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Key Terms
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Affective Fallacy
These errors in interpretation are common to students of literature and must
be avoided. The intentional fallacy attempts to assess what a writer's
intention was, and interprets a story based on the author's life and ideas
rather than the actual possibilities of the story itself. The novel has to have
a life of its own, and its possible meanings have to greater than whatever
the author thought he/she was trying to prove. The author has subconscious
as well as conscious motivations; in the year 2006 or 2007 or 2008 we
understand different things about the world than in the year 1818, 1922, or
2001, and so the novel exists in a different reality of reading and
interpretation than the moment when it was written. The affective fallacy
is a critical error of evaluation in which we as readers confuse the text and
its meaning with the affect of the poem on us as readers. For example,
because I was repulsed by the content and the style of Harland Ellison's
Bleeding Stones, I conclude that the story is bad and poorly written. If I
make this error in analysis, I have basically stopped my ability to think as a
literary critic. I have shifted from critical analysis to summary dismissal.
Better questions to ask would be: what in the text itself is directing readers
toward a certain response? What techniques does the author use to create
this affect? How can I place the affect produced by the text (or my
emotional response) in a larger context--historical? social? political? gender?
sexual? religious?--and can I link this affect to other texts and other genres?
Please Note--in responding to these terms, you must analyze YOURSELF
rather than the text. How did your initial responses to the text engage in
either the Intentional or the Affective fallacy?
Age of
Enlightenment
An intellectual movement which began in England in the seventeenth
-century, but then spread to have eventual influence over all sections of the
world. The term "Enlightenment," rooted in an intellectual skepticism to
traditional beliefs and dogmas, denotes an "illumined" contrast to the
supposed dark and superstitious character of the Middle Ages. From its
inception, the Enlightenment focused on the power and goodness of human
rationality. Some of the more characterisitic doctrines of the Enlightenment
are: 1) Reason is the most significant and positive capacity of the human; 2)
reason enables one to break free from primitive, dogmatic, and superstitious
beliefs holding one in the bonds of irrationality and ignorance; 3) in realizing
the liberating potential of reason, one not only learns to think correctly, but
to act correctly as well; 4) through philosophical and scientific progress,
reason can lead humanity as a whole to a state of earthly perfection; 5)
reason makes all humans equal and, therefore, deserving of equal liberty
and treatment before the law; 6) beliefs of any sort should be accepted only
on the basis of reason, and not on traditional or priestly authority; and 7) all
human endeavors should seek to impart and develop knowledge, not
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feelings or character.
Angel in the
House
A term taken from a late Victorian poem by Coventry Patmore. The "Angel in -the House" describes the Victorian ideal of the perfect woman: a woman
who is patient, kind, self-effacing, non-confrontational, domestic, quietly
spiritual, nurturing, supporting, dependent upon a man, beautiful, and
engaged in private concerns (not public, political issues). Such a woman is
considered to be the complement of a man, and part of her important role
for society is to inspire men to be stronger, dominant, moral, and
protective. See ideology of separate spheres.
Anti-Catholicism
A frequent and, for some critics, foundational feature of early Protestant
gothic fiction. Catholicism in early gothic texts comes to be associated with
forces of horrid repression, greedy corruption, and mysterious persecution.
The cloak of superstition assumed to be the basis of Catholicism is used by
corrupt priests and nuns to prevent scrutiny of authority. The frequent
appearance of the Inquisition in the first gothics epitomizes anti-Catholic
sentiment.
Anxiety of
Authorship
A term coined by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar in reference to the critic
-Harold Bloom's term, "the anxiety of influence." Bloom felt that great poets
(or, indeed, any great writer) after the Enlightenment suffers from a feeling
of "belatedness," the feeling that they are always already following in the
footsteps of a much greater more powerful writer such as Shakespeare or
Milton. Building on Freud's theories of the Oedipal Complex, Bloom
suggested that the artistic development of great writers follows a certain
progression: first the poet moves from admiration and imitation of the poetforbear (or poet father-figure) to a rejection of the poet-forbear. Gilbert and
Gubar, in their groundbreaking work of early Feminist criticism The
Madwoman in the Attic, noted quite rightly that Bloom's theories were based
on masculine models of artistic development and didn't apply very
effectively to women writers. Women writers, note Gilbert and Gubar, don't
engage in an epic struggle with their forefather-poets in trying to prove their
own unique genius, power, and artistic and intellectual sense of dominance
and importance. No, what women writers display is an anxiety of
authorship, not influence. Women writers look to the past and, instead of
discovering poet-forbears, discover that they have no ancestresses, no
dominant female poets from the past to provide both a role model and,
eventually, a figure to rebel against. Women writers, thus, question
whether or not they can even be an author--or, anxiety of authorship.
Gilbert and Gubar suggest a variety of strategies by which women writers
deal with this anxiety of authorship: the most important one is that of
doubling identities. Women authors, such as Charlotte Brontë, split their
identities between the powerful urge to be writer (the inner creative spirit,
or daemon) and the powerful social pressure to be a non-aggressive,
subservient, quiet and domestic woman (see angel in the house and
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ideology of separate spheres).
