Monstrous Desire: Frankenstein and the Queer Gothic
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Monstrous Desire: Frankenstein and the Queer Gothic Mair Rigby 2006 UMI Number: U584824 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U584824 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 DECLARATION This work has not previously been accepted in substance for any degree and is not being concurrently submitted in candidature for any degree. Signed. .. ...................................... 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Summary Monstrous Desire: Frankenstein and the Queer Gothic Focussing upon Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Polidori’s The Vampyre, this study explores the extent to which Gothic fiction and queer theory can be posited as mutually illuminating fields of academic inquiry. There is certainly much scope for developing the exciting perspectives made possible by the work of theorists such as Michel Foucault, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Judith Butler in relation to Gothic fiction. But, in my view, it is no less important to consider how Gothic texts can be utilised to discuss queer scholarship and illustrate queer reading practices. Romantic Gothic texts produced during the early nineteenth century are well placed to engage with the discursive practices through which modem western ideas about sex, gender, sexuality and desire have materialised. I have therefore structured the chapters in this study around some of the pressure points in modem sexual discourse. In relation to critical and cultural issues surrounding the family, marriage, same-sex desire, sexual rhetoric and the author, the questions raised by these texts can be shown to complement questions which have been raised by queer scholarship. I propose that the genre still has much to reveal about the way we have come to think, speak and fantasise about the field of the sexual. I will also attempt to highlight areas where Gothic fiction could be developed as a site of queer critical pedagogy because these texts could provide accessible and enjoyable routes via which to introduce students to queer theory and reading practices. Overall, this study is intended to contribute productively to queer studies, Gothic studies and the emergent fields of Queer Gothic and Queer Romantic inquiry. Acknowledgments First and foremost, I want to thank Dr William J. Spurlin for his unstinting constant supervision, advice and support. I would also like to thank Professor Stephen Knight, Professor Martin Coyle, Dr Faye Hammill and Dr Helen Phillips who, although not directly involved with my work, have all provided me with help and encouragement during the process. I must thank Michael O’ Rourke who’s enthusiasm about my work has been invaluable to me. Noreen Giffney and David Collings also deserve my thanks in this respect. I am very grateful to my audiences at the ‘The(e)ories’ seminar and the ‘Queer Romanticisms’ conference at University College Dublin, and also the ‘Female Gothic’ conference at the University of Glamorgan. Their questions and comments have been very helpful. My fellow PhD students have helped create a mutually supportive environment in the school and I thank them for all the sympathy and conversation, as well as for listening to drafts of my papers. My family and friends have cheered me on throughout the process. Special thanks must go to Katrina and Richard Wakely, Rachel Bowen, Gemma Tetley, Josh Cockbum, Laura Bums and Claire Johns, Rose Thompson, Dr Keir Waddington and Liz O’Mahoney. Finally, to my parents, thank you for contributing so much to this project on so many levels. Earlier versions of material from chapters four, five and six has been published as a separate essay entitled “ Prey to some cureless disquiet’: Polidori’s Queer Vampyre at the Margins of Romanticism,’ in the Romanticism on the Net special edition ‘Queer Romanticism,’ guest-edited by Michael O’ Rourke and David Collings. CONTENTS Introduction: Queer and Gothic 1 1 ‘What Can Disturb Our Peace?’: Family Mythology and its 17 Discontents inFrankenstein 2 ‘With You on Your Wedding Night’: Shifting the Space of 51 Heterosexual Representation Frankensteinin and The Vampyre 3 ‘A Strange Perversity’: Bringing Out Desire between 84 Women inFrankenstein 4 ‘The Company of Men’:Frankenstein , The Vampyre, and the 118 Monstero f Homosexuality 5 Space, Desire, Knowledge: Gothic Textuality and the Language of 152 Queer Sexuality 6 Desiring the Author: Mary Shelley, John Polidori and the Sexual 190 Politics of Gothic Authorship Afterword 224 Works Cited 232 1 Introduction: Queer and Gothic the attractive possibility of a queer gothic, rich in all the paradox and sexual indeterminacy the word queer and the word gothic generally imply - Ellis Hanson (‘Lesbians who Bite’ 184) Gothic signifies a writing of excess - Fred Botting (Gothic 1) As a form of popular cultural production, Gothic texts have long been perceived to enjoy a privileged role in the representation of sexual fantasies and fears. There is even a commonly expressed opinion among readers, students and critics that, on one level, Gothic horror fiction is indeed all about ‘sex,’ especially sex of the most dangerous, deviant and perverse varieties. Since the advent of academic queer theory in the early nineteen nineties, the appearance of numerous publications addressing the presence of queer meaning in the genre suggests that Gothic fiction and queer theory may be complementary fields of inquiry. In my view, queer criticism is fascinated with the Gothic because Gothic texts have always been fascinated with the ‘queer,’ to such an extent that I read the genre as one that is devoted, in no small part, to speaking about the ‘queemess’ at the heart of culture. Like queer theory, the Gothic is a discursive space concerned with difference, otherness, marginality and the culturally constructed boundaries between the normal and the abnormal. Focussing upon Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Polidori’s The Vampyre, my research extends upon the exciting new perspectives made possible by queer reading methodologies. But, the contribution of this study to the field also lies in utilising these seminal early nineteenth-century texts to explore the extent to which Gothic fiction and queer theory can indeed be posited as mutually illuminating areas of academic inquiry. The term ‘queer theory’ is notoriously resistant to definition and its refusal to be fixed has often been deemed necessary to its continuing usefulness, for if the work of queer theory were ever to be finally defined, ‘queer’ could loose its shifting and open ended power to challenge. Queer resistance is therefore partly enacted through its own refusal to become a stable academic discipline, and most scholars attempt to use queer theory in their own way, but without attempting to pin down its possibilities. That said, queer theorists generally insist upon interrogating all sexual categories, radically critiquing normative concepts of sex and gender identity and exposing heteronormativity in all its manifestations. For myself, I make use of the term ‘queer’ to describe a conceptual tool and a position of critical resistance to heteronormativity and, in a sense, heterosexuality. But although there is much scope for developing the groundbreaking work of theorists such as Michel Foucault, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick and Judith Butler in relation to Gothic fiction, in my view, it is no less important to consider how Gothic texts can be used to further the work of queer theory. After all, queer theory is not known for its easy accessibility and is often associated with a particularly dense style of academic writing. For this reason, scholars and teachers should work to find ways of making queer theoretical thinking accessible to readers and students. Gothic fiction may prove particularly useful in this respect, for while queer theory provides new ways to talk about Frankenstein and The Vampyre, these texts may offer useful routes into exploring the concerns of queer theory. Although my research is not primarily concerned with critical pedagogy, I will therefore attempt to highlight areas where the texts could be used in the classroom as a site of queer pedagogy. Questions of (queer) reading are important throughout this study. The formulation ‘monstrous desire’ in