Jailbreakers, Villains, and Vampires: Representations of Criminality in Early-Victorian Popular Texts
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Syracuse University SURFACE English - Dissertations College of Arts and Sciences 5-2013 Jailbreakers, Villains, and Vampires: Representations of Criminality in Early-Victorian Popular Texts Elizabeth Fay Stearns Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/eng_etd Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Stearns, Elizabeth Fay, "Jailbreakers, Villains, and Vampires: Representations of Criminality in Early- Victorian Popular Texts" (2013). English - Dissertations. 63. https://surface.syr.edu/eng_etd/63 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts and Sciences at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in English - Dissertations by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABSTRACT In Jailbreakers, Villains, and Vampires: Representations of Criminality in Early- Victorian Popular Texts, I analyze moments of discursive dissonance that emerge through the juxtaposition of early-Victorian theories of criminality and representations of criminals in popular culture. In the 1830s and 1840s in England, methods for managing criminals underwent a series of revisions that corresponded to shifts in prevailing theories about the nature and course of criminal behavior. Assumptions that criminality was volitional, or that it originated in an individual’s deficient self-discipline, gradually shifted into perceptions that criminality was pathological, and that malefactors were naturally brutish and incorrigible. Predominant conceptions of criminality as stemming from character flaws or biological predispositions influenced depictions of criminals in a variety of Victorian popular texts including novels, plays, and, importantly, “penny bloods,” which were cheap publications marketed to lower-class readers. Such popular lower-class texts are rife with criminals and crimes yet their representations of criminality remain understudied. This penny literature often reproduces prevailing middle-class discourses about criminality, but these texts do so in ways that simultaneously disrupt those discourses. Specifically, popular culture tends to locate the origins of crime not in criminals but in the very institutions and social structures designed to regulate them. Analyzing popular representations of criminals in lower-class texts at a transitional moment in penal history demonstrates how conflicts between legitimate and subordinate cultures activated antidisciplinary potentialities. While historical and literary scholarship on middle-class crime fiction has flourished, crime literature popular with the lower classes has been largely neglected. Understanding how both dominant and subordinate literatures responded to and portrayed significant shifts in cultural theories and practices is, however, necessary to gain a fuller, more nuanced understanding of Victorian literature and culture. There is plenty of evidence available that suggests ways in which middle-class commentators interpreted the beliefs of the lower-classes, but much less is known about the views and narratives that were attractive to and so consumed – via this literature – by these audiences. Studying literature read by the lower-classes, especially those texts that were tremendously popular, is one step toward gaining insight into the possible interpretations of a largely inaccessible audience. JAILBREAKERS, VILLAINS, AND VAMPIRES: REPRESENTATIONS OF CRIMINALITY IN EARLY-VICTORIAN POPULAR TEXTS by Elizabeth Stearns B.A., Texas Tech University, 2004 M.A., Texas Tech University, 2006 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English. Syracuse University May 2013 Copyright © Elizabeth Stearns 2013 All Rights Reserved ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A number of institutions and individuals have helped bring this dissertation to fruition. I am grateful to the Syracuse University Department of English for the financial support during my graduate program. The Syracuse interlibrary loan department, Cambridge University Library, and Georgetown Law Library each facilitated access to essential texts that would otherwise have been impossible to acquire. Allen Hubin and Bill Contento graciously provided me with necessary sections of the Crime Fiction bibliography. I would have been hard pressed to arrange a better group of professors to work with on my dissertation committee. Erin Mackie, Mike Goode, Kevin Morrison, Claudia Klaver, and Susan Edmunds have each given me intellectual and emotional support throughout my tenure at Syracuse. I very much appreciate the unique relationships I have with each of them. Erin Mackie must be singled out for her untiring patience through multiple, often very rough, drafts. I thank her also for her guidance as I navigated the final stages of my graduate career. Many colleagues, friends, and family have offered encouragement, love, and advice. CJ Dosch, Rinku Chatterjee, and Melissa Welshans all took the time to comment on drafts and have made grad school more fun. I am fortunate to have parents and a brother who have always told me “you can do it!” and I am also fortunate to have a wonderful family of equally supportive in- laws willing to put up with my moodiness after spending too much time in the “dissertation cave.” Thanks to Samantha and Lucas Stearns for the Settlers of Catan tourneys, impromptu dance parties, and wild laughter that provided much needed relief. Without Jared Stearns, my partner and best friend, the successful completion of this dissertation would not have been possible, despite what he might say to the contrary. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One “His exploits will, henceforth, want the colouring of romance”: Changing Criminals in Early- Victorian Literature .............................................................................................................1 Chapter Two A “Darling of the Mob”: The Antidisciplinarity of the Jack Sheppard Texts ...................... 53 Chapter Three “An old mop as nobody can use”: Rewriting the Criminal in Varney the Vampyre ........... 102 Chapter Four “Villain, that you are”: Melodramatic Criminality in The Mysteries of London ................. 147 Notes ............................................................................................................................... 201 Works Cited ..................................................................................................................... 257 Vita .................................................................................................................................. 282 vi 1 CHAPTER ONE “His exploits will, henceforth, want the colouring of romance”: Changing Criminals in Early-Victorian Literature “Remember particularly that you cannot be a judge of any one. For no one can judge a criminal, until he recognises that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime…Though that sounds absurd, it is true. If I had been righteous myself, perhaps there would have been no criminal standing before me.” (Dostoyevsky 341) “It is well for our own vanity that we slay the criminal, for if we suffered him to live he might show us what we had gained by his crime.” (Wilde 145) In season 11 of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, investigator Raymond Langston testifies against Nate Haskell, the serial killer who stabbed him in the final episode of the previous season. During the trial, Haskell argues that he is not responsible for his violent behavior because he carries “the warrior gene,” also known as the MAOA gene, and was abused as a child.1 Langston counters Haskell’s testimony by revealing that he too is a carrier of the warrior gene and experienced mistreatment during his childhood, but instead of becoming a criminal, he pursues criminals and attempts to bring them to justice. “DNA isn’t destiny. We’re all responsible for our own actions,” Langston claims, emphasizing that committing a crime is a conscious decision regardless of genes or environmental circumstances. This argument convinces the jury that genetic predisposition is not a sufficient reason to mitigate Haskell’s sentence; he is found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to prison (“Targets of Obsession”). Specific connections between the warrior gene and crime, aggression, and violence began appearing frequently in popular culture after the MAOA gene featured in a 2009 study of behavioral aggression.2 MAOA, or monoamine oxidase A, helps regulate levels of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin in the human brain. According to the conclusions 2 of the 2009 experiment, individuals who have the low activity variant of the gene (MAOA-L) are more likely to exhibit aggressive behavior when provoked. In the experiment, subjects earned money by correctly answering questions on a vocabulary test. Subjects were then told that an anonymous opponent was stealing their earnings, and that they could choose to make the opponent eat painfully spicy sauce as a punishment.3 The researchers found that carriers of the warrior gene were more likely to dispense sauce to their opponents, supporting their hypothesis that those with the gene would exhibit more aggressive behavior in certain conditions (McDermott et al). The results of this experiment “support previous research suggesting that MAOA influences aggressive behavior, with potentially important implications for interpersonal aggression,