Gilbert and Gubar read Jane Eyre as a struggle between the unacceptable
creative energies (represented by Bertha Mason) and the subdued and
subservient Victorian ideal woman (Jane Eyre). Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
can also be read as a narrative of the creator splitting his identity between
the active creator (whose behavior is socially unacceptable) and the created
(the creature who shows the damage caused by mother-figures who
produced physical progeny but do not nurture them). Other examples of
splitting or doubling of identities between the appropriately passive Victorian
woman and the creative daemon include Emily Dickinson's poetry: "I heard
a fly buzz when I died," "I'm nobody, who are you?", and "Me from myself
to banish," In these poems, the speaker has a split identity: the one who is
the "I" who narrates the poem, and the dead body (passive identity), the
nobody, and the banished "other" self. In Jane Eyre, Frankenstein, and
Dickinson's poetry, the splitting or doubling of the narrator's identity is
directly related to the gothic and to the doppelganger--that part of the
creative self that is repressed or denied comes back to haunt the author.
Gilbert and Gubar's work was an essential part of feminist criticism.
However, in the twenty-five years since the publication of Madwoman in the
Attic in 1979, feminist and historical scholars have unearthed and begun to
republish an enormous treasure trove of women novelists, poets,
dramatists, and non-fiction writers. The fact that so many women in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were active and successful authors
makes the concept of "the anxiety of authorship" of more limited importance
than initially thought.
Apostrophe
A figure of speech in which someone (usually but not always absent), some -abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though
present. Invocations are examples of apostrophes (as in Homer's Odyssey in
which the poet opens by directly addressing the muse, "Hail, Muse.")
Another famous example of an apostrophe is when the omniscient narrator
of Jane Eyre suddenly addresses the reader, "Reader, I married him."
Aristotelian
Unities
In his Poetics Aristotle defines the elements of tragedy. For example, he
explored the concept of "catharsis" as the purpose of tragedy, the idea of
"mimesis" or literature's imitation of life, the notion of the complex
character, an aesthetic for determining the quality of plots, etc. Aristotle
favored what has become called the Aristotelian "unities":

Unity of Time: the best plays confine themselves to a brief period of
time. The plot of Oedipus all takes place within a few hours.

Unity of Place: the best plays occur in a single location, and do not
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cut to different scenes in different places.

Unity of Action: rather than episodic plots in which one adventure
follows another, Aristotle preferred focused and compressed plots.
Bibliogenesis
Literally, a book (biblio) that is conceived out of (genesis) other books.
-Frankenstein, or a Modern Prometheus is a perfect example of bibliogenesis:
during the writing of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley had immersed herself in
ancient and contemporary literature, and this book is both a rewriting of the
traditional narratives of Faust, Prometheus, Paradise Lost, and Cain and Abel
(to name but a few) as well as a treasure trove of commentary on
contemporary and ancient texts such as: Gibbon's Decline of the Roman
Empire, Volney's The Ruins of Empire, Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of
the Rights of Women, and Rousseau's Emile.
Bildungsroman
A novel that deals with the development of a young person, usually from
adolescence to maturity; it is frequently autobiographical. Jane Eyre and
Dickens's Great Expectations are both examples of the bildungsroman.
Byronic Hero
A later variation of the Villain-Hero, based on the real historical figure of
-Lord Byron. Aristocratic, cosmopolitan, suffering from ennui, suave, moody,
handsome, solitary, secretive, brilliant, cynical, sexually intriguing
(frequently sexually ambiguous or perverse), and nursing a secret wound,
he is renowned because of his fatal attraction for female characters and
readers and continues to occasion debate about gender issues. Example:
Byron's Childe Harold, or more recently the Batman (or Darkman) or film
(creepy, handsome, wealthy, secretive, attractive to women but unable to
sustain a relationship with one, damaged from a deep childhood wound, and
sexually ambiguous (his most sustained relationships seem to be with Robin
and his butler Alfred .. .).(Definition adapted from Paul Quinnell, Glossary of
Literary Gothic Terms at www.georgiasouthern.edu/~dougt/goth.html)
Deductive and
Inductive
Reasoning
Deductive and Inductive Reasoning: Although we are accustomed to
-thinking of Sherlock Holmes's logic as powerful acts of "deduction," it is in
fact not deduction but induction, or reasoning from the best inferences. In
true deduction, no thinking process is necessary, and the conclusion is laid
out for us based on a series of logic statements. For example,
All Cats are Mammals.
Felix is a Cat.
Therefore, Felix is a Mammal.
You see? No surprises. Deduction is useful in fields such as mathematics,
but not very useful in detective fiction. By contrast, Inductive Reasoning
allows for guesses--or "reasoning from the best inferences." In other words,
gathering together evidence and clues and coming up with the best possible
explanation. See Reading Tips to The Hound of the Baskervilles for
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additional information.
Denouement
A term taken from the French phrase "denouncement," the denouement is
-typically the final scene of a detective fiction. In a stereotypical
denouement, the suspects are gathered together in one room and the
detective, one by one, singles out each character's motives for committing a
crime, explains why he ruled them out, and finally denounces the true
culprit.  In more subtle denouement scenes, the detective merely
explains his thought process--how he at first suspected but then excluded
different suspects and how he was able to identify the culprit.
