The Gothic Tradition in Literature
Late 17th / early 18th c Enlightenment (Neoclassicism)
 proportion and balance
 rationality and reason
 subordinating whole to parts
Late 18th / early 19th c Romanticism
 grandeur and insignificance
 emotion and passion
 holistic beauty
Novel becomes established literary form
 rising literacy
 rising middle class
 early modern democracy
 capitalist economic system
18th and early 19th c Gothic fiction
 novelists began to look to older, oral and
Romantic traditions (eg., the Arthurian
legends) as literary sources
 EMPIRE! (and “the Other”)
 reaction against (but profoundly related to)
ideas of Enlightenment literary conventions
 fascination with the horrible, the repellent, the
grotesque and the supernatural
 seen by some critics as a sub-genre of
Romanticism, others as genre in its own right
Gothic as an artistic term
 emphasis on emotion
 gothic art and architecture intended to have a
magical or preternatural effect on the viewer
 evokes awe, terror, insignificance,vulnerability
 sense of being at the mercy of a higher
power—a particularly medieval world view
Gothic settings
 old, unfamiliar, mysterious and menacing
buildings (mansions, cathedrals),"Dark Ages"
associations, spiral staircases, soaring ceiling
 dangerous natural settings such as forests,
mountains, polar regions, deserts, volcanoes
 remove the reader from the ordinary,
everyday world of the normal and the familiar
Gothic mood
 chronic sense of apprehension and the
premonition of impending/unidentified disaster
 fallen humanity, living in fear, alienation,
haunted by images of mythic expulsion
 awareness of unavoidable wretchedness
Gothic heroes and heroines
 alone, stumbling alone, foreign countries
 face appalling complexities decision/action
 obliged to find their own solutions or fall
 estranged from family ties
 orphans/foundlings, family origins mysterious
Gothic action
 tends to take place at night, or at least in a
claustrophobic, sunless environment
 haunted castles, mansions
 ascent (up a mountain/high staircase)
 descent (into a dungeon, cave, underground
chambers, vaults or labyrinth)
 falling off a precipice
 secret passage or hidden door
 pursued maiden, threat of rape/abduction
 physical decay, blood and gore; torture
 skulls, cemeteries, ghosts/images of death
 revenge; family curse; the Doppelganger (evil
twin or double), dis-ease, plague
 demonic possession, masking, shape-shifting
black magic, “hysteria,” madness, dual human
natures, “monster inside”/parasite, no control
 breaks taboos of birth, sex, death: death in
childbirth, male protagonist “gives birth”
infanticide, incest, marriage=death,
vampirism, cannibalism, etc., young die/old
live, resurrection, mutilation of body
Gothic psychology
 understood to serve a fundamental human
need—Virginia Woolf called "the strange
human need for feeling afraid"
 need to retain links to the past: folk tales,
superstitions, and oral traditions
 storytelling creates a communal, emotional
experience, authentic impulse (ironic b/c story
represents), uniquely human expression
Frankenstein as gothic novel
 Allusions to John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667), epic rendition of “Genesis” – creature will read Milton
 "Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay / To mould me man? Did I solicit thee / From darkness to promote
me?--," Paradise Lost book 10, epigraph of Frankenstein
 Creature + Adam, "united by no link to any other being in existence", Satan, outcast & wretched
 Victor, god/creator, Adam, once innocent child, Satan, rebellious over-reacher & vengeful fiend
 Edenic world lost through Frankenstein's single-minded thirst for knowledge
 Victor, Promethean figure, striving against human limitations to bring light & benefit to humankind
 Glories in ability to create a facsimile of the human self. fall results not from creative enterprise, from failure &
inability to love creation
 Individual desire v familial & social responsibility, Romantics: individualistic/self obsessed creativity v self
denial, social harmony
 Nightmarish murders, demon-like creature, terror of unknown, destruction of idyllic life in nature by dark,
ambiguous force
 Frankenstein = novel in the gothic tradition, situates good & evil as psychological battle w/in human nature
 Creator & creature initially "benevolent" feelings & intentions, become obsessed w/ destruction & revenge
 Manipulates conventions, stock gothic villains replace w/ morally ambiguous characters reflect depth &
complexity of human psyche
Weird stuff nerds notice:
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Frankenstein associated w/ creature rather than creator, doppelgangers? Identities confused deliberately?
Divided self, monstrous, destructive force w/in “civilized” humans, opposites not reconciled, destroy each other
Link events, dates, & names novel & those in Mary's life; begins 11 December 17--, ends 12 September 17—?
Walton’s to sister Margaret Walton Saville (initials are those of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
Time period similar in duration to Mary Shelley's third pregnancy, during which she wrote Frankenstein
Day & date Walton first sees creature, Monday, 31 July, coincides in 1797, year Mary was born
Novel ends 12 September 1797, two days > Wollstonecraft's death – consequence of Mary’s birth?
The Concept of the Other
The Other singled out as different
 the unconscious, silence, madness, the
 impossibly good or incomprehensibly evil
other of language (references and “the
unsaid”)
 a person's definition of the Other part of
Problems
what defines the self relative to other
people, ideas, and cultures
 tendency towards relativism if the Other
Implications of the Other for the colonial mindset
leads to a notion that ignores any
commonality of truth (normative)
 can help us understand the processes by
which societies and groups exclude
 unethical uses to reinforce social,
Others in order to subordinate them
cultural, economic, political divisions
Hegel
 demonstrates western societies’ practice
and POV to gain and maintain power
 “Master-Slave Dialectic”
over occupied people and lands
Sartre
Otherness and personal and cultural identity
 “Being for Other”
 people construct roles for themselves in
Lacan
relation to an Other as part of a fluid
 “The Mirror”
process of action-reaction
Lévinas
 both Othering and being Othered!
 “The Infinite Other”