Gothic Fiction Is a Special Genre - Essay Example

?Gothic Fiction Introduction: Gothic fiction is a special genre, which was first introduced by an English Horace Walpole with his novel “The Castle of Otranto.” The genre was later on carried forward by the authors like Charles Maturin, Ann Radcliffe, Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe and Daphne du Maurier. The special attributes of Gothic fiction are romance as well as horror. The romance is shown in the background of horror. The horror is both physical and psychological, or inward and outward. Gothic fiction contains the story on mystery, supernatural ghosts, haunted eerie places, Gothic architecture, darkness, decay, hereditary curses and such terrible themes. Along with the ordinary characters some characters are weird and very unusual. They are fatal, monsters, devils, vampire, ghosts, skeletons, Wandering Jew etc. These unusual characters are the essential commodities for creating special effects and conveying certain message to the readers. This kind of fictions is precisely termed as Gothic because the subjects of this kind of fictions are very dark, and melancholy. They are often associated with some haunted buildings or castles or mansions which seem ghostlike. The term Gothic is used not only in literature but it is the part of art, paintings and architecture also. If the Gothic fiction is to be converted into a horror film, music plays a very crucial role. A certain kind of suspense and eerie music creates certain effects in films. The concept of Gothic Architecture is different and not exactly associated with the idea as used in literature. In case of gothic architecture, the building structure is not called Gothic because it is connected with mystery or ghost but because they have unique characteristics of Middle Age. The object of the paper is to find out some of the major attributes of Gothic Fictions with reference of some of the gothic novels. “The Castle of Otranto” “Frankenstein,” and some references of “The Monk,” are among the novels that have been taken for discussion. Before the further discussion, the term gothic fiction has been elaborated with the definitions and ideas of scholars about the term Gothic fiction. Keywords: Gothic Fiction, “The Castle of Otranto” “Frankenstein,” “The Monk,” Gothic Fiction: Some Definitions: In his book Gothic Writing 1750-1820: A Genealogy, author Robert Miles takes the word Gothic and defines it in this manner: What is Gothic? My short answer is that the Gothic is a discursive site, a carnivalesque mode for representations of the fragmented subject. Both the generic multiplicity of the Gothic, and one might call its discursive primacy, effectively detach the Gothic from the tidy implicity of thinking of it as so many predictable, fictional conventions. This may end up making Gothic a more ambiguous, shifting term, but then the textual phenomena to which it points are shifting and ambiguous (28). In MacAndrew's general statement about the word Gothic she describes it as: a literature of nightmare. Among its conventions are found dream landscapes and figures of the subconscious imagination. Its fictional world gives form to amorphous fears and impulses common to all mankind, using an amalgam of materials, some torn from the authors own subconscious mind and some the stuff of myth, folklore, fairy tale, and romance. It conjures up beings--mad monks, vampires, and demons--and settings--forbidding cliffs and glowering buildings, stormy seas and the dizzying abyss--that have literary significance and the properties of dream symbolism as well. Gothic fiction gives shape to concepts of the place of evil in the human mind (3). Gothic literature flourished in Romantic Age that is between 1790 and 1830. Ann B. Tracy writes that the Gothic novel could be seen as a description of a fallen world. There are many characteristics of Gothic literature, and these characteristics have made this form one of the popular forms in literature. In the paper, a comparative study has been done between two novels of the same genre i.e. gothic fiction. First is “The Castle of Otranto,” and second one is “Frankenstein” Gothic literature has been the major vehicle for exploring serious issues in different areas. The areas in which the serious issues can be explored are philosophy, religion, morality etc. The paper is associated with these elements as a serious area for Gothic fictions. Let’s discuss the issues in details with special reference of the above mentioned two novels. Gothic Fiction: Mystery: Castle of Otranto is a story, which was originated in Italy in 12th century, while Frankenstein is a fictitious story with a blend of science fiction as well as Gothic fiction. Both of these novels contain mystery, which is one of the facets of Gothic Fiction. The story of Castel of Otranto starts with the mystery and that is the sudden death of Conrad at the time of his marriage with Isabella. Conrad is a sick son of arrogant and heir-obsessed king Manfred. Conrad’s death takes due to gigantic helmet which falls on him from above. It was really mysterious. The mystery in Frankenstein itself carries the story forward and then the readers go through some other mysteries also, such as the mystery of death, the mystery of power, the mystery of birth and inheritance and so on. The mystery continues in “Frankenstein also and that is the nature’s mystery. The ambitious protagonist Victor is obsessed by unfolding the universal mysteries and for that purpose he created a monster. Though it was very unnatural and dangerous, Victor did it. In cloudy circumstances, he gathered some body parts and did the experiments. Whatever limited knowledge he had about the unnatural process of creating the living thing, he put his efforts on it. Victor is engaged in unfolding the mystery of the creation of