Domestic
Romance
A reference to a form of the novel that is focused on the private and the
-personal interrelationships of characters, and that concludes with a
marriage. The domestic romance typically features the middle class,
though not always. It should not be confused with romance novels and
other genre fiction forms (such as the Harlequin Romance). The domestic
romance, beginning with Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740), insists upon
the primacy of emotional attachments and interior (rather than exterior)
qualities over socio-political and other cultural concerns. Pamela, a servant
girl, struggles with the licentious advances of her master Mr. B--; and finally
her virtue triumphs, and he marries her. Pamela's interior qualities, thus,
triumph over class difference and masculine sexual privileges. Because
these novels focus on the superiority of interior qualities, they are
particularly important to the rise of women novelists. No matter how
unequal women's access to external political and social power, women's
internal superiority triumphed over the patriarchal system.
Doppelgänger
Doppelgänger comes from German; literally translated, it means
-doublegoer. In literature, a doppelgänger is the double, evil twin, alter ego,
or ghostly counterpart of a character. In analyzing the doppelgänger as a
psychic projection caused by unresolved anxieties, Otto Rank described the
double as possessing traits both complementary and antithetical to the
character involved. Frequently the doppelgänger possesses the qualities that
a given character is attempting to repress--but, as Freud notes, we can
never truly repress that which is inside us. One of the driving features of
gothic literature is this very return of the repressed--that which cannot be
denied and explodes (or creeps) onto the pages of the text in the form of a
character that haunts or drives the protagonist. Famous doubles include
Jekyll/Hyde, Victor Frankenstein/his monster, Jane Eyre/Bertha, and the
narrator and the woman behind the wall paper in Charlotte Perkins Gilman
"The Yellow Wallpaper."
Dramatic
monologue
A dramatic monologue occurs when a character speaks at a critical moment. -The monologue is usually directed toward a silent audience, with the
speaker's words influenced by a critical situation. In general, a dramatic
monologue is a speech written as if spoken by an imagined character, in his
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or her voice and tone. It is "dramatic" because it comes from a character
who speaks in a manner characteristic of that character. It is a "monologue"
because it comes from one character only. It should not be confused with
soliloquy, which takes place within a play.
Entrapment
A favorite Gothic horror device in which a person (frequently a female or an -otherwise powerless figure) is confined or trapped. This entrapment can
take the form of a literal entrapment (as in The Monk when Agnes is trapped
in the catacombs of the nunnery). It can also take the form of a more
psychological entrapment, as when Truman Capote's Miriam-the-elder finds
herself increasingly without options, as if the walls were closing in, and
powerless to break out of social, emotional, and psychological patterns and
constraints.
Epistolary Fiction Frankenstein has a convoluted plot structure, one that might be compared
-to a set of Russian nesting dolls. First we have Captain Walton's narrative,
and we are to believe that the entire novel is an epistolary fiction (written
in the form of letters--or epistles-- to his sister). Next, Victor Frankenstein
tells about his own history and the creation of the creature . . . up to the
point where he describes meeting the creature on the "sea of ice" beneath
Mont Blanc. Then, the creature tells his own story, and part of his story is
the story of the Delacy family. In short, the story is a series of three men's
autobiographies (authored by a woman!). At a certain point, we must
wonder how reliable can any of these stories be--or, are all of these stories
increasingly internalized narratives of pain and sufferings in which repeated
traumas are replayed and replayed until we reach the heart of things . . . or
perhaps become so lost in our own sorrows that we cannot find a way out.
What does it mean that the final audience of the story is female, Capt.
Walton's sister? Why is the DeLacey family's tale in the very heart of the
series of frames? See also unreliable narrator and framework story.
Faustian Hero
Like the figure of Faust, whose overweening ambition and desire for
knowledge drives him to make a bargain with the devil, this type of hero is
self-absorbed, ambitious, and in a powerful position. His ambition is often
his tragic flaw, and to achieve his ends he makes bad decisions--such as
Faust's bargain with the devil. Lewis's Ambrosio follows the path of the
Faustian hero (and is useful to remember that Lewis translated Goethe's
play Faust).
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Female Gothic
One of the earliest forms of Gothic literature, the Female Gothic often
-implicitly expresses criticism of patriarchal, male-dominated structures and
serves as an expression of female independence. This form is often centered
on gender differences and oppression. Female Gothic works usually include a
female protagonist who is pursued, trapped, and persecuted by a villainous
patriarchal figure in unfamiliar settings and terrifying landscape. While
achieving a considerable degree of terror and chills, the Female Gothic
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usually eschews the more overt and graphic scenes of violence and sexual
perversion found in the literature of horror, and instead focuses on the
psychological effects of powerlessness and entrapment.This kind of fiction
first achieved controversial prominence in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth century.
Framework Story A story inside a framework, a story inside a story. In Chaucer's Canterbury -Tales, for example, the Prologue introduces a group of travelers making a
pilgrimage. This general introduction might be considered the framework of
the tales, the individual tales that each traveler recounts become the
framework stories. Frankenstein is a frame-tale, because the story of Victor
Frankenstein, his creature, and the de Laceys are all included within Capt.
Robert Walton's letters to his sister. In many movie and stage versions of
the novel, Captain Walton is simply omitted from the tale, and the dramatic
action begins with Frankenstein's childhood. Captain Walton, however, is not
a superfluous character--he has many similarities to Frankenstein and to the
creature, and he must learn from Frankenstein's story when he makes his
own decisions about whether or not to pursue his scientific dreams over and
above caring for the lives of others.
