So as the last novel we read for my Gothicism course, we chose Alan Moore's graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. 1, which is a work rich with allusions to Victorian literature, and because of its employment of famous literary characters, there is a great deal of Gothicism floating around.
First, and most obviously, we return to the exploits of Mina Murray from Dracula, now divorced, disgraced, and employed by a shadowy branch of military service. She returns here as leader of the League, a collection of various heroes and villains from Victorian literature: Allan Quatermain, the Great White Hunter; Captain Nemo, Scourage of the Empire; Hawley Griffin, Invisible Man; and Dr Jekyll, with Mr. Hyde in tow. Mina is the leader because she "has experience with monsters," i.e., the abhuman and the Other. Each of her subordinates, with the possible exception of Quatermain, has something specifically Gothic about them.
Furthermore the overreaching plot, especially the confrontation with Moriarty, brings to mind the human Gothic that we found in Bleak House and Northanger Abbey; we are confronted with a perfectly ordinary man as the antagonist, while the Others and the abhumans become the heroes of the work; quite a turn around from Dracula.
The Chinese Devil Doctor, however, relates to the sense of Orientalist fears to the east that plagued England during the Victorian era, as well as the sense of foreboding that permeates Dracula. That we find ourselves constantly in opium dens, crowded sidewalks, underwater, underground, and in the bat-like aerial ship seems a very codified use of the urban Gothic's restriction of space; meanwhile, the constant crush of people in the city street reinforces that element.
All right, so that wraps up the blog for the time being. I hope to continue on this summer, as I've just received a copy of Dracula: The Un-Dead, which is supposed to be the official sequel to the classic novel. Thanks for reading!
Showing posts with label Bleak House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bleak House. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Wuthering Heights, or Heathcliff is Such a Bastard, Amirite?
So this week I read Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (1847) and watched the Masterpiece Theater version from 2009. First off, there's literally only one worthwhile person in the whole book, and that's Nelly, our narrator. Every other character is either incredibly evil (Heathcliff) or spoiled (Cathy, Linton, Edgar, Isabella Cathy II...). And it becomes incredibly difficult to understand why Heathcliff and Cathy's relationship is so romanticized. I mean, she dies halfway through the book! It's hardly about her. And Heathcliff is such a terrible person that he can hardly be termed a Byronic hero at all. I mean, the Byronic hero is meant to earn redemption through his or his lovers actions, right? If we take Rochester as our quintessential Byronic hero (which he is) then Heathcliff doesn't count.
Which leads me to my next question: who is supposed to be the protagonist of this novel? Nelly? Lockwood? Don't get me started. They're the perfect narrators. And every other major character is only around for half the novel, or is Heathcliff. And while Heathcliff certainly creates conflict and makes the story unfold, those are hardly the actions of a protagonist, really. Villains act, while heroes react. But there's nobody to react against Heathcliff.
So Cathy, meanwhile, is a madwoman in the attic character. Even disregarding the fact that she literally goes mad, her obsession with Heathcliff--they're sharing a soul especially--is incredibly off-kilter. Furthermore, she is constantly being contained by the Grange or the Heights, both as a child and as an adult. Her daughter's cloistering amounts to almost the same treatment.
I think one of the major themes that runs through the novel is that evil begets evil. Everything that Heathcliff does (that anybody else does) is a reaction to the wrongs done to them by others. And given this theme, the very abhuman-human nature of Heathcliff should be examined in detail. More than once we have him described as a fiend or demon--his actions certainly correspond. The other abhuman-humans we've encountered (I'm thinking specifically of the vampiric Tulkinghorn from Bleak House) have corresponded to their Gothic roles even without the need of the supernatural.
All and all, though, this is a fabulous book. So long as you don't bring the baggage that Twilight would saddle you with. Next week, we'll talk Oscar Wilde and The Portrait of Dorian Gray.
Which leads me to my next question: who is supposed to be the protagonist of this novel? Nelly? Lockwood? Don't get me started. They're the perfect narrators. And every other major character is only around for half the novel, or is Heathcliff. And while Heathcliff certainly creates conflict and makes the story unfold, those are hardly the actions of a protagonist, really. Villains act, while heroes react. But there's nobody to react against Heathcliff.
So Cathy, meanwhile, is a madwoman in the attic character. Even disregarding the fact that she literally goes mad, her obsession with Heathcliff--they're sharing a soul especially--is incredibly off-kilter. Furthermore, she is constantly being contained by the Grange or the Heights, both as a child and as an adult. Her daughter's cloistering amounts to almost the same treatment.
