Gothic

Gothic

1. Difference with realism:

   • Epistolary form is needed to add some element of realism: without something to bind it to real life, there is nothing to make the story seem plausible
     • David Lodge: "a fictional letter is indistinguishable to a real letter"

2. What is it for

3. Key aspects

   • Setting of oppressive ruin, "barren", wild landscape in a European Country
     • definately does this, set in Switzerland and England, however travelling to the ends of the earth by the end
       • nothing could be more barren than the North Pole, no where farther away from civilisation or bereft of life
   • Heroine with "trembling sensitivity"
     • Shelley breaks gothic convention before gothic genre has come to light, reflecting gothic genre of breaking conventions
       • Victor as gay, not able to write about that at the time, taboo
       • monster, outcast of society, is not only much more romantic/sexually aware and emotionally than Victor, but also more human
         • reflection on something LOOK AT MORE
       • CONTEXT by writing, Shelley is breaking conventions of the time etc, woman writing encouraged by her husband but always second place to him
         • gothic was a way to tackle issues with her own life, delving into her own 'dark psyche', issues with her mother dying, leaving her family for a man wh
           • o didnt love her, didnt care for her - trying to justify herself next to him
             • also, being exposed to a lot of scientific discoveries from her father made her very interested in it all, but unable to express herself as a woman
         • gothic gave her a chance to delve into the depths of everything, from questions of morality from French Revolution, to her questions about the world
   • tyrannical old man
     • Victor is ALSO the tyrranical man
       • doppelganger, personality doubling, being both hero(ine) and antagonist
       • monster is tyrranical, lurking around edges, never sure when it will appear
         • gothic terror in lead up to moment ie marriage night with elizabeth, Alps, Orkneys etc
         • contemplates the rape of Justine
   • doppelganger
     • Victor and the Monster
     • Victor and Walton
     • Victor and Justine
     • D'Lacys and Frankensteins
     • Elizabeth and female creature
       • neither has marriage consummated
   • connotations of incest
     • Elizabeth and Frankenstein were originally first cousins, but was changed to make them unrelated
     • Victor's dream about his mother
   • poisonous effects of guilt
     • Victor's actions haunt him, causing his complete ostracizaton from humanity, in the end
       • persecuted by creature to lose everything he loves
         • HOWEVER feels guilt for the wrong reasons, he feels he caused the death of those dearest to him, and released a monster into the world
           • guilt SHOULD be felt for leaving creature, his first feeling one of abandonement, alone in the world, with no one to love him
             • nature vs nurture, was the monster predominantly evil, or did he grow to be that way through the actions of Victor?
               • JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
                 • "man is born free and everywhere he is in chains"
                 • Rousseau said that man was born with two instincts: self preservation and compassion. Basically, man is born good, and it is civiliation that corrupts
                 • "If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst and desire, we might nearly be free" Chp 10
                 • Shelley used three of his fundamental beliefs: that man is most content in the state of nature, society is what corrupts him, and once corrupted
                   • he can never return to his natural state
                     • "Oh, that I had for ever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst and heat!" Chp 13
                     • "Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind, when it has once seized on it, like a lichen on a rock" Chp 13
                 • Rousseau believed that it was man's enslavement to his own needs that was responsible for most societal downfalls, from exploitation to depression
   • unspeakable thoughts, an inability to express the horror of his actions, no language to express such horror, not even gothic
     • cannot speak to anyone about his actions, estranged from society
     • also Romantic convention, believing no one could possibly understand the depth of their feelings, too close to godliness in their sublime thoughts
   • language of excess
   • "One of the principal horrors lurking throughout Gothic Fiction is the sense that there is no exit from the darkly illuminating labyrinth of language"
     • Fred Botting, Gothic