DIALOGUES OF DESIRE:

INTERTEXTUAL NARUTION IN THE WORKS OF

MARY SHELLEY AND WILLIAM GODWIN

Ranita Chatterjee Department of English

Submitted in pzrtial fulfilrnent of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Faculty of Graduate Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario December 1997

O Ranita Chatterjee 1998 National Library Bibliothèque nationale 1*1 of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie SeMces services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada

The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence dowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distniute or sell reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microfom, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfichelnlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique.

The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fiom it Ni la thése ni des extraits substantiels may be p~tedor otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent êeimprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. ABSTRACT Using Julia Kristeva's concept of intertextuality and Lacan's theories of desire, this study ârgues that there is a dialogic process that generates and circulates an "excess" of meaning that conscripts the desires of future readers in and between William Godwin's and Mary Shelley's fictional and non-fictional writings. Beginning with a critique of the predominantly psychobiograpnic readings of the literary output of this father-daughter pair, my study posits the notion of "psychonarration," A term of my own invention, psychonarration describes the intertextual connections that arise from within an intimate collective, such as the father-daughter relationship of Godwin and Shelley, to produce varied emergent discursive identities for each member. Psychonarration foregrounds the psychic, yet collective and dialogic constructions of identity through narratives. 1 frame my study with readings of what 1 argue are Godwin's and Shelley's most personal, yet textually constructed works: the former's recollections of and tribute to Mary Wollstonecraft in Memoirs of the Author of "A Vindication of The Riahts of Wornan" (1798), a work that publicly wrestles with the literary, political, and emotional legacies of a lover, wife, and mother that significantly provides Shelley with the only details of a mother she never knew; and the latter's originally unpublished fictional autobiographical confession of father- daughter incest in Mathilda (cornposed in 1819). 1 suggest that while Memoirs transposes Mary Wollstonecraft from historicsl existence to discursive construction through the operation of Godwin's desire for public sympathy for his loss, this particular rendition of Wollstonecraft is revisited both in his later domestic novels and in Shelley's fiction. Through readings of the repetition of narrative

iii patterns, structures, characters, themes, and diction, my study suggests that Godwin's Caleb Williams, Mernoirs, Fleetwood, and his last novei Deloraino, and Shelley's Frankenstein, Mathilda, "The Mourner, " and her last novel Falkner, engage in different textual dialogues that contest and confirm the portrayal of familial relationships, especially of father-daughter intimacy in a family without a mother. In so doing, 1 suggest that there is a complicated, libidinal interaction between the historical iives of authors and the textual inscriptions of these histories.

Keywords: Romanticism, Romantic literature, Gothic novels, Godwin, Shelley, Wollstonecraft, Kristeva, Lacan, Freud, Foucault, Feminist Theory, Psychoanalysis, Queer Theory, Intertextuality, Desire, Autonarration, Homoeroticism, Incest, Father-Daughter Relationships. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With deep gratitude and respect, I thank my supervisor Professor Tilottama Rajan and my second reader Professor Elizabeth D. Harvey for their guidance, insignt, and unfailing enthusiasm and patience for a project that survived arduous dislocations. 1 am also grateful for a doctoral fellowship in the early stages of this dissertation from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. 1 am indebted to my parents, sister, and brother who through their own examples of academic excellence sustained my desires to see this project to its completion. Finally, 1 thank Tomo Hattori not only for inspiring me with his academic success, but also for pxoviding astute criticism, intellectuâl conversations, and personal support from the beginning. TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page Certificate of examination ii Abstract iîi Ac knowledgements v Table of Contents vi

Introduction: Intertextuality, Psychonarration, and Desire in the Godwin-Shelley family

"The Most Hurtful Performance": Shelley's Mernories and Godwin's Memoirs of Wollstonecraft 18

Political Anxiety: William Godwin, Caleb Williams and Masculine Desire 85

"A mummy again endued with animation": The (Re)production of Desire in Shelley's Frankenstein

Conclusion: "An eternal mental union": Mathilda and the Circulation of Desire in Shelley's and Godwin's Writings

Works Cited and Consulted

Vita Introduction Intertextuality, Psychonarration, and Desire in the Godwin-Shelley family'