life along with its commodities and his monster is engaged in solving the mysteries of life and live life itself by mere observing the society. Victor is so ambitious that he is willing to challenge God by creating life and he becomes successful in his experiments and thus the monster appears. The elements of mystery also lay in the laboratory of Victor where he did his experiment. The monster is looking for compassion. He is not the devil like attributes and nature. He learns the mysteries of love, affection, family and compassion. He wanted to be that kind of person but he is rejected ruthlessly and this led him to take revenge upon his creator as well as the whole world. "There was non among the myriads of men that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness towards my enemies? No: from that moment I declared everlasting war against the species, and, more than all, against him who had formed me and sent me forth to this insupportable misery." The External and Internal Ugliness: The external ugliness of the monster in Frankenstein is converted into the internal ugliness which reflects through the character and ugly deeds of Manfred. Generally ugliness is always hatred by the society. The society is very superficial and the people always prefer the external personality of the person. Rather good look is the prerequisite of being respected person. Though the monster is physically ugly, he is shown as a very intelligent but he is boycotted by the society due to his ugliness. It is the opinion of some of the critics that Victor is also a kind of monster as his ambition, secrecy and his selfishness deserted him from the world. The world always gives importance to the external beauty and beauty of mind or soul is hardly taken for granted. The monster’s body is ugly while Victor and Manfred from Castle of Otranto though have a fine body, they have an ugly mind. Both of them are very ambitious and ruthless. They try to exploit mentally and physically to those who are dependent on them. Both of them have crossed the limits of morality. Victor has crossed the limit by challenging the ultimate and divine power, which created the world, while Manfred has crossed these limits by his excessive thirst for inheritance. Though the central theme of Otranto is inheritance, other sub themes also are influential. For the sake of getting male heir the villain of the novel Manfred is ready to do any kind of compromise. He is even ready to achieve his goal of getting male heir by following an immoral path. Isabella, the heroine of this novel is actually his son’s proposed bridegroom. She was going to be Manfred’s daughter-in-law. Soon after the mysterious death of his son Conrad, at the marriage ceremony, he put a shameless proposal of marriage before Isabella. It shows that the greed and lust in human beings forces him to take any down level step. He is ready to drive his virtuous wife away from his life and marry Isabella, a girl, who is like his daughter. “’I tell you,’ said Manfred, imperiously, ‘Hippolita is no longer my wife; I divorce from her this hour. Too long has she cursed me by her unfrutifulness. My fate depends on having sons; and this night, I trust, will give a new date to my hopes.’” (34) All major and despotic characters in both of the novels are shown very ambitious and for achieving their ambitious deeds, they have literary wrapped their consciences, the protocols of morality. Manfred’s ultimate aim is to get heir and for that he divorces his pious wife and try to be connected physically with the bride of his dead son. He even shows height of hatred for his own daughter for the excessive desire of a son. In Frankenstein also the same ambition is depicted through the characters of Victor and Walton. Both of them have a strong will of changing the society and make themselves glorified in the vision of the society through their achievements. The ambitions of all these three characters have made them fallible. The difference is just that Manfred’s ambition is concrete, related to worldly pleasure, whereas Victor’s ambition is finding something beyond the concrete world, the mysteries of universe. The other characters are just like tools in the hands of these dominating characters. The Damsel in Distress: Damsel in Distress is the typical stereotype women portrayed in Gothic Fictions. She has always been terrified and molested by the powerful men. The female characters in Castle of Otranto are archaic. They are considered not as human beings but as the asset or property of the men. They are pious and are the victim of sordid behavior of the powerful male of their lives. Martida for example is a beautiful damsel. She is so obedient irrespective of her tyrannical father. “Oh! Doubt not my obedience, my dreadful obedience to him and to you.” (p.52) Her death resembles the death of Desdemona in Othello. Her mother Hippolita is also a typical meek kind of wife who believes that her husband is everything for her and she must obey him irrespective of his false deeds. “It is not ours to make election for ourselves: heaven, our fathers, and our husbands must decide for us.” (p.52) Biblical Allusions: Religious Aspects Both of these gothic fictions contain lot of biblical allusions. In Frankenstein, the quest of Victor for knowledge is symbolic and associated with the Biblical story of Adam and Eve. When the man tries to achieve the forbidden knowledge the culmination eventually is his fall. The same allusion is depicted through the story of Victor. Damsel in Distress is one of the major characters in Gothic literature. The Damsel in Distress in Otranto is Metlida, the daughter of Manfred. She is a religious figure and she has possessed the divine quality of forgiveness. She is portrayed like a Christ figure. At the end when she is stabbed by her own father, she forgives him by