THE (RE)MYSTIFICATION OF LONDON: REVELATIONS OF CONTESTED SPACE, CONCEALED IDENTITY, AND MOVING MENACE IN LATE- VICTORIAN GOTHIC FICTION A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH BY AARON JAMES HOUSHOLDER DISSERTATION ADVISOR: DR. JOYCE HUFF BALL STATE UNIVERSITY MUNCIE, INDIANA DECEMBER 2012 2 DEDICATION After school one day, my son (who was then in kindergarten) found me seated at my computer, as usual, working on this project. He said, “Wow, Daddy. I’m really glad we have a computer class at my school.” “Why is that?” I asked. “Because when I do MY dissertation,” he said, “I’ll probably have to spend a LOT of time at my computer just like you do.” In writing this project I have run the risk of making this image – me hunched over my computer keyboard – an enduring facet of my son’s childhood. At the conclusion of this process, my boy, I will endeavor to replace that image with other, more active and interactive memories. In the meantime, I would like to dedicate this work to my son Scottie, a second- grader now. I also dedicate it to my two other children, both born during the writing of this dissertation: my son Benjie, who passed away in 2010; and my daughter Alivia, who is now thirteen months old. And I dedicate this project to my wife Suahil, who has endured my occasional absence, frequently-divided attention, and recurring bouts of self- doubt with incomparable grace and support; I am humbled daily by her love. Without all of you there would have been no strength to do this work, and more importantly, no reason to do it. Whatever love I’ve invested in this project belongs wholly to you. 3 ABSTRACT DISSERTATION/THESIS/RESEARCH PAPER/CREATIVE PROJECT: The (Re)Mystification of London: Revelations of Contested Space, Concealed Identity, and Moving Menace in Late-Victorian Gothic Fiction STUDENT: Aaron J. Housholder DEGREE: Doctor of Philosophy in English COLLEGE: Sciences and Humanities DATE: December, 2012 PAGES: 256 This project asserts that much of the cultural anxiety found in Gothic-infused late- Victorian fiction derives from literary revelations of the nested spaces, shifting identities, and spontaneous connections inherent to the late-Victorian metropolis. The three literary texts studied here – The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle, Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman by E.W. Hornung, and The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan – all depict London as fundamentally suitable for those who seek to evade the disciplinary gaze and to pursue menacing schemes of criminality and invasion. Doyle’s text illustrates the interconnectedness of the spaces within London as well as the passable threshold between London and the English countryside; both the villain Stapleton and the hero Sherlock Holmes use these connections to attack and defend, respectively, the city and its inhabitants. Hornung’s stories depict the machinations employed by the gentleman-thief Raffles as he alters his identity and his codes of behaviour in order to 4 free himself to pursue criminal ends and thus as he challenges cultural barriers. Buchan’s text, building on the others, explores the dissolution of cultural boundaries and identities incumbent upon the spontaneous connections made between those who attack English culture and those, like Richard Hannay, who defend it. There emerges in these texts a vision of London (and by extension Great Britain) as a swirling vortex of motion, an unknowable labyrinth perpetually threatened by menacing agents from without and within. I have employed Victor Turner’s theories of liminality and communitas to describe how criminal agents, and their equally menacing “good-guy” pursuers, separate themselves from structured society in order to move freely and to gain access to the contested thresholds they seek to infiltrate. I also invoke theories of the Gothic, surveillance, and travel, as well as Jeffrey Cohen’s monster theory, to characterize the anxiety embedded in such invasions. TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication 2 Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 6 Chapter 1: Introduction 9 Chapter 2: The Transformation of Contested Space: Baker Street, Grimpen Mire, and the Battle for Thresholds in The Hound of the Baskervilles 51 Chapter 3: Hornung’s Code-Switching Monster: Threatening Ambiguity and Liminoid Mobility in Raffles, the Amateur Cracksman 109 Chapter 4: Towards a More Inclusive Britishness: Richard Hannay’s Transformative Connections and Evolving Identity in The Thirty-Nine Steps 179 Chapter 5: Conclusion 230 Bibliography 245 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the years it has taken to complete this project, I have been blessed beyond measure by the talented and caring people who have made this work possible. My first note of thanks must go to my director, Dr. Joyce Huff. Thank you for your patience, your guidance, your encouragement, and for your incredible ability to see through the clutter of my early drafts and to draw out all the good that was hidden therein. You have modeled for me what it means to offer criticism that is truly constructive. You have shown me that my self-doubts were part of the process and that my abilities could, with the right guidance, greatly exceed what I thought possible. This is the best work I’ve ever done, and it would not have been so without your direction. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thanks are due also to Dr. Kecia Thomson and Dr. Pat Collier, my professors as well as my dissertation committee members. I have learned from both of you the art of focusing my ideas, of writing with style and voice, and perhaps most importantly, of overcoming my fears of imperfection and allowing myself to write freely. Thank you for your feedback; I have valued it not only for the critical insights you have offered but also for the encouraging tone in which you have offered them. You have both nurtured this project into its present form and in doing so have helped make me the writer and scholar I am. Thank you. 7 I am thankful also to Dr. Melinda Messineo for her willingness to serve as the outside reader on my committee. I greatly valued the time I worked for you (all those years ago) during my assistantship with Freshman Connections at Ball State. It was your enthusiasm for your work and your amazing capacity to mix great academic achievement with humanity and compassion that led me to ask you to work on this project with me. Thanks always for your encouragement and for the way you model the type of professor and mentor I strive to be for my students. I am grateful for the sizable contingent of people at Taylor University who have been rooting for me to finish this project. I have received unfailing support and constant encouragement from hundreds of dedicated and caring students as well as from my colleagues in the English Department: Dr. Beulah Baker, Dr. Barb Bird, Professor Dan Bowman, Dr. Lorne Mook, Dr. Mary Muchiri, Dr. Joe Ricke, and Dr. Colleen Warren, and Pam Pegg. Thanks to you all for working with me, caring about me, putting up with me, and for believing that I could complete this undertaking. I also want to thank my department chair, Dr. Nancy Dayton, as well as the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts, Dr. Tom Jones, who both saw fit to hire me at Taylor even though I was just starting my dissertation and who have been steadfast in their mentoring, encouragement, patience, and support. It is a most humbling honor to work with and for both of you. Thank you for everything. I want to thank my friends Shane Thomson and Dr. Ryan Stryffeler, both of whom spent many hours with me as we discussed our respective dissertations and who both read early versions of this work. 8 I also want to send a special note of thanks to Dr. Abbie Comber, my grad school buddy, dissertation buddy, and dear friend. We started this grad school journey together in Dr. Hozeski’s Chaucer class in 2004 and we’ll end it together at Commencement this December, which is as it should be. Abbie, you posed this question in the Acknowledgements for your recently completed project: now that we’re done with our dissertations, what are we going to talk about? I look forward to discovering the answer to that question, my friend. As always, I am grateful to my family: to Mom and Dad, my sister Mica and her husband Matt, and my niece Maddie, all of whom would have been proud of me without this project. Thanks for picking up the slack while I was busy with this work, and for loving me. And, once again, to my wife Suahil and my children Scottie and Livie, I say thank you for your infinite patience, unfailing support, and steadfast belief that I could do this work. This, such as it is, is for you. CHAPTER 1 Introduction Contextual Background: Menace in Motion On the day he makes his treacherous escape from Dracula’s castle, Jonathan Harker writes one final entry in his journal, an entry structured around the climactic emotional moment in which he looks down upon the blood-gorged body of the Count in his coffin: There was a mocking smile on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad. This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless. The very thought drove me mad.