Gender in Gothic Fiction - Essay Example

 Gender in Gothic fiction Introduction The birth of Gothic literature can be traced to numerous historical and cultural precedents. Characters found in ancient folklore, for example the Demon Lover, the Cannibal Bridegroom etc populated the pages of period Gothic novels and dramas. When the Gothic movement began in the eighteenth century, it was the political, social, and theological landscape of Europe at that time that served as momentum for this genre. The French Revolution, the rise in secular-based government, and the rapidly changing nature of the everyday world brought about by scientific advances and industrial development, in addition to an increasing aesthetic demand for realism rather than folklore and fantasy all contributed towards the birth of the literary gothic. Gothic literature during this era addressed people’s anxiety over the change in social and political structure in the society. Gothic literature represented fears about what may possibly happen, what could possibly go wrong, and what might as well be lost by continuing along the course of political, societal, and theological revolution. It also reflected the desire to revisit to the time of fantasy and belief in paranormal intercession typical to the Middle Ages. Sometimes Gothic literature was also used to portray horrors that existed in the old socio-political order i.e. the evils of an unequal, bigoted society. Gothic literature was able to both express the anxiety generated by societal turmoil and, increase society's approval and desire for change and advancement. The works of European writers Walpole, Shelley, Radcliffe, and Lewis inspired Edgar Allan Poe, and James Fenimore Cooper, a few of the most notable writers of the American Gothic tradition in literature. Since its beginning, Gothic literature has undergone several changes and variation, but its crucial role as a means of portray man's deepest, darkest fears and terrible evils both real and imaginary has endured.( Bomarito & Cengage 2006) Gender in gothic In gothic fiction imagination and emotional effect are seen to exceed reason. Passion and excitement contravene social and moral boundaries, the laws of nature, family and sex are all challenged by writers such as Bram Storker, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe and others. In the words of Fred Botting – ‘Attacked throughout the second half of the eighteenth century for encouraging excessive emotions and invigorating unlicensed passions, Gothic texts were also seen to be subverting the mores and manners on which good social behavior rested.’ And ‘Gothic fiction seemed to promote vice and violence, giving free reign to selfish ambitions and sexual desires beyond the prescriptions of law or familial duty.’ (Botting, 2001) In the Gothic novel The Last Man Mary Shelley created a basically genderless character in the form of Lionel Verney. He only acknowledges his gender when he views himself in a mirror. His reflection informs him that he is an English gentleman, but without this observed perception he had no such identity. Elizabeth Fay notes that he is a ‘feminized ideal’, ‘combining masculine and feminine traits in such a way as to confute traditional notions of gender’. (Fay, 1991) The gothic genre blurs the boundary between masculine and feminine characteristics. Evil is associated with replication or mirroring and invasion of one gender form onto another. And in Dracula the women vampire combine masculine traits such as aggression and promiscuity with feminine sexuality and emotions. Thus intermingling and exchange of gender specific characteristics was a common element in Gothic literature. This struggle stemmed from male writers tendencies to categorize female characters as either pure, angelic women or rebellious, unkempt madwomen. Female writers of Gothic like Shelley presented the alternate and feminist views of a society without proper female influence, which they hinted were necessary for civilizing the monster or beast within man. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus Mary Shelley’s famous Gothic novel Frankenstein urges personal integrity and social responsibility in an age of scientific progress, and represents the anxiety produced by the disruption of the traditional, known natural world order. In The Madwoman in the Attic Gilbert and Gubar analyze the view that women writers of the nineteenth century were restricted in their writing to create their female characters either embodying the ideal woman (angel) or the unnatural new woman (monster).(Gilbert &Gubar, 1979) In Frankenstein Shelley creates the necessary ideal female characters but subtly emphasizes their importance to society by illustrating the turmoil (creating monsters, vengeance and violence) resulting from the alienation of their civilizing and nurturing influence. Women in Frankenstein The female characters are idealized figures particularly Caroline and Elizabeth, the two mother figures in the novel. Caroline is, on surface value, a perfect parent, together with her husband. She nurtures and guides young Victor to adulthood, a theme that continues throughout the book is, that of the necessity for female figures in parenting and in society. Without a mother figure and left only with Frankenstein who subsumes both parental roles, the creature’s life is blighted by his imperfection and lack of companionship. Indicating that without female influence children are raised to vice and violence. Caroline is also the shown as a softening and civilizing influence on Alfonse invoking his chivalry and thus gentling and civilizing the beast within him.  