stating: "It will not be," said Matilda - "commend me to Heaven: - where is my father? - forgive him, dearest mother - forgive him my death; it was an error - Oh! I had forgotten - dearest mother, I vowed never to see Theodore more - perhaps that has drawn down this calamity - but it was not intentional - can you pardon me?" p. 103-104 (Castle of Otranto) The entire story is the conflict between good and evil. Initially “good” always seems to be meek, and vulnerable in the hands of evil. For the sake of goodness of mankind, sometimes the good or pious people have to sacrifice their lives. Jesus Christ also had to sacrifice his life. But eventually the truth, piousness and goodness always win. Isabella, the protagonist of the novel is also shown very meek and poor. She can easily be vulnerable. She has become the target of lust of Manfred soon after the death of his groom. “All, who had known his partial fondness for young Conrad, were as much surprised at their young prince’s insensibility, as thunderstruck themselves at the miracle of the helmet. They conveyed the disfigured corpse into the hall, without receiving the least direction from Manfred…the first sounds that dropped from Manfred’s lips were, take care of the Lady Isabella.” (p.29 Castle of Otranto) Morality: The morality is a hot topic in every gothic fiction. It is one of the major topics of discussion. Be it “Castle of Otranto” or “Frankenstein” or be it “The Monk.” The religious degradation of moral values also is shown through the character of Antonia and Ambrosio. Let me have some religious allusions and moral values in another Gothic novel “The Monk.” Antonia is the monk in the church and she is so beautiful. But being a religious monk she is not supposed to indulge in any kind of worldly pleasure, even sexual love. Antonia is a pure virgin, who was brought up in the old castle. In the description of her personality readers come to know that she is veiled so that the men cannot see her face, which arouse their sexual desire. The female forms are often shown in a fragmented way. Such kind of piercing of the feminine body means making an object of sexual engrossment to the male viewers. The false and excessive restriction of religious values forces to suppress the basic desires of man. Religion sometimes forgets that the object who has been forced is also human beings with all basic and natural instincts. If the person, despite his religious position tries to indulge in sexual affair, he/she supposed to be immoral. Her attention is caught by the male monk Ambrosio. Ambrosio also uses a particular language to seduce her. Both of them hugged each other. Elvira sees their love and intimacy, she warns Ambrosio to stop coming to their home. It again culminated into the vows of Ambrosio to take revenge. He then uses a magic mirror in which he desires to see Antonia’s naked body. Then he raped Antonia and thus fulfils his sexual desire. Later on the mystery is revealed that Antonia was the sister of Ambrosio and Ambrosio does a great sin for which he gets a death sentence. The characters of both of the novels have forgotten morality before their lust, greed and their pride. Isabella, Metlida and Hippolita are such the characters who, though not sexually abused but still the victim of patriotic society. As we come to know the major theme of Castle of Otranto is inheritance, the theme of Frankenstein is the pursuit of knowledge. The protagonist of this story tries to surge beyond accepted human limits and tries to get the access to the secrets of life. The themes seem to be parallel but somewhere they became similar. Conflict of Innocence with cruelty: The paradoxical factor of the novel Frankenstein is that the ugly monster is originally very uniquely gentle, warm and open-hearted. The people around him never try to find his benevolent intentions and his kindness. The monster actually is a true human being while the persons like Victor, Manfred, Walton or even Ambrosio are barbaric. The innocent people have to suffer a lot just like Isabella, Meltida, the monster and Hippolita, Manfred’s wife. For example Isabella has to run away from the castle to protect herself from the lust and greed of Manfred, who wanted sexual union with her. Maltida in her whole life had to live her life as a neglected and unwanted child of her father. In the end also she has to sacrifice her life to teach a lesson to her father. Hippolita also has to suffer a lot for her whole life and she has been crushed mentally by her tyrannical husband. In Frankenstein the innocent characters are William, Justine, Elizabeth and Clerval. Sacrifice of good characters in the hands of evil characters: The evil characters convert into good characters but for that the pious people have to sacrifice. In Castle of Otranto, in the end Manfred repents but after he stabbed his daughter Meltida. He wanted to finish Isabella but by mistake he kills Meltida. In Frankenstein, after losing his innocence, the monster’s mind is completely occupied by revenge and retaliation. As a result, the innocent, kind pious and good characters like William, Justine, Elizabeth and Clerval have to lose their lives. Natural Philosophy: Natural philosophy is one of the major themes of the gothic novel Frankenstein. According to Socratic philosophy the best suitable life for human being is reasoning . The protagonist Victor’s approach towards life is very rational like the philosophy of Socrates. The human philosophy is centered on two major ideas, one is reasoning and the other is emotionalism. The characters from both novels are living under the influence of these two protocols. Some of them also are living in a dilemma. So they cannot be completely good or completely bad. Even if man forgets good deeds, the conscience exists somewhere deep in his mind and so finally he has to repent. The