Among the Godwins and the Shelleys, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley has only recently begun to enjoy the scholarly attention she deserves.: Significantly, with the critical rediscovery of her writings, especially those published after Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818, 1831), Shelley's relationship to her father William Godwin is once again being examined. There is much available biographical and autobiographical material on the lives of Godwin and Shelley, as well as many critical

l Unless otherwise stated, "Shelley" will be used to refer to Mary Shelley throughout this study. Although there has always been a steady critical concern with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, there are now book-length appraisals and critical essays on her other writings. 1 believe, along with critics such as Tilottama Rajan ("Mary Shelley's" 43), that the republication of Mathilda and the reissuing of The Last Man have contributed to this renewed interest in Mary Shelley and her corpus. Mathilda has been reprinted in two anthologies: see Bennett's and Robinson's The Marv Shellev Reader, and Todd. In addition to the Hugh Luke edition of The Last Man that has been reissued by Anne K. Mellor, there are two new editions of this novel: Morton D. Paley's 1994 and Anne McWhirts 1996 editions. For some of the more influential criticism on Mary Shelley see: William Veeder's 1986 Marv Shellev and Frankenstein: The Fate of Androavnv, Anne Mellor's 1988 Marv Shellev: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters, Jane Blurnberg's 1993 Marv Shellev's Earlv Novels: "This Child of Imagination and Miserv," the 1993 collection of essays The Other Marv Shellev: Bevond Frankenstein, and Katherine C. Hill-Miller's 1995 "Mv Hideous Proaenv": Marv Shellev. William Godwin, and the Father-Dauahter Relationshi~. The recent 1997 collection of essays Iconoclastie ûe~artures: plam Shellev after Frankenstein: Essavs in Honor of the Bicentenarv of Marv Shellev's Birth attests to the growing interest in Mary Shelley's entire corpus and includes a useful biographical census of Shelley's fiction other than Frankenstein. readings at least of Godwin's Thinas As Thev Are; or The Fdventures of Caleb Williams (1794, 1797, 1816, 1831) and Shelley's Frankenstein.' Nevertheless, there have been no full-length studies that consider the relationship between the father's and the daughterfs texts. With the influential publication in 1988 of Anne Mellor's Marv Shellev: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters, Shelley's persona1 relationships, especially with Godwin, became the foundation for criticism of her fictional works in highly suggestive ways. For both in uncovering the vast range of Shelley's corpus and in rejuvenating her literary reptation, Mellor constructs Mary Shelley as a literary daughter and a woman writer, albeit one who is committed to "the preservation of the bourgeois family" because of her own "childhood deprived of a loving nuclear family" (xii).' This acknowledgement of the relevance of Mary Shelley's familial context for her literary production, particularly of the influence of her father, has also contributed to the recent study by Katherine C. Hill-Miller, "Mv Hideous Proaenv" : Marv Shellev, Wil1.iarn Godwin. and the Father-

In fact, while studies of Godwin's entire corpus are rare, there are several recent biographies of him. See Don Locke's 1980 A Fantasv of Reason: The Life and Thouaht of William Godwin, Peter Marshall's 1984 William Godwin, and William St Clair's 1989 The Godwins and the Shel levs: The Bioara~hvof A Familv, which, despite its title, is a biography primarily of Godwin. ' Because Mellor's study was the first major discussion of al1 of Shelley's writings, some subsequent critics of Mary Shelley have felt compelled either to acknowledge or to refute Mellor's readings of Shelley's works within and through her life experiences. Hence, for instance, Kate Ferguson Ellis in a chapter on Frankenstein in her study The Contested Castle: Gothic Novels and the Subversion of Domestic Ideoloav (1989) persuasively argues that far from desiring the affections of a loving, nuclear family, Shelley's fiction explores the limitations of such a domestic grouping. Dauuhter Relationshi~ (1995).' While it alludes to possible linkages between Godwin's writings and Shelley's fiction, Hill-Miller's work is framed by a biographical imperative to read the daughter's texts in terms of the Freudian family romance in which Godwin (and Percy Shelley, although little mention is made of him) is the (literary) patriarch. Because Hill-Miller "examines the development of a father- daughter relationship, and, in that context, the growth of girl from childhood to womanhood" (Il), she reads, in addition to Frankenstein, those novels by Shelley that portray father-daughter incestuous relations, either explicitly or symbo1ica:ly. Both Mellor and Hill-Miller emphasize the biographical details over the textual ones and, thus, enact a type of psychobiographical reading/ While Mellor and Hill-Miller discuss the influence of