Gothic Revival
A reaction against the symmetry and regularity of Palladian and classical
-styles off architecture. Gothic revivalists, such as Walpole with his work on
Strawberry Hill, recreated aspects of the high middle ages in their mansions,
such as towers, cloisters, battlements, flying buttresses, hidden chambers,
armouries, gothic staircases, vaulted ceilings, and dim passageways. The
gothic revival in architecture continued from the middle of the eighteenth
century through the beginning of the twentieth century. Many churches and
university buildings, for example, have been designed to evoke the middle
ages (massive stonework, imposing features that seem to overpower the
approaching visitor, gardens and gates that create a sense of enclosure).
Homosocial
versus
homoerotic
desire
(triangulation) An important tenet of the literary theory approach called
-"Queer Theory" is the difference between homosocial and homoerotic desire.
Posited by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in Between Men, homosocial desires are
bonds between people of the same sex that are NOT erotic (for example, a
father's love for his son, or the powerful bonding between the soldiers in a
troop that develops during the time of war). On the other end of same-sex
bonding are desires that are homoerotic--desires that are sensual and
sometimes sexual. Think of these two types of male/male desires as being
on opposite ends of a continuum. Because Western European society is
extraordinarily homophobic (particularly about masculine, same-sex desire),
it can be dangerous for men to openly express emotional connections to
other men--even if those bonds are homosocial and not homoerotic. For
example, why is it unusual for a man to write a letter to his buddy and
conclude with the phrase, "With love, David"--unless the men are lovers?
(By contrast, women routinely conclude email postings with affectionate
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statements). Or consider how men routinely throw out the phrase, "that's
so gay," as a way of denying or distancing themselves from someone else's
behavior. Or consider the guest on the Sally Jesse Rafael show who, when
he discovered that a secret admirer was not a woman but a man, drove to
this man's house after the airing of episode and shot him to death. Why do
men feel so threatened by homoeroticism that they act violently in denial of
it? Although there are many possible answers to this question, Sedgwick
was less interested in the "why" than in the “ways” in which homoerotic and
homosocial desires between men could be and are expressed Western
Society.
One of her most interesting insights is the concept of "triangulation," which
she identified as an important narrative pattern that can be found
throughout British and American texts. If a man cannot freely express his
powerful desires (whether homosocial or homoerotic) for another man, then
he discovers a way of funneling or channeling those emotions through a
third party--typically a woman. For example, think of the classic love
triangle of the King Arthur myth: Lancelot was the most powerful and noble
knight of King Arthur's court, and he loved King Arthur beyond all other
men. How does he express this powerful love if Western society does not
allow direct expression of desire between men? Well, he has sex with
Guenevere. She, in turn, has sex with Arthur, and she thereby becomes the
medium through which two men express deep feelings for each other. In the
novel Frankenstein, be sure to think about the function of Elizabeth Lavenza
in the text, and how she is the fulcrum that connects the powerful feelings
of Victor and the creature.
In most triangulation patterns, the female figure is crushed--she is not the
true center of either man's desires (merely the less-than-satisfactory
conduit), and so she is inevitably destroyed or overwhelmed. Guenevere
winds up in a nunnery (basically, turned into a non-sexual creature) and
Lancelot and Arthur directly confront each other in battle (battle is another
way in which men openly express powerful emotion toward other men—in
this case, the rejection of homosocial/homoerotic bonding is so extreme,
that the only remaining way of connecting is through the deeply powerful
intimacy of violence). In Frankenstein, Frankenstein destroys the female
creature, and the creature crushes Elizabeth Lavenza. In short, neither man
can live without the other, and neither man can allow the other to have a
heterosexual relationship.
Your edition of The Monk has an interesting account of an anti-gay rampage
from Matthew Lewis's era, "The Trying and Pilloring of the Vere Street Club"
(392-93).
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Incest
See "Oedipal Triangle" for a full description of the psychology of incest. In -Romantic literature, brother-sister incest, mother-son incest, fatherdaughter incest is incredibly common. In addition to readings that discuss
the Oedipal Triangle, scholars suggest that this fascination with incest is a
side-effect of the narcissism and self-centeredness of the typical Romantic
hero. The self-centered megalomaniacal genius-hero is unable to fall in love
with any one but himself (or a twin sister). At the same time, the amorality
associated with the Romantic hero, particularly his sense of owning or
controlling all of those about him, means that he frequently transgresses
moral boundaries and limits. Percy Bysshe Shelley's play The Cenci and
Mary Shelley's novella Mathilda are good examples of the dynamics of
father-daughter incest.
Inset tale
The inset is a tale within the larger tale or story that often recounts the
-adventures of a dead or missing relative of the heroine and relates in relates
in some ingenious way to the riddle of her paternity or identity.