author, through the characterization of Victor tries to tell the readers that human being can keep himself happy and peaceful when the innocence exists in him. Once the innocence destroys from his personality he starts becoming more and greedier and it results into unending quench for something. The blissfulness from his life suddenly destroys with his innocence and he becomes distressed. Victor’s perception towards nature is described in Chapter 6 and Chapter 7. In chapter 6 Victor feels nature as a romantic poet. He feels that the nature is very sublime and this feeling makes him so relaxed. In Chapter 7 the description of nature is no longer gleeful but it is painful and dark. The image of lightning is there in which he comes to know that mankind is unable to understand nature. (Here nature is the symbol of God) The journey of Victor from innocence to hatred resembles the biblical allusion of the Fall of Adam and Eve. The same thing is with the monsters when the author depicts his journey from innocence to abhorrence. Ethical irresponsibility: The two novels some or other ways, throw light on the ethical issues. In Frankenstein for example Victor tries to interfere in God’s job. It was his first and horrible mistake. It is the privilege of God only to create living things on the earth. Man is one of the species, which has been created by God. In such case how logical and rational it would be for man to do irrational and illogical things such as to attempt to create living things. Victor created the monster. As this animal is not created by God, it cannot be like God’s creation. The monster as referred earlier is very ugly. Now if Victor creates him, it is naturally the liability of Victor. Unfortunately he was not ready to take the responsibility of the monster. He did not take care of him and as a result the monster becomes violent and aggressive. He vows to finish Victor, his creator. If man has no ability to take care of his creation, he has no right to create living thing. Man has no moral right to blame God or challenge God if he cannot take the responsibility of his deed. He has to suffer the consequences of his deed. According to Indian Philosophy the Theory of Karma influences on the birth and life of all living things. You, yourself are responsible for your good or bad deeds. If you commit a pious deed you definitely get the good fruit but if you have done something wrong you have to suffer the consequences. The same theory of Karma is applied here. Victor created the monster it means that he was like his parents. So it was his duty on priority basis to fulfill all the needs of the monsters. Instead of that he just created him for the selfish purpose. He was in need of his help. He wanted to be acclaimed by the world. For gaining fame, name and for exhibiting his ability he created the monster. Both of these gothic fictions continuously try to reveal the conflict between emotions v/s intellect. It is the false conception that God can be searched through your intellectuality. If you really want to know something about yourself and the universal secrets, one has to keep his intellectuality and logic aside and just experience God through complete sacrifice of selfhood. It is because God is beyond our limited intellectuality and limited knowledge. In case of Manfred also the same thing is applicable. After the terrible accident which took away his son’s life, it was his duty to protect Isabella as his daughter, to assure her a good and secure life. Being a father also it was his duty to look after Meltida and offers her all parental love which she was yearning for. Being a good husband it was his duty to console his wife who was in a deep grief of the loss of son. But instead of that he used his power for wrong purposes. He used his power to terrorize his daughter, wife and his would be daughter-in-law. A Look at Gothic Fiction in Modern Literature (Late 20th and the beginning of 21st century): The readers or the audience of gothic fiction should not always be the adult. The Gothic Fiction has the ability to entertain the children also. The children of all taste, likings are attracted towards Gothic fiction if it is well-written, interesting and curiosity – building. Like typical gothic fiction it has contained a dark fantasy. The credit of making the gothic fiction genre popular among the children goes to the author of Harry Potter J. K. Rowling. Though it is the topic of debate whether Harry Potter can be classified in Gothic fiction, I personally feel that Harry Potter is very close to Gothic fiction Due to some of its characteristics which are as follows: Castle – Hogwarts Wizards and Witches: almost all characters Curses: A curse given to the protagonist Harry in the form of scar, Voldemort’s curse to live a half life because of the consumption of such a pure thing as unicorn blood. The Hogwarts house ghosts With the discussion of these above novels we understand all facets and minute characteristics of Gothic Fiction. Though the central idea of Gothic Fiction is terrified and horror stories, the authors of these fictions have handled many contemporary social issues in their novels. Somewhere the religious values have been conveyed directly or indirectly by the authors. The special characteristics of Gothic fiction are attracting to the youngsters and the children even in modern age also. Sources and References: 1. Tracy, Ann B. “The Gothic Novel 1790-1830 Plot Summaries and Index to Motifs. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1981 2. MacAndrew, Elizabeth. The Gothic Tradition in Fiction. New York: Columbia UP, 1979. 3. Miles, Robert. Gothic Writing 1750-1820: A Genealogy. London: Routledge, 1993. 4. Walpole, Horace, The Castle of Otranto, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2004, p. 103-104 5. J. K. Rowling “Harry Potter.” Read More