I think one of the major themes that runs through the novel is that evil begets evil. Everything that Heathcliff does (that anybody else does) is a reaction to the wrongs done to them by others. And given this theme, the very abhuman-human nature of Heathcliff should be examined in detail. More than once we have him described as a fiend or demon--his actions certainly correspond. The other abhuman-humans we've encountered (I'm thinking specifically of the vampiric Tulkinghorn from Bleak House) have corresponded to their Gothic roles even without the need of the supernatural.
All and all, though, this is a fabulous book. So long as you don't bring the baggage that Twilight would saddle you with. Next week, we'll talk Oscar Wilde and The Portrait of Dorian Gray.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Bleak House 2, or the Victorian Horror
All right, so to continue from last week, we're discussing Charles Dickens's work Bleak House and the ways in which it forms a part of the Gothic canon. We're a day late because I'm currently in New Orleans, so please bear with the (somewhat) lessened reading experience.
I think, again, that the major underlying theme of Dickens's work is the necessity of taking responsibility; rather than foisting problems onto other people (Skimpole/Tulkinghorn), other circumstances (Richard), or the past (Lady Dedlock), Dickens is encouraging his readers to take action instead of remaining passive about the social problems that plague them and others. This is, of course, Dickens's M.O.; indeed, part of the issues that keep Bleak House from being a Great novel is the obviousness of Dickens in the text--he is never far from the surface of the novel.
Nevertheless, the urbanization of the Gothic that is present in this novel has a direct tie to our modern understanding of the genre. Not only does the Urban Supernatural genre exist in its own right, the increased industrialization of the West means that the physical isolation felt in the early Gothic works is paired with an isolation in an urban setting: not alone, but lonely.
Furthermore, the Victorian elements of the novel--the discussion of the issues of industrialization especially--point toward the understanding of the Gothic as arriving from the horrors of the everyday. Dickens simply skips making a supernatural metaphor in order to examine real-world problems. This is similar to the Brontes' exploration of patriarchy, given that the supernatural elements arguably play side-line or ancillary roles in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Rather than using the Gothic as a metaphor, Dickens is using it as figurative language--more along the lines of a literary mode than a genre. Dickens uses the rhetorical Gothic as an attempt to emphasize the horrors of reality.
This approach is clear in the death of Krook by spontaneous combustion, arguably the most (if not only) supernatural event in the book. Rather than focusing on the event or describing it in detail, however, Dickens only gives us the aftermath and its consequences. This is probably the exact opposite of what "Monk" Lewis would have done; rather than writing a story about the Gothic, Dickens uses the Gothic as a lens to explore the social order.
So next week, we'll be reading Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.
I think, again, that the major underlying theme of Dickens's work is the necessity of taking responsibility; rather than foisting problems onto other people (Skimpole/Tulkinghorn), other circumstances (Richard), or the past (Lady Dedlock), Dickens is encouraging his readers to take action instead of remaining passive about the social problems that plague them and others. This is, of course, Dickens's M.O.; indeed, part of the issues that keep Bleak House from being a Great novel is the obviousness of Dickens in the text--he is never far from the surface of the novel.
Nevertheless, the urbanization of the Gothic that is present in this novel has a direct tie to our modern understanding of the genre. Not only does the Urban Supernatural genre exist in its own right, the increased industrialization of the West means that the physical isolation felt in the early Gothic works is paired with an isolation in an urban setting: not alone, but lonely.
Furthermore, the Victorian elements of the novel--the discussion of the issues of industrialization especially--point toward the understanding of the Gothic as arriving from the horrors of the everyday. Dickens simply skips making a supernatural metaphor in order to examine real-world problems. This is similar to the Brontes' exploration of patriarchy, given that the supernatural elements arguably play side-line or ancillary roles in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. Rather than using the Gothic as a metaphor, Dickens is using it as figurative language--more along the lines of a literary mode than a genre. Dickens uses the rhetorical Gothic as an attempt to emphasize the horrors of reality.
This approach is clear in the death of Krook by spontaneous combustion, arguably the most (if not only) supernatural event in the book. Rather than focusing on the event or describing it in detail, however, Dickens only gives us the aftermath and its consequences. This is probably the exact opposite of what "Monk" Lewis would have done; rather than writing a story about the Gothic, Dickens uses the Gothic as a lens to explore the social order.
So next week, we'll be reading Lady Audley's Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Bleak House, or Fog. Fog. Fog fog fog. Fog? Fog.