Intentional
Fallacy
These errors in interpretation are common to students of literature and must -be avoided. The intentional fallacy attempts to assess what a writer's
intention was, and interprets a story based on the author's life and ideas
rather than the actual possibilities of the story itself. The novel has to have
a life of its own, and its possible meanings have to greater than whatever
the author thought he/she was trying to prove. The author has subconscious
as well as conscious motivations; in the year 2006 or 2007 or 2008 we
understand different things about the world than in the year 1818, 1922, or
2001, and so the novel exists in a different reality of reading and
interpretation than the moment when it was written. The affective fallacy
is a critical error of evaluation in which we as readers confuse the text and
its meaning with the affect of the poem on us as readers. For example,
because I was repulsed by the content and the style of Harland Ellison's
Bleeding Stones, I conclude that the story is bad and poorly written. If I
make this error in analysis, I have basically stopped my ability to think as a
literary critic. I have shifted from critical analysis to summary dismissal.
Better questions to ask would be: what in the text itself is directing readers
toward a certain response? What techniques does the author use to create
this affect? How can I place the affect produced by the text (or my
emotional response) in a larger context--historical? social? political? gender?
sexual? religious?--and can I link this affect to other texts and other genres?
Please Note--in responding to these terms, you must analyze YOURSELF
rather than the text. How did your initial responses to the text engage in
either the Intentional or the Affective fallacy?
Mourning and
Melancholia
Sigmund Freud's important essay, Mourning and Melancholia details his
theories of how individuals cope with mourning and the death of a loved
one. Freud identified two contrary forms of mourning: the normal mourning
process and an unhealthy mourning process, which he termed
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"melancholia," or pathological mourning.
In successful forms of mourning, an individual experiences various stages of
grief such as despair and anger. Freud suggested that mourners eventually
create a substitute for the lost one: perhaps the substitute is a powerful
positive memory that provides consolation and shields the mourner from the
experience of raw grief; perhaps the substitute is a replacement love. In any
case, the substitute for the lost one has an important psychological function:
it allows the mourner to get on with his or her life.
In the melancholic or pathological form of mourning, an individual does not
go through the proper stages of mourning. The mourner has unresolved
issues with the dead one and harbors unspent feelings of anger or rage.
Perhaps the lost one had abused or mistreated the survivor. Perhaps the lost
one had put so much pressure on the survivor to succeed or "to be more like
me," that the survivor feels as if s/he has no identity without the lost one.
Perhaps the survivor had not only hated the lost one, but had even wished
to see him/her dead--and now the survivor must deal with feelings of guilt.
In short, the survivor finds him/herself with an overabundance of unresolved
and powerful emotions--and no object upon which to vent these emotions
(because the focus of all of that emotion is no longer living). What happens?
A negative feedback loop or a boomerang effect. The survivor keeps fighting
with and throwing all of that rage and anxiety at the dead one--but because
s/he is no longer living, that rage and anxiety boomerangs and returns to
haunt the survivor, in an increasingly magnified form. These pathological or
melancholic mourners can't let the individual die because they want to keep
fighting with him or her . . . but in reality, they are fighting with themselves.
If the mourners can't find a way to resolve their emotions and to escape the
negative feedback loop of ever-increasing and frustrated rage, the
mourneris eventually trapped in a cycle of self-destructive rage that leads to
self-annihilation.
In Frankenstein, this theory of mourning versus melancholia is particularly
evocative. As many critics have noted, Victor Frankenstein is surrounded by
death, but he does not mourn. As soon as his mother dies, he runs away to
school in Ingolstadt, never writes home, and starts to work on his scheme to
reanimate the dead . . . . in other words, he does not go through the stages
of mourning and won't allow the dead to stay dead. According to this
analysis, Frankenstein's refusal to accept death causes a cycle of violent
destruction that eventually kills everyone close to him and then himself.
Oedipal Triangle
and Incest
In gothic literature, the "incest taboo" is frequently broken. According to
-Freud in his depiction of the Oedipal Triangle (and later modified by Lacan
and Kristeva and other psychoanalysts), a boy child is profoundly connected
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to his mother who supplies all of his physical and emotional needs (breast
milk, nurturing, etc.--sometimes referred to as the oral stage). At some
moment the father intervenes and cuts off the boy from his primal
connection to the mother--in effect, declaring possession of the mother.
When the father lays down the "incest taboo," a series of important
psychological events occur which Freud links to the development of the
human psyche, and which other critics have further linked to the
development of civilization itself. (Note: if an individual is "stuck" in the oral
stage, s/he is often associated with excessive need for physical pleasures-sexual liaisons, gluttony, obsessive needs for constant sensual pleasure,
libidinous desires out of control, etc.)
The boy who effectively transitions out of the oral phase resents the loss of
the mother, and he attempts to control his physical bodily needs and
environment (the anal stage) in order to prevent any such loss occurring
again. For example, young children often go through a developmental stage
in which they withhold their own bodily waste as a form of self-protection
and rebellion (they refuse to go potty, etc.). Today's pop psychology often
throws around the term "anal retentive," which is shorthand for someone
who is controlling of his/her physical environment.
However, the boy must find a substitute for the mother--a wife of his own,
or objects that compensate him for this loss. This is the phallic stage. If
the boy cannot fully enter into the phallic stage, he pours his energy into
objects that compensate for the loss of the mother, but because they are
NOT the mother and can never be as powerful as the primal nurturing he
received, these objects are ultimately unsatisfying and are rejected--they
become "abject objects" according to the important psychoanalytic critic
Julia Kristeva.