Elizabeth is also idealized and she is described as:  ‘The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home . . . her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us. She was the living spirit of love to soften and attract.’(Shelley, 2007) She is happy to wait for Victor, despite his long absence and recurrent and serious melancholy. She is the ideal woman of the nineteenth century, being obedient, loyal and beautiful. Elizabeth is beautiful, good and a woman, whereas the creature is ugly, evil and a man. Definitely Shelley was making a feminist comment in the novel. Shelley as uses the character of Safie to attack sexism prevalent in her time. Safie defies her father and escapes to join Felix thus rejecting filial duty. Shelley also comments upon the restrictions on females in Islamic society, which Safie rejects and flees. She is encouraged to ‘aspire to the higher powers of intellect, and an independence of spirit’ (Shelley, 2007) by her Christian mother. Shelley endorses this determination and self-respect on the part of women, thus subtly condemning the oppression of females in any society. Men in Frankenstein Shelley portrays the weaknesses and shortcomings of males in Frankenstein. Masculine arrogance is portrayed by Alphonse, who takes care of Caroline and renders her servile in gratitude. The starkness of the strong male and weak female roles is further denoted by the characterization of Walton who is presented as chauvinistic and self centered, derisive of his sister’s worries for his wellbeing. Victor’s ego makes him create a new creature but he cannot control the monster that he creates. In the tradition of gothic genre Shelley imbibes her male characters with female traits. Victor praises Elizabeth and her talent to ‘subdue [him] to a semblance of her own gentleness’ (Shelley, 2007), thus acknowledging a gentler, feminine side to his personality. Also despite Walton’s wish for male camaraderie, he has an aversion to violence (the good influence of female company). In a letter to his sister he writes: ‘. . . my best years [having been] spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste to the usual brutality exercised on board ship’. (Shelley, 2007) The creature Despite being created physically as a male, the creature created by Victor has no real gender. He is deprived of male supremacy over females by Victor, who has made him too revolting to be received into normal society. Victor also destroys the female mate that he had partially created for him. The creature has both feminine and masculine characteristics, being profoundly affected by literature and nature, and being sensitive to emotion yet he is vengeful and violent when thwarted.  The absence of female influence in the creation of the monster is its primary flaw. There is no feminine hand in his creation hence he is monstrous and beastly. In spite of all of Victor’s labors to make the creature perfect, it will finally be ugly, since it is abnormal for a male alone to reproduce. Robert W. Anderson notes that: ‘Frankenstein’s creature embodies gender transgression on two levels . . . the first being [his] status as being a surgically constructed male, the second being Victor’s non-gender transgression in co-opting the female trait of reproduction, transforming his laboratory into a virtual womb.’ (Anderson, 2002) After reading Victor's journal the creature protests: ‘Accursed Creator! Why did you forma monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?’(Shelley, 2007) As in all his contact with society (other than that with a blind man) people are very much terrified at the very sight of him, the creature realizes that he will never be a part of human society because of his physical appearance. This realization turns him into a crazed monster who seeks to destroy Victor and everything valuable to him, leading to the murders of Victor’s loved ones.  Gender and Frankenstein Critics believe that Frankenstein is an examination of the distribution of gender roles in 19th century society. Frankenstein shows that by confining women to the household, the male dominated society is restricting them from exploring the intellectual ideas emerging in the society. The novel is an exploration of male fear of unrestrained female sexuality. None of the female characters in Frankenstein are overtly sexual and Victor Frankenstein destroys the female creature he partly makes because he could not control her reproductive capabilities. In Frankenstein, men use technology to control women and the need to control female sexuality was ‘endemic to a patriarchal construction of gender’ (Mellor, 1992) Mary Shelley emphasizes her message all through Frankenstein of the crucial place of women in society. Victor and his creature represent defective masculinity, as an illustration of a society devoid of women. She has manipulated masculine and feminine gender identities in the novel in an attempt to convince her audience that men alone cannot generate either children or art. Dracula Bram Stoker agrees with the patriarchal beliefs that men are superior to women and women are the weaker sex. But he also seems to share the basic curiosity of the Victorian age, providing alternative views on sexuality in spite of maintaining the conventional gender divisions. In this sense Dracula