Although the influence of familial structures on literary production and the depiction of familial politics in fiction has long been an object of analysis in scholarship on British eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature, these studies have not considered the textual relationships between fictional and non-fictional works by members of a family or among Romantic novelists. See Marianne Hirsch's The Mother/ Dauahter Plot: ve, Psvchoanalvs s, Feminism, Lynda Zwinger ' s Daughters* Fathers, and the Novel: The Sentimental Romance of Heterosexualitv, Beth Kowaleski-Wallace's Their Fathers' Pauahters: Hannah More. Marj a Edoeworth, and Patriarchal Com~licjtv, and Paula Cohen's The Daughter ' s Dilemma: Familv Pxocess and the Nineteenth-Centurv Domestic Novel- The tendency to read "minor" authors biographically has previously kept Mary Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary Hays, and other Romantic women writers from being considered for their literary productions. With feminist revisionary work, such as that by Mellor and Hill-Miller, this is changing- For a theoretically sophisticated reading of Hays's first novel that does not read her fiction throagh her life but rather articulates a complex relationship between the two, see Tilottama Rajan's "Autonarration and Genotext in Mary Hays' Memoirs of Emma Courtney." Godwin on Shelley's literary càreer, particularly tnrough the binary and opposirionâl relationship between fathcrs and daughters, my study traces the ways in which Godwin's and Shelley's identities are constructed through the discursive relationships between and among their texts. What is remarkable about this father-daughter pair is that they botn read each other's works and respond to each other's narratives by producing other texts. Although previous scholarship on Godwin by critics such as Marilyn Butler, Pamela Clemit, Gary Handwerk, and Gary Kelly has recognized the literary influence of Caleb Williams on Shelley's Frankenstein, Godwin is stili best known for his perceptive analysis, whether in fiction or prose, of the structures and operations of political 3ustice.

' B. J. Tysdahl's 1981 study, William Godwin as Novelist, is still the only book-length analysis of Godwin's fictional corpus. Moreover, Tysdahl considers Godwin's last two novels, Cloudeslev (1830) and Deloraine (1833), as "mark[ing] a decline: Godwin's weaknesses as a novelist are more obvious" (148). In a recent discussion on editing Romantic works, Marilyn Butler claims that there is an explicit connection between our perception of Romanticism and publishing practices. Because my study also aims to revitalize scholarly discussions of Godwin by considering some of his later novels, I quote Butler's argument in full: Until the present generation, the Romantic novel (as opposed to Austen's ün-Romantic "novel of manners") figured relatively little in U.S. courses, though Scott counted for more in his native Scotland, on the continent, and possibly in Canada. In 3ts symbiotic relationship with publishing practice, literary history paid virtually no attention to five out of six of Godwin's mature novels. Now, supposing you to be [sic] a Romanticist, you could for three years have been reading Godwin's extraordinary studies of modern marriage, St Leon (l799), Fleetwood (1805), Mandeville (1817) and Delorajne (1834)--the only novels in English to match the power and intensity of Jane Evre, according to one of Brontë's first reviewers. To read them is incidentally to get al1 kinds of insight into a key Romantic grouping, the one that includes I suggest that both for contemporary critics and for his daughter, Godwin's most significant textual legacy is his Memoirs of the Author of "A Vindication of The Riahts of Woman" (17981, a work that has yet to be the object of much critical attention.' This tribute to Mary Wollstonecraft is not only the preeminent source-book for most of the biographical particulars about Shelley's parents, but also Shelley's only access to certain details about a mother she never knew. In other words, Shelley's relationship to her mother is always already mediated by her father's textual rendition of Wollstonec~dftin Memoirs.' As 1 argue in Chapter One, Godwin's recollections of his feminist wife construct a figure of her that is then circulated in the texts of the surviving daughter and grieving husband. Indeed, his portrayal of the life of Mary Wollstonecraft becomes a narrative that resurfaces in different yet recognizable configurations in Shelley's works and Godwin's later novels. Thus, Godwin's Memoirs becomes the key text in a dialogic process of creating familial identities in narrative that 1 cal1 "psych~narration."~~