All right. Bleak House (1852-53) is a novel that was published in serial by Charles Dickens. Recently named Dickens's best work by Time Magazine, Bleak House is the first literary reference to the Urban Fog of London, and is so massively complex (and long!) that I shall be spending two weeks on it.
The sheer number of times that Dickens repeats the word "fog" when first describing London requires comment; the fact that this is the first time in literature that London is described with the Urban Fog only adds to the importance of the moment. Here, Dickens is using the Gothic mode--normally confined to the countryside--in order to describe the cloying and claustrophobic atmosphere that clings to London, like a fog. This atmosphere reflects the main core of the novel--the destruction of lives caused by the Chancery court. Indeed, Jarndyce, near the end of this week's reading (to chapter 30), says that it would be better to die than to become involved with the Chancery suit.
Allan Pritchard, meanwhile, remarks that Bleak House's gothic elements have been largely overlooked until very recently. This is incredibly interesting to me, and Pritchard evidently, given the title that Dickens eventually chose. Rather than "In Chancery" Dickens chose "Bleak House," following the Gothic convention of naming houses and naming books after houses. I had noticed this in relation to Northanger Abbey, in relation to The House of Udolpho--indeed, in relation to Wuthering Heights. By choosing this title, Dickens clearly marked this novel as Gothic, intentionally or not.
Of the characters that Dickens creates--brilliant, of course, so we'll take that as read--the sheer evilness of Skimpole was enough to turn my stomach. I almost lost my suspension of disbelief because the other characters fail to see it. While his actions seem at least neutral thus far, the claiming of childhood at his age, and his unwillingness to become an adult, leaves me in mind of a sociopath, at its most extreme. More mildly, an apathetic person can be read as the most evil of people, given that even people, or characters, marked "evil" believe themselves to be good. Skimpole is amoral, and thus evil.
Esther Summerson, meanwhile, is Dickens's only female narrator. Her story is thus far fascinating, if only because she attempts--or says she attempts--to chronicle the lives around her, but manages instead to chronicle her own. She is clearly related to Jane Eyre--who is published previously--yet her future romance (I write the blog, so I cheated a little) seems to reject the ordinary Gothic version. Her relationship with Lady Dedlock, furthermore, seems to play on the fairy tale nature of her childhood, raised by a wicked stepmother figure, but our persecuted heroine seems to be less persecuted as we move along.
So next week, we'll finish up our discussion, and be taking this blog on the road.
The sheer number of times that Dickens repeats the word "fog" when first describing London requires comment; the fact that this is the first time in literature that London is described with the Urban Fog only adds to the importance of the moment. Here, Dickens is using the Gothic mode--normally confined to the countryside--in order to describe the cloying and claustrophobic atmosphere that clings to London, like a fog. This atmosphere reflects the main core of the novel--the destruction of lives caused by the Chancery court. Indeed, Jarndyce, near the end of this week's reading (to chapter 30), says that it would be better to die than to become involved with the Chancery suit.
Allan Pritchard, meanwhile, remarks that Bleak House's gothic elements have been largely overlooked until very recently. This is incredibly interesting to me, and Pritchard evidently, given the title that Dickens eventually chose. Rather than "In Chancery" Dickens chose "Bleak House," following the Gothic convention of naming houses and naming books after houses. I had noticed this in relation to Northanger Abbey, in relation to The House of Udolpho--indeed, in relation to Wuthering Heights. By choosing this title, Dickens clearly marked this novel as Gothic, intentionally or not.
Of the characters that Dickens creates--brilliant, of course, so we'll take that as read--the sheer evilness of Skimpole was enough to turn my stomach. I almost lost my suspension of disbelief because the other characters fail to see it. While his actions seem at least neutral thus far, the claiming of childhood at his age, and his unwillingness to become an adult, leaves me in mind of a sociopath, at its most extreme. More mildly, an apathetic person can be read as the most evil of people, given that even people, or characters, marked "evil" believe themselves to be good. Skimpole is amoral, and thus evil.
Esther Summerson, meanwhile, is Dickens's only female narrator. Her story is thus far fascinating, if only because she attempts--or says she attempts--to chronicle the lives around her, but manages instead to chronicle her own. She is clearly related to Jane Eyre--who is published previously--yet her future romance (I write the blog, so I cheated a little) seems to reject the ordinary Gothic version. Her relationship with Lady Dedlock, furthermore, seems to play on the fairy tale nature of her childhood, raised by a wicked stepmother figure, but our persecuted heroine seems to be less persecuted as we move along.
So next week, we'll finish up our discussion, and be taking this blog on the road.
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