What does the term “female gothic” mean?
Put simply, the term refers to gothic fiction written by women for women.
The Female Gothic
1) aims to socialize and educate its female readers and is usually morally conservative
2) expresses criticism of patriarchal, male-dominated structures
3) serve as an expression of female independence
4) usually centers on a female protagonist who is pursued and persecuted by a villainous patriarchal figure
How did women writers use the female gothic?
The sense of marriage and husband as a smothering, threatening force was, given the state of society, a reality for women, who inevitably bore resentment for their necessary dependence on marriage and men, to say nothing of their infantilization at the hands of both.
There exists a very real relationship between the Female Gothic novel of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century and the social context of women at that time.
Female writers work within the Gothic genre to explore issues related to the role of women in their society, in particular those concerned with sexual identity. Scholars contend that the
Gothic genre provides these authors with the ideal vehicle through which to critique the patriarchal definition of the female, a definition which confines and marginalizes women, denying the female any sexual autonomy.
Thus women writers utilized the nightmare world inherent in the Gothic to illustrate the protagonist/individual (usually wife/woman) at conflict with the values of society and her prescribed role. Yet this protest can be hidden in the subtext of the gothic nightmare world.
What happens in female gothic stories?
The central character is a woman who is simultaneously persecuted victim and courageous heroine.
“Somebody’s Trying to Kill Me and I Think It’s My Husband: The Modern Gothic”
(Joanna Russ)
Elements of the female gothic:
1. Spatial symbolism:
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a.
This refers to the literal setting of the female gothic, which is generally something typifying confinement, such as a mansion or a prison. b.
This literal setting reflects the setting/position in which married women found themselves – confined to the domestic sphere, which often proved to be restrictive and oppressive, if not horrific.
Put another way, in the female gothic, marriage = confinement. c.
Gothic ruins: symbolize chaos, disorder (and when we consider that oftentimes the literal setting – which would be the ruins – symbolizes marriage or woman’s place in society, this becomes a subversive symbol); also an atmosphere of disease d.
female body/sexuality: Women’s sexuality has frequently been denied, even to women themselves (remember that we must uphold the ideal of chastity); thus spaces of confinement reflect the pressure women felt to repress their sexual desires.
2. Madness: a.
Madness refers (metaphorically) to the departure from the conventional, or to the violation of the normal. b.
Thus madness could be interpreted in one of two ways:
1.
Women’s oppression within the domestic sphere could well drive them to madness (as we will see in “The Yellow Wallpaper”).
3. Slavery:
2.
The idea of the domestic sphere (or even marriage itself) as a madhouse hints at the terror and perversity that wives might encounter in their own homes – against which they would be vulnerable and powerless, given their prescribed role. (Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre is an extreme example of this.)
Women writers often employ slavery as a metaphor for women’s confinement in marriage.
For example, in Jane Eyre, Jane uses the metaphor of slave-master to describe her potential marriage to Rochester.
4. Monstrosity:
Many of the female characters in gothic novels are referred to as monstrous (again, like
Bertha Rochester), implying that they have taken on behavior that society deems unacceptable.
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a.
Oftentimes the monster or madwoman in the female gothic novel is the heroine herself – her “feminine” self (or her good self) is the one that adheres to society’s dictates regarding submissiveness and passivity. The “monster” side of her refers to the conflicted side of her which harbors turbulent inner compulsions, reflecting the social divisions of women into pure and chaste versus impure and corrupt.
5. The doppelganger motif:
The word doppelganger translates to “double goer/walker” and refers to the psychological double (or second self), another hallmark of the female gothic.
In the female gothic, the doppleganger most often presents itself as a split in the protagonist’s personality, one that he/she is consciously unaware of. (Put simply, it’s the alter ego motif most commonly associated with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.) Oppressed heroines may oftentimes subconsciously project an alter ego who acts on her deeply repressed desires, acting in a way that society would deem improper. Because many authors of the female gothic seek to offer a subversive comment on the state of women in patriarchal society (most often with respect to the confining gender roles in marriage), these doppelgangers typically lash out against their confinement or express their rage in some exaggerated way.
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