Wollstonecraft and Percy and Mary Shelley. It is also to change our preconceptions about (say) the evolution, quality and technical sophistication of the Romantic and Victorian novel. ("Editing" 277)

a ~itziMyers' 1981 article, "Godwin's Memoirs of Wollstonecraft: The Shaping of Self and Subject," remains among the few readings of Godwin's important tribute to Mary Wollstonecraft. Curiously, there is little scholarship on the specific discursive connections between Mary Wollstonecraft's corpus and her daughter's texts. Rather, Wollstonecraft remains the influential and yet absent mother in Shelley's life.

l0 Godwin wrote only one novel, Caleb Williams (l794), during Mary Wollstonecraft's lifetime. After her death, Godwin My notion of psychonarration stems from Tilottama Rajanls concept of "autonarration," that is used to describe "a genre characterized by its transgressive rniscegenation of private and public spaces" ("Autonarration" 158-9). For Rajan, autonarration is characteristic of Romantic texts and "can be defined as a specific form of self-writing, in which the author writes her life as a fictional narrative, and thus consciously raises the question of the relationship between experience and its narrativization" ("Autonarration" 160). Autonarration defines a text that is neither an autobiography nor simpiy a fiction because of "its genesis in the life of a real individual" ("Autonarration" 161) . Whereas autonarration emphasizes the relationship between one author's lived experiences and their narrativizations, I use the term "psychonarration" to describe this process of subject formation that occurs through texts by individuals who are bound by intimate libidinal investments in each other, such as that of a father and a daughter. In other words, I argue that a writer's creation of a textual figure published five more novels: St. Leon: A Tale of the Sixteenth Centurv (1799), Fleetwood: or The New Man of Feelinq (1805), Mandeville: A Tale of the Seventeenth Centurv in England (1817), Cloudeslev: A Novel (1830), and Deloraine (1833). While Percy Shelley was alive, Mary Shelley published Frankenstein (1818), wrote Mathilda (1819) and composed Valuerua (18231, which was published after his death. Like Godwin, Mary Shelley published more novels after the death of her spouse: The Last Man (1826}, The Fortunes of Perkin Warbeck (18301, ,L_odoxe.(183% and Falkner (1837). As well, both Godwin and Shelley collected, edited and published their respective partners' work. Mary Shelley's editorial intervention in and posthumous publication of Percy Shelley's works recast him in the figure of the notable Romantic poet. Similarly, William Godwin's detailed biography of Mary Wollstonecraft transformed her life into a text for both future scholars and Mary Shelley. In short, 1 focus principally on the works of Godwin and Mary Shelley since the premature deaths of Mary Wollstonecraft and Percy Shelley place them in the realm of fantasy for the narratives by the surviving family members. of the seif is the result of her or his interactions with other such figures produced by other writers. In the Godwin and Shelley family circle, it is the discursive conversation between and among the father's and daughter's works that produce different textual subjects. Hence, rny use of the term psychonarration to describe the mechanisms of literary composition among the Godwins and the Shelieys foregrounds the psychic, yet collective and dialogic constructions of identity through narratives. Psychonarration, then, defines a process of textual production that is, to use Julia Kristeva's term, "intertextual." Kristeva points out that both the novel and the socio-historical context in which it is written are texts to be read by an author, and "into which he inserts himself by rewriting them" ("Word" 65). Texts are not stable objects to be understood; they are sites for author- readers to "write themselves," that is, to insert themselves into a narrative. Intertextuality is, therefore, not concerned with authorial influences or literary sources, both of which presume a readerly work, to use Roland Barthes1 terms. Rather, the work is a writerly text that has intertextual links to other texts, which can be other novels, writers, readers, and so on." Kristeva uses the term intertextuality or "transposition" to describe the "passage from one signifying system to another [that] demands a new articulation of . . . enunciative positionality" (Revolution 60). In the transposition of sign systerns, the author is revealed to be a subject-in- process. With Godwin and Shelley this transposition also