echoes both the writer’s view, as well as the actual underlying gender specific concerns of the time. The idea of the naturally assigned roles of the genders and their behaviors – angel (ideal woman) vis-à-vis monster (new woman) is dealt in a conventional manner. Yet in many instances in Dracula, Stoker opposes the popular view of the sharpness of gender restrictions and obscures them even as at other times he reinforces these views. Although Stoker’s viewpoint on sexuality is traditional, the subtlety in the novel put an added complexity to his exact beliefs. Gender blurring is evident by Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra transformation to vampire, but also in some places by the men in Dracula. Women in Dracula In Dracula, there are two distinct kinds of women portrayed, and they represent the sexual situation of the Victorian era. Mina Harker is the image of the perfect Victorian woman the angel, and Lucy Westenra is the expression of the new woman the monster. Lucy and Mina are contrasted by Stoker to convey the two levels of feminine conduct, one proper and one improper, one acting acceptably feminine and one acting unacceptably masculine. Mina is the most interesting and most complex female character of the novel. She is a schoolmistress who knows shorthand, remembers all the train schedules and assists Jonathan and the other men by organizing records of events. Mina fits the ideal of the Victorian Woman, as a virtuous, devout, and almost sexless individual. Stoker does not detail Mina’s appearance, and she is presented as an object of adoration rather than carnal desire. ‘The motherly-wife and nurtured husband were considered the ideal spouses in Victorian England’ (Spencer, 1992). Mina is the ideal woman personified Being gifted with the brain of a man Mina’s character does imbibe some masculine traits but her gender incursion is not threatening to society. She uses her intellect to help others on a great mission rather than following selfish self-interest and is quite content to realize all other female expectations required of an ideal woman. Despite Lucy’s apparent virtue, there are many hints that her sexuality is on the verge of claiming its appetites. Lucy entertains three marriage proposals in a single day, from Dr. John Seward, the American, Quincey Morris, and the Hon. Arthur Holmwood. Lucy accepts Holmwood's proposal and rejects Seward and Morris, yet all four remain friends. Lucy represents the new woman of sexual daring and her wish to marry all three men that propose to her is telling of her loose character. This unwillingness to bind herself to one man is not the only sign of Lucy’s questionable sexuality. She also sleepwalks, ‘a habit traditionally associated with sexual looseness’ in Victorian England (Spencer, 1992). This budding sexuality is what makes her susceptible to vampiric attack. She has become monstrous and unnatural, which is in keeping with the Victorian idea of ‘the sexualization of woman as deformation’ (Craft, 1987) Lucy Lucy’s excruciating transformation into a vampire that is ultimately slain by Dr. Van Helsing and his team is seen a direct symbol of sexism by critics. Craft notes: ‘Here is the novel’s real –and the woman’s only-climax, its most violent and misogynistic moment, displaced roughly to the middle of the book, so that the sexual threat may be repeated but its ultimate success denied’ (Craft, 1987) The three sensual female vampires are particularly remarkable when discussing gender roles in Dracula. These three are definitely sexualized and have reversed feminine behaviors of the time to sexually unafraid and aware seductresses who want to satisfy their urges on Jonathan. He is shown as lying helpless on the couch and in fact fainting, while the three vampire women are in control and inducing the fear. Their outer feminine beauty is contrasted with the ugliness in their nature which is revealed by their feeding on the helpless child. Thus the wanton female is portrayed as unnatural and evil devouring men and children to satisfy her needs. Men in Dracula Jonathan Harker is depicted as a serious God fearing man. He has both feminine and masculine traits. He shows great determination in escaping the clutches of Count Dracula and fights bravely to save Mina all of which are expected masculine behaviors. Yet Harker is so strongly affected by his interaction with Dracula that he took on, ‘a grey look which deepened and deepened … till … the flesh stood darkly out against the whitening hair’ (Stoker, 1970) To have the experience with Dracula affect him so made it obvious that he was a sensitive and in conventional terms  a weak man. In addition when the three women vampires attack him he does not resist but actually faints with fear and desire which is definitely a feminine trait. He is rescued by Count Dracula, who also appears to put Jonathan in a feminine place: ‘How dare you touch him, any of you? …This man belongs to me! …Yes, I too can love…I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will’ (Stoker, 1970). Dracula is the dominating male character in the novel. He is aggressive, promiscuous and cunning and supposedly immortal. Professor Van Helsing notes that Dracula ‘… can smile at death, as we know him; who can flourish in the midst of diseases that kill off whole peoples’ (Stoker, 1970). Dracula was the seducer who clandestinely seduced the weak, females to his side. Here Dracula acts as the mother of and cause for vampirism in