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Gothic Novel: Gothic Novels
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The political ferment that paralleled the rise of the Gothic novel – the Revolution and the Terror in France – has always been recognized. Gothic novels often attack the prevailing rule of class, church, and patriarchal society – summed up in the figure of an aristocratic Roman Catholic tyrant. But this is not a simple matter of attacking a male "patriarchy", for such tyrants are not always princes or monks: some wicked Marchesas and cold Mother Superiors ... fit the bill. The attack on Roman Catholicism, usually very explicit, derives mainly from the xenophobic enmity of British Anglicanism (and Protestantism) towards European Roman Catholicism. The upheavals of the old political order mirror the attacks on the ancien regime in Gothic novels, but though the rigidity of feudalism is explicitly attacked, the broad class structure is usually retained. These novels draw their potent imagery from the fall of the Bastille in 1789, but by the end of the last volume, after the wicked are punished and the just are married, the new social order that replaces feudal tyranny might best be termed upper-middle-class benevolence.
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The Gothic novel is said to "flourish in disrupted, oppressed, or undeveloped societies, to give a voice to the powerless and unenfranchised" and therefore "often carries a heavily political or metapolitical charge" (Moynahan 111). For this reason, particular groups of writers, such as women (Ellis 48) and Anglo-Irish people (Moynahan 111), were often associated with the genre. While the relationship between Anglo-Irish writers and their usage of Gothic conventions may be related to the formation of the genre of the national tale, it may be less clear why and how women employed the genre. Although it is uncertain whether women actually did participate in reading more Gothic novels than men did (Watt 125) the Gothic romance in particular has long been associated with women. The other major genre associated with women at the time -- the novel of Sensibility -- may actually be understood by some scholars as being in conflict with the genre of the Gothic. Patricia Meyer Spacks, for instance, suggests that "the relationship between sublimity and sensibility presents real complications...[and while] Gothic novels typically attempt sublimity, [they] rely heavily on sensibility [instead]" (198-199).
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In the British literature of the 19th century, the Gothic novel survives mainly in minor forms of fiction: historical romances (W. H. Ainsworth, Auriol, 1850), «penny dreadfuls» (=popular crime novels in a morbid style, e.g. M. J. Rymer, Varney the Vampire, 1897), sensational novels (W. W. Collins, The Woman in White, 1860). The Gothic influence is felt in the works of the Brontës. It is developed into the fantastic by Irish writers: Sheridan Le Fanu (Carmilla, 1872) or Bram Stoker (Dracula, 1897). It resurfaces, with the conventional trappings of the genre, in the last decades of the century: Arthur Machen's and R. L. Stevenson's works.
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The Gothic novel is not easily encompassed during a single educational term: Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho is nearly 300,000 words long, and Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer is not much shorter. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is often chosen for study because of its relative shortness as well as intrinsic interest. There have been many anthologies of Gothic tales or short stories, but the characteristic form of the genre was the long novel. Unfortunately if one reads a whole novel by each of the major writers – Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Gregory Lewis, Charles Robert Maturin, Mary Shelley (possibly ... Charlotte Smith, William Godwin, Charlotte Dacre) – little time is left for studying the minor writers – writers who represent the genre just as much as those in the canon. For the sake of both these minor writers and overworked students, this reader contains many short extracts from long novels – following the precedent set by their contemporary reviewers.
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In the Gothic novel, the characters seem to bridge the mortal world and the supernatural world. Dracula lives as both a normal person and as the undead, moving easily between both worlds to accomplish his aims. Likewise, the Frankenstein monster seems to have some sort of communication between himself and his creator, because the monster appears wherever Victor goes. The monster ... moves with amazing superhuman speed with Victor matching him in the chase towards the North Pole. Thus, Mary Shelley combines several ingredients to create a memorable novel in the Gothic tradition.
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The Gothic novel typically features women in distress and women threatened by a powerful, impulsive, tyrannical and selfish male. This example is present in Victor, the Creature and Safie’s father. Justine, the innocent servant, is framed by the Creature for the murder of William. Justine is threatened and eventually executed because of the selfishness of Victor. He created the creature, left it to become what it became and then couldn’t back her up when she was on trial. The act of creating the creature results in the death of Elizabeth ....
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Gothic Novels