper”’, Routledge, 2004, accessed Feb 20,
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