The phallic stage is also linked to the "castration complex." When the boy
realizes that the father has a penis and his mother has been "castrated," he
fears that he, too, will become castrated like his mother and lose the power
associated with the father. The boy surrounds himself with "phallic
objects"--objects that shield his physical body and fragile sense of identity
from potential castration. In literary analysis, any physical wound that a
character undergoes is a sign of castration, and any object that is vaguely
penis-like in form or function is a phallic object (a sword, a snake, a slug, a
rose-thorn, a flag pole, etc.)
These theories are incredibly complex. Scholars of literature have long been
fascinated by psychoanalytic theory because it is, fundamentally, a literary
understanding of the workings of the mind. It is focused on narrative
(Oedipal complex, from the Greek myth of Oedipus) and symbolism (reading
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actions and objects as signs of inner turmoil).
For a good introduction to these theories, read almost any introduction to
literary theory textbook. I recommend Charles Bressler's Literary Theory.
Your edition of Jane Eyre (Bedford 1996) contains a useful thumbnail sketch
of psychoanalytic criticism (502-17); it is helpful to read this section and to
refer to the edition's glossary in thinking.
Promethean Hero A Villain-Hero who has done good but only by performing an overreaching or -rebellious act. Prometheus from ancient Greek mythology saved mankind
but only after stealing fire and ignoring Zeus' order that mankind should be
kept in a state of subjugation. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is tellingly
subtitled the "Modern Prometheus."
Psychobiographical
Criticism
Literary analysis that reads the text as being an expression of the author's
-psyche. Such criticism is extremely difficult to pull-off, for it requires
understanding an author's emotional, mental state, determining hidden
motivations, or reading a novel as a dream-scape or nightmare (in which all
of the events reflect traumatic moments that the author is attempting to
relive or relieve). In unskilled hands, such criticism falls prey to pop
psychology cliches, or the intentional fallacy. Despite its many flaws,
psycho-biograhpical criticism can be useful in reading gothic literature, for
gothic texts share many elements of nightmares or waking terrors:
nightmarish events, repeated scenes, feelings of entrapment, spooky
moments, etc. Many critics have found psychobiographical approaches
evocative readings of Frankenstein. Mary Shelley's own preface notes that
the storyline came to her, whole, in a dream (the original opening of tale is
Chapter 5, and it reads like a dark-and-stormy-night scary story, "It was on
a stormy evening in November when I beheld the accomplishments of my
toils.") Mary Shelley was, perhaps, motivated by the deaths of her children
to write this book about the reanimation of the dead (she suffered multiple
miscarriages and stillbirths). Perhaps this book was her subconscious
attempt to create a consoling memory or substitute for her lost children.
(her introduction calls the book itself a monstrous creature). Or perhaps the
book is locked into the self-destructive pattern of melancholic mourning in
which Mary Shelley continues to blame herself for the deaths of her children.
Think about the number of mothers who die in this text: Caroline Beaufort's
mother is dead before the book begins; Caroline Beaufort dies; Justine's
mother dies; Elizabeth, the replacement mother for the Frankenstein
children after Caroline's death, also dies.
Red Herring
A phrase referring to a pattern in detective fiction of deceptive clues, dead
ends, leads that go nowhere, or wrong turns. Such "red herrings" are
essential to well-written detective fiction. If the detective never had false
starts, the mystery would be solved too quickly and would not engage the
reader.
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Roving Finger
A term referring to a pattern in detective fiction in which the detective, such -as Sherlock Holmes, suspects a certain character of the crime (i.e., "points
his finger at") and then moves on to a different suspect (i.e., "the pointing
finger" moves on, or "roves" to a different suspect).
Satanic /
Promethean /
Faustian /
Byronic hero
This "hero" figure in Romantic era literature is a charismatic figure who often -drives the action of the story and is frequently self-absorbed,
megalomaniacal, demonic, nefarious, sophisticated, and compelling.
Different variations of this Romantic hero have been identified:

Satanic Hero: a Villain-Hero whose nefarious deeds and
justifications of them make him a more interesting character than
the rather bland good hero. Examples include Charlotte Dacre's
Zofloya; Beckford's Vathek, Radcliffe's Montoni, Polidori's Ruthven
and just about any vampire.

Promethean Hero: a Villain-Hero who has done good but only by
performing an overreaching or rebellious act. Prometheus from
ancient Greek mythology saved mankind but only after stealing fire
and ignoring Zeus' order that mankind should be kept in a state of
subjugation. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is tellingly subtitled the
"Modern Prometheus."

Faustian Hero: like the figure of Faust, whose overweening
ambition and desire for knowledge drives him to make a bargain with
the devil, this type of hero is self-absorbed, ambitious, and in a
powerful position. His ambition is often his tragic flaw, and to
achieve his ends he makes bad decisions--such as Faust's bargain
with the devil. Lewis's Ambrosio follows the path of the Faustian hero
(and is useful to remember that Lewis translated Goethe's play
Faust).

Byronic Hero: a later variation of the Villain-Hero, based on the
real historical figure of Lord Byron. Aristocratic, cosmopolitan,
suffering from ennui, suave, moody, handsome, solitary, secretive,
brilliant, cynical, sexually intriguing (frequently sexually ambiguous
or perverse), and nursing a secret wound, he is renowned because of
his fatal attraction for female characters and readers and continues
to occasion debate about gender issues. Example: Byron's Childe
Harold, or more recently the Batman (or Darkman) or film (creepy,
handsome, wealthy, secretive, attractive to women but unable to
sustain a relationship with one, damaged from a deep childhood
wound, and sexually ambiguous (his most sustained relationships
seem to be with Robin and his butler Alfred .. .).(Definition adapted
from Paul Quinnell, Glossary of Literary Gothic Terms at
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www.georgiasouthern.edu/~dougt/goth.html)
Satanic Hero
A Villain-Hero whose nefarious deeds and justifications of them make him a
more interesting character than the rather bland good hero. Examples
include Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya; Beckford's Vathek, Radcliffe's Montoni,
Polidori's Ruthven and just about any vampire.
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Science Fiction
A form of fantasy in which scientific facts, assumptions, or hyptheses form
-the basis of adventures in the future, other planets, other dimensions of
time and space (such as alternative pasts or alternative futures), or
imagined possibilities. The first science fiction novel is Frankenstein (1818);
it applies the possibilities inherent in early nineteenth-century experiments
in electricity, taxidermy, chemistry, etc. to a fictional narrative. One
traditional technique of science fiction is sometimes called the "black box"
effect. The narrator goes to great lengths to explain scientific principles
(using all sorts of dazzling references to scientific language, theories, and
readings), and then suddenly the experiment happens (almost by sleight of
hand--or in a black box--for we are not given step by step instructions about
how to replicate the experiment!), and we spend the rest of the novel
dealing with the results. If you read Frankenstein, or indeed almost any
scientific novel of its ilk, such as The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde, you will discover this pattern. The "Black Box" technique
demonstrates the ultimate triumph of fiction over science . . . we are so
dazzled by the scientific discussions that we suspend our disbelief and follow
the consequences of the story--even though the actual application of the
science principles is illogical or improbable. In other words, the imaginative
possibilities of fiction bring us into the wonder of the narrative.
Serial Fiction
The practice in the Victorian era (1834-1900) of publishing novels as a
-series of installments in a monthly, weekly, or bi-weekly magazine. Dickens,
for example, published almost all of work in this fashion, and the needs of
writing for serialization influenced his characteristic style. Serial fiction
writers such as Dickens learned to develop compelling plot lines with many
cliffhangers (to keep readers wanting more . . . and purchasing the
magazine's next issue so as to read the next installment). Characters would
be described in vivid, memorable and often excessive imagery, and their
names would reflect their character (Gradgrind, Bounderby, Inspector
Stalker, Mr. Tom Pinch, Mrs. Chickenstalker.). If a serialized novel was not
effective in holding its reader's attention, it would be cancelled in midstream. Because different journals and magazine would print critic's reviews
as well as letters-to-the-editor about reader's responses to ongoing novels
and sometimes to each installment, serial novels are particularly responsive
to the needs of audiences for the writers often revised their plots, killed off
characters, or added plot twists in order to keep the audience engaged.
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Sidekick
All detectives need a sidekick, an individual (like Dr. Watson) who is an
-admirer or follower of the detective and who serves as a stand-in for the
reader. The sidekick, like the reader, can't always follow the detective's
dazzling leaps of logic and intuition. And so, when Dr. Watson asks Sherlock
Holmes to explain how he came to his startling conclusions, the reader
learns the answers along with Dr. Watson. Another way to think of the
sidekick is to consider his/her role in the plot development. Without the
sidekick, the story would get bogged down in long, prosy explanations of
how the crime was solved. The sidekick lets explanations occur more
naturally through dialogue and character interaction. See also Deductive
and Inductive Reasoning.
The Gothic
The Gothic is notoriously difficult to define--literary works that inspire
-shivers of terror and the toe-curling delight of reading a scary book, late at
night, in an empty house . . . However, we can say that gothic works include
the following, typical elements:

conventions of Gothic: haunted or decayed structures (castles,
mansions, abbeys, etc.), obsession with the past, the supernatural,
entrapment and confinement (especially of the Gothic heroine),
terror, horror, family lineage, curses.

additional elements and concerns: unreliable or compulsive
narrators, displaced cultural or social anxiety, concerns with "bad
parenting" and "bad education" practices, nightmares, embedded
texts and embedded narratives (including frame narratives),
fascination with liminal states (often signaled by a literal threshhold),
boundary transgression.
The Gothic almost always focuses on a confrontation with an uncanny other,
and the genre is shaped by history to a surprising extent because Gothic
writings seem to become increasingly popular at times of great social stress
and economic uncertainty. (Heller 4-5)
As we read important gothic works from the very first Gothic novel, Horace
Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1765) to a twentieth-century work, Daphne
DuMaurier's Rebecca, we will continue to refine our definition of the Gothic.
The Literature of Many critics rely upon a sharp division between the literatures of terror and
Terror versus the horror.
Literature of
Horror
 Works of terror create a sense of uncertain apprehension that leads
to a complex fear of obscure and dreadful elements (see the
sublime). The essence of terror stimulates the imagination and
often challenges intellectual reasoning to arrive at a somewhat
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plausible explanation of this ambiguous fear and anxiety. Resolution
of the terror provides a means of escape.

