Liminality

Liminality

1. Comes from the Latin word "limen" meaning "threshold"

2. Refers to someone or something being on the boundary of two things - often two extremes.

3. Like a transitory stage

4. Manuel Aguirre argues that it is a defining feature of gothic literature

5. Liminality in Frankenstein

   • The Creature
     • On the boundary of life and death
     • Neither a success or a failure. It wasn't quite the end result that Victor was hoping for but he did succeed in creating life
     • Is he good or evil?!?!?!
   • Justine
     • Also on the boundary of life and death
       • "The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass the awful boundary between life and death..."
   • Victor
     • Victor is often closely linked with the sublime. This fills the protagonist with a sense of awe and dread
       • "the awful and majestic in nature" - This adheres to the sublime and majestic in nature. Victor's perception of the world around him seems influenced by his own turmoil
       • Edmund Burke notes in "On the Sublime and Beautiful" (Useful critic idk)
     • Is Victor good or evil? He usually switches between two extremes like the typical Gothic protagonist
       • Thinks he's aiding the world but he neglects his creation

6. Liminality in Macbeth

   • The witches
     • Although the witches are inherently supernatural, they seem to rest on the liminal line between worldly and otherworldly/male and female
       • Banquo: "look not like th'inhabitants o'th'earth, / And yet are on't"
     • Links could be drawn with Macbeth's liminal nature as the witches could be considered a product of his desires
   • Macbeth
     • Never quite inherently good or evil
       • His evil may be considered excusable because of Lady M's influence
       • He is hugely conflicted
   • Lady M
     • Is also very much 'inbetween'
       • Borders on the super natural
         • "unsex me here"
       • Not as supernatural as the witches tho
   • The walls of the castle (yh they count as a character now!)
     • The outside world is one of order and justice
     • inside the castle however, there is schemes, duplicity, deception, the supernatural, ghosts, apparitions, murder etc

7. Liminality in Doctor Faustus

   • Faustus
     • Is he good or evil?!?!?!? (IDEK)
       • Wants to gain knowledge to help the world n stuff
         • But he sells his soul in order to do so :/
       • Ends up using his devilish powers to be a prick
   • Mephistopheles
     • Seems pretty evil but may not be inherently evil
       • He's constantly after Faustus' soul and lives to serve Lucifer
       • However, he is just a tortured soul just tryin to make a livin init
         • Mephestopheles: "O Faustus, leave these frivolous demands/Which strike a terror to my fainting soul!"