general, this gives off the image that reproduction a female characteristic is in the power of men blurring gender roles. His possessiveness of Jonathan has homosexual overtones and although he never actually kisses Jonathan the desire to do so is obvious in the text. Professor Van Helsing is also predominantly male in his characteristics. He is intelligent, brave and full of chivalry. Van Helsing is a man of both faith and action; he personifies the victory of good over evil He is a fount of knowledge and shows the men how to defeat Dracula. He is a conventional man and firmly believes in the goodness of a submissive woman, but he does praise Mina for her extraordinary manlike intelligence. He is the leader of the Crew of Light who kills the Vampire Lucy and so returns her to her previous virtuous feminity. Gender in Dracula Although the limits around the definitions of gender and sexuality are contravened in the gothic fiction in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, they are ultimately kept in place. Lucy who transformed into the sexy and aggressive vampire and child-molester was justly executed, beheaded and rendered once more pure and sweet by Crew of Light. The killing of Dracula saved Mina who was, transforming from a sexless and motherly woman into a lust driven vampire. Stoker teases his readers with possibilities of gender liberation at the start of the novel but firmly rejects it in favor of patriarchal values at the end of his work. Frankenstein vs. Dracula The monstrosity of Frankenstein is related to the subject of female sexuality and reproductive power. A close examination shows that Victor’s act of creation can be seen as a mockery against woman's natural prerogative; that the disastrous consequences are ‘what happens when a man tries to have a baby without a woman’ (Mellor, 1997). His rejection of the creature he himself created and his abandoning it is the ultimate monstrosity that illustrates his emotional depravity akin to abandoning a new born child. The creature however feels that he is good enough to have a mate since he is not wicked like Satan. He asks Victor to make another creature, one that would be his companion so that he could leave human society and live with his mate. However, Victor further multiplies his crime by denying his creature a mate. His rationale for destroying the partly made female creature includes the fear of reproduction: “one of the first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth” (Shelley). Critics condemn this murder as an act male brutality and rape ‘Horrified by this image of uninhibited female sexuality, Victor Frankenstein violently reasserts a male control over the female body, penetrating and mutilating the female creature ... in an image that suggests a violent rape’ (Mellor, 1997). The fear of female sexuality is even more unequivocal in Dracula. The pure women are pursued and seduced by a sexually aggressive man. The threat of Count Dracula is not confined to making the women undead and unnatural but also unclean in the sense that his kiss leads to the release of aggressive female sexuality. Professor Van Helsing’s proscribes the conservative Victorian outlook about suitable sexual behavior in women and Lucy in her contaminated sexual aggressiveness (she asks Arthur to kiss her) is a monster. Lucy’s return from the dead as the ‘bloofer lady’ represents the dreadfulness of unchecked female sexuality and the accompanied perversion of motherhood. Lucy’s former charm and purity are changed by ‘heartless cruelty ... and voluptuous wantonness.’ In order to correct her dangerous wanderings and her disregard for sexual constraint, Lucy’s is violently killed off. Mina on the other hand is submissive and ashamed of her lapse in correct sexual behavior ‘I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him’ (Stoker, 1970). Hence she is spared and purified at the end of novel for being an ideal female. Gender and authorship Frankenstein was a novel written by a woman a famous feminist Mary Wollencraft’s daughter Mary Shelley whereas Dracula was written by a man Bram Stoker. The gender of the authors clearly influences their writings. Although the treatment of women in both books is similar, as seen in the descriptions of Caroline, Mina etc (women are idealized), but the message portrayed is very different. Mary Shelley denounces the sidelining of women and stresses their individuality and value to society whereas Bram Stoker emphasizes that the new independent woman can come to no good in the end and must be destroyed, and the angel or submissive woman is saved through her essential goodness. Shelley was a feminist who believed in the sexual, emotional and economic freedom of women. She eloped with Percy Shelley (who was already married) and eventually married him. She also maintained sexual relations with other men and wrote many novels, both of which (in the early nineteenth century) were a great taboo for women. Hence Frankenstein was published anonymously and it was only later that Mary acknowledged authorship of the work. Bram stoker was strongly opposed to the loose morals and boldness of women in society. He believed that a woman’s rightful place was beside her husband supporting and nurturing him. This was somewhat in contradiction to his personal character as he himself led a morally questionable life. It is said that he wrote Dracula while he was dying of syphilis and the text is his remark on the dangers of loose living and promoter of good moral behavior. (Farson, 1975) Gender treatment by Edgar Allen Poe Renowned for his tales of mystery and the ghoulish, Poe was one of the first American writers of the short story and the gothic genre. He transformed Gothic fiction. He added a sophisticated scrutiny of the psychological process and insight into the subconscious, a logical structure, and unity of tone and mood in his works. His work illustrates the close association between Gothic genre and detective fiction and the relation between Gothic and science fiction  Poe idealizes the vulnerability of woman, in poems and in stories such as Eleonora and The Fall of the House of Usher. His ideal woman is especially vulnerable and helpless in the face of violence done to her. In these tales and as in Morella and Ligeia the heroines all meet an untimely death. The most noteworthy characteristic of his ideal, however, is her role as emotional medium for her partner. She is more important in her value to the men than as a person in her own right. In almost all of his works the female characters die young and without protesting their fate. (Weekes 2002) The Fall of the House of Usher is considered Poe's most famous work. This highly unsettling gruesome work is considered as the masterpiece of American gothic literature. In the story Poe examines the incestuous relationship between Roderick and Madeline which although not openly stated, is implied by the strange affection between the two. Roderick and Madeline have pledged never to have children and their guilt has driven them insane to the point which the brother buries his sister alive. Again a woman is punished for the sins of a family even though she eventually avenges herself by coming back from the dead and throttling her twin. A man obsessed with proving his own worth Poe does not develop his female characters in great detail. Even though he does endow some intelligence in some female characters he kills them off before they are totally developed. His focus is on the male characters their angst at their companion’s death, their guilt and emotional quandary etc. Poe is a chauvinistic male of his time and his work is a reflection of his views. Conclusion ‘In the eyes of most Victorian men, for women to deny their traditional role was to deny their womanhood [and] to challenge the distinctions between women and men’ (Spencer 1992).Gender definitions were extremely discriminatory, polarized and fixed in the late nineteenth century. Gender was seen as something that was divided into binary oppositions. Women struggled to attain gender equality by challenging the traditional roles that defined them. Novels like Dracula and Frankenstein explored different and changing aspects of modernization brought on by the industrial revolution. The era of the gothic was the era of unexplored possibilities and the birth period of feminist movement. Dracula opposes the emergence of the New Woman and denounces sexual freedom whereas Frankenstein is an intriguing feminist comment on the dangers of womanless world where men were in control of creating life. The gothic genre explored these changing social mores and challenged conventional gender roles of the times. These novels met with much outrage by some sections of society as inciting young men and women to an excess of emotion and vice. The treatment of gender in gothic fiction challenged the set identities of male and female characteristics propounded in history. Gender blurring or the mixing up of masculine and feminine traits in the characters of the plot was also a common phenomenon. Generally gothic fiction maintained a sexist view of the feminine sex as weak and unintelligent and the men were seen as protectors and saviors. Gothic fiction is still popular and the gender conflicts represented are eternal and essential to human nature even in these modern times Bibliography 1. Anderson, Robert. 2002. 'Misery Made Me a Fiend': Social Reproduction in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Robert Owen's Early Writings. Nineteenth-Century Contexts 24, no. 4 (12//): 417-438. 2. Craft, Christopher. ””Kiss me with Those Red Lips”: Gender and Inversion in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” Representations (1984): 107-133.hferozie@gmail.com | My library | Web History | My Account | Sign out 3. Farson, Daniel. The Man Who Wrote "Dracula”, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975 4. Fay, Elizabeth. A Feminist Introduction to Romanticism, Wiley-Blackwell, 1991 5. Fred Botting, The Gothic (Essays and Studies), D.S.Brewer, 2001   6. Ed. Bomarito, Jessica & Cengage, Gale “Introduction” Gothic Literature eNotes.com. 2006. < http://www.enotes.com/gothic-literature/gothic-literature-an-overview Accessed on 19 Mar, 2009 7. Mellor, A. K. "Mothering Monsters - A Feminist Reading of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein." Women’s Studies International Forum 10 (1987): R28-R29 8. Spencer, Kathleen L. “Purity and Danger: Dracula, the Urban Gothic, and the Late Victorian Degeneracy Crisis.” ELH 59.1, 1992 9. Gilbert, Sandra M & Gubar, Susan. The Madwoman in the Attic, Yale University Press, 1979 10. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. Ed. Susan J. Wolfson. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. 11. Stoker, Bram. Dracula. New York: Lancer Books, Inc., 1970. 12. Weekes, Karen. "Poe’s feminine ideal." The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge University Press, 2002 Read More