Works of horror are constructed from a maze of alarmingly concrete
imagery designed to induce fear, shock, revulsion, and disgust.
Horror appeals to lower mental faculties, such as curiosity and
voyeurism. Elements of horror render the reader incapable of
resolution and subject the reader's mind to a state of inescapable
confusion and chaos. The inability to intellectualize horror inflicts a
sense of obscure despair.
Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis' The Monk
illustrate this divide between terror and horror and helped establish the
distinction. The former causes the reader to imagine and cross-examine
those imaginings; the latter causes shock and disgust; the former aspires to
the realm of high literature; the latter wallows in the low. But this distinction
is not always clear in works that follow in the gothic tradition, and this
uncertainty fuels critical debates about these works. (definition adapted
from Betty Rigdon, Glossary of Literary Gothic Terms at
www.georgiasouthern.edu/~dougt/goth.html).
As Stephen King suggests in Danse Macabre (London: Future, 1986), there
are three levels of horror fiction: the most significant is that which calls up
the terror of things unseen but suggested to the mind of characters and
readers. The second level is that of fear and the horrific. Such tales invite
physical reactions in the reader but are not as finely wrought as the first
level. The third level is the tale of mere revulsion, a tale that is designed to
create repulsion.
The Sublime
In 1757, Edmund Burke published one of the most important treatises ever -written on the nature of the aesthetic experience, <em>A Philosophical
Enquiry into the Origin of the Sublime and Beautiful</em>. He suggested
that humans have powerful emotional responses to two different types of
aesthetic encounters: the Sublime and the Beautiful. The Sublime refers to
those moments in which a human experiences a pleasing sense of terror
that is aroused by being confronted with violent or enormous natural
scenes. For example, a person standing on the shore of the ocean might feel
overwhelmed by its magnitude, and feel small, insignificant and powerless in
the face of such sublimity. The human feels his/her mortality at such
moments. However, the pleasurable aspect of such a moment is that the
human's mind and all of its faculties are suddenly set free from the usual
constraints of self-control and limitations, and new and thrilling
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understandings and awarenesses can arise. In short, ideas of pain, fear, and
supernatural danger displace or dismantle reason. Keep in mind that
ACTUAL pain does not cause a sublime experience, for physical pain reduces
the mind to a focus on the body. It must be the IDEA of pain. And so, Gothic
literature attempts to provide humans with the experience of terror and the
imagination that supercedes our reason or rational faculties (see antirationality, above). Read pp 321-327 in <em>The Castle of Otranto</em>
for key excerpts of Burke's treatise.
The Uncanny
According to Freud, we find things to be uncanny (unheimlich) when they
-are familiar to us (heimlich or “belonging to the home") yet also somehow
foreign or disturbing. Uncanny feelings can arise when something seemingly
inconsequential in our everyday lives calls forth repressed content stemming
from past experience, especially experiences linking back to childhood and
our passage into sexual awareness. For Freud, the uncanny derives its terror
not from something external, alien, or unknown but--on the contrary--from
something strangely familiar which defeats our efforts to separate ourselves
from it. See Freud’s seminal essay on E. T. A. Hoffman's The Sandman (The
Uncanny [1919]), in which he explains Nathaniel's terrified association of
the Sandman, an old and arguably benevolent device to get children to
sleep, with the loss of sight.
The Wandering
Jew
Also known as Ahasuerus, Cartaphilus, Malchus, or John Buttadeus. The
-term originates from a legend about a Jew who either ridiculed Jesus or
refused to allow him to rest at his door on his way to the cross. As a result,
Jesus condemned the Jew to roam the earth until judgment day. Portrayals
of the wandering Jew are divided into two categories: Ahasuerus is
considered the good wanderer who has repented of his behavior--every
wound he inflicts is felt upon his own body, and he is a non-violent scholar,
sage, demon fighter, and information broker. Cartaphilus is associated with
the bad wanderer. Cartaphilus does not accept his destiny, needs to inflict
pain upon others, and doomed to a lifetime of madness.
Some variations of the legend connect this figure to the story of Cain. God
condemned Cain for killing Abel and cursed him to wander the earth with a
mark upon his forehead to protect him. In Gothic works, the Wandering Jew
often symbolizes the curse of immortality. Some characteristics include
large, black, flashing eyes; a look of deep melancholy; a black velvet band
across his forehead; slow steps; a vast knowledge of distant countries and
events from long ago.
In general, European portrayals of the Wandering Jew are profoundly antisemitic. Whether the Wandering Jew has repented or not, the legend
assumes that the Wandering Jew has blood guilt in the death of Christ. Your
edition of The Monk contains a poetic tale that about the Wandering Jew
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that is a potential source text Lewis's depiction: Christian Friedrich Daniel
Schubart's "The Eternal Jew: A Lyrical Rhapsody" (379-82).
Unreliable
Narrator
Anyone telling a story is the narrator. An unreliable narrator is one whose
perception and interpretation of what he or she narrates is questionable,
and the reader seeks to qualify the narrator’s statements of fact and
judgment. A similar type of narrator is the "naive narrator." This type of
narrator is not so much unreliable/untrustworthy as gullible. The
implications of the narration are more clear to the reader than they are to
the narrator of the story.
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