l1 Although Barthes's distinction between the work and the text is useful, in this study 1 use both terms to describe an author's literary product, with no assumptions of how we might read that product. occurs between and among different subjects-in-process. Thus, the term psychonarraticn describes the ways in which intertextual connections that arise from within an intimate collective, such as the father-daughter relationship of Godwin and Shelley, produce varied emergent discursive identities for each mernber. If psychonarration is the name of the operation by which intertextuality between ana among related subjects-in- process produces further texts, we can identify this circuit of deferral and continuation as Desire. We might begin by acknowledging that with the advent of post-structuralism, especially of Derridean deconstruction and Lacanian psychoanalysis, desire has been embodied in the economy of loss, lack, and absence. This narrative of desire is partly influenced by Hegelian notions of identity formation, especially Jean Hyppolite's formulation in Genesis and Structure of Heuel ' s Phmomenol oav of S~irit. Hyppolite suggests that self-consciousness, which for Hegel is "desire in general" (qtd.in Hyppolite 157), "can reach its truth only by finding another living self-consciousness" (Hyppolite 156). In other words, a self-conscious subject confirms its recognition of itself as 'self" through another self-conscious subject. The ability to confirm objectively one's self-consciousness through that of another replicates the actions of recognizing self-consciousness in one's "self." It is the desire to know itself that constitutes Hegel's subject, but this knowledge needs to be rnediated by another self-consciousness. For Hegel, desire points to a lack or absence in the subject. This lack can be satisfied only by another desiring subject with a lack; that is, Hegel's desiring subject needs to be desired by another desiring subject. While desire in Lacanian terms also materializes out of the inherent split in the subject and the need for an object, Lacan's theories locate this emergence in ianguage. For Lacan "the moment in which desire becomes human is also that in which the child is born into language" (Ecrits 103). In the Lacanian model, desire is an effect of language and is associated with the phallus which, because of its connection to the penis, represents sexual difference. It is through sexual difference that the individual enters the symbolic order and adopts a subject position in language." In the child, sexual difference creates both the consciousness of difference from tne Other who has nourished the child and the desire for this Other. Like the desire of Hegel's subject, that of Lacan's subject is, as Jane Gallop has noted in Reading Lacan, "inextricably knotted up with the Other' s desire" (184). However, unlike Hegel ' s genderless conception of the Other, Lacan's notion of the Other is one in which the Other cannot be anyone but the mother, or more specifically the original imagined unity

'' Both Freud and Lacan see the penis as the marker of sexual difference that propels the infant out of the imaginary and into the symbolic order. Clearly, the inability to recognize the significance of the female organ, along with the importance attached to the penis, is the greatest "blind spot" in Freudian and Lacanian theories. In using the term "blind spot" 1 am, of course, referring to Luce Irigaray's influential 1974 deconstruction of Freud in Speculum of the Other Woman. Moreover, for Lacan, the phallus, associated with the Father's law, reigns cver the Symbolic order, guaranteeing the subject a place in language. The phallus is transformed into the universal signifier of power, language, and subjectivity by denying its connection to the anatomical male organ. Similarly, the father sacrifices the bodily for the metaphorical and becomes the Name- of-the-Father, or the symbolic father. As Lacan has remarked, "the phallus is the privileged signifier of that mark in which the role of the logos is joined with the advent of desire" (Ecrits 287). In other words, language and desire are connected through the phallic signifier. with the mother, since Lacan locates desire in the primary repression of libidinal unity with the materna1 body. Infants are forced to leave the imaginary order of blissful union with their mothers because of their self-awareness and articulation of their needs, or what is known as "demand." Desire is constituted by lack, yet is beyond language and therefore cannot be articufated. Lacan says that "desire begins to take shape in the margin in which dernand becomes separated £rom need" (Ecrits 311) . Hence, desire is located in the gap between recovering through demand that repressed libidinal unity with the (M)Other/ (m)other, and requiring the fulfilment of need. Desire is that "excess or residue left unsatisfied through the gratification of need . . . and left unspoken by the articulation of demand" (Grosz, Sexual Subversions xiv) . In order to read Godwin's and Shelley's writings as constructing various subjectivities, I use the term "desire" to trace the formation of textual subjects. The gaps, spaces, cracks, or fissures that arise in and between texts and their textually inscribed authors not only defer absolute understanding or complete satisfaction but also, in so doing, elicit "readers" to fil1 the gaps. Desire ernerges in this deferral. Desire thus produces textual identities and implicates readers in texts. That Godwin and Shelley respond to each other's works through texts and, in the process, reconstruct new discursive identities for themselves and each other suggests that the desire that enables a specific set of textual signs to coalesce into an identity also exposes texts as fragmentary and in need of readers who are, in turn, transposed into the text as discursive constructions. Desire, then, does not follow a linear path between discreet entities but circulates among texts that are necessarily fragments. In my reading of desire within psychonarration, 1 use the term "circulation" to describe the paths or flows of "excess" that surface in the symboiic order, which the text occupies, but that by virtue of being a disruption to this order is associated with Kristevals notion of the "semiotic." For Kristeva, the "semiotic is articulated by flow and marks" and is used "to designate the operation that logically and chronologically precedes the establishment of the symbolic and its subject" (Revolution 41). In other words, as Elizabeth Grosz aptiy states, "the symbolic harnesses [these semiotic] libidinal flows, regulating and 'digitalizing' to form signifying elements, discourses, and practices" (Jacaues Lacan 153). Psychonarration names the process by which apparently autonomous subjects-in-process are, in fact, both entwined with other subjects-in-process and also disfigured as a result of their emergence from the semiotic into the symbolic. Although my use of desire is indebted not only to Hegel's recognition of its genesis in the interaction between desiring subjects, but also to Lacan's formulation of it as produced by absence and producinq endless deferral of presence, 1 regard desire as a generative force. Desire is the excess that circulates intertextually between and among Godwin's and Shelley's texts. While it may arise out of a lack or absence in the text, desire also stimulates a response by future readers. For the reader is conscripted by the fragmentary nature of the text to produce meaning. In Godwin's and Shelley's works, the patterns of narrative repetition and remembering may be regaraed not so much as returns as "circulations" of desire that produce new discursive identities and readings that, themselves, create further trajectories of desire. This study of the writings of Godwin and Shelley, thus, traces the circulation of desire in and among their texts by reconsidering how Shelley, Godwin, and their fictional works and characters negotiate the discursive constructions of the self and their positions relative to other süch textual figures.:' My conception of desire is attuned to the historical and cultural relevance of these particular negotiations. Accordingly, desire in my study is also informed by Stephen Greenblatt's and Valerie Traub's articulation of the "poetics of culture," specifically Traub's understanding of the circulations of desire as "ideological exchanges that occur along lines of social fracture and cohesion" (5). By foregrounding the significonce of the discourses that are produced between and among subjects-in-process, psychonarration reveals the gendered and generational texture of the social field of familial interactions. As Michel Foucault reminds us, power is omnipresent, "not because it has the privilege of consolidating everything under its invincible unity, but because it is produced from one moment to the next, at every point, or rather in every relation from one point to another" (The History of Sexualitv 93) . Force relations in the Godwin and Shelley textual circle are bcth reinforced and contested as desire crosses back and forth between and among texts, generating

l3 As with criticism that considers literary families and familial literature, there are no book-length scholarly readings of the circuits of desire within and between specific Godwin and Shelley texts. Linda Kauffman's Discourses of Desire (1986) explores the path of desire in various epistolary fictions, but does not include Romantic texts and does not focus specifically on the circulation of desire within a literary family. Laura Claridge's Romantic Potencv (1992) effectively analyzes the male writer's paradoxical yearning to capture his desire to transcend language, and focuses on Wordsworth, Byron, and Percy Shelley. My study of William Godwin and Mary Shelley is partly enabled by such psychoanalytic approaches to Romantic .poetry. further trajectories of desire with each such intertextual interaction. Psychonarration thus acknowledges that the eruptions of psychic and familial desires alter power relationships in the symbolic field, and, therefore, can disfigure individual subject claims to historical and canonical propriety. To this end, 1 frame my study with readings of what 1 argue are Godwin's and Shelley's most personal, yet textually constructed works: the former's recollections and tribute to Mary Wollstonecraft in Memoirs, and the latter's originally unpublished novella Mathilda. Both these texts occupy sirnilarly transitional and libidinal positions in the corpus of each author: Memoirs publicly wrestles with the literary, political, and emotional legacies of a lover, wife, and mother that not only Godwin but also Shelley revisits through different narratives and characters; Mathilda privately confronts the intellectual and libidinal legacies of a father and literary patriarch that not only Godwin but also Shelley responds to in later published novels. Indeed, as my study demonstrates, both Memoirs and Mathilda initiate trajectories of desire that circulate intertextually with other works. Chapter One thus begins with an exploration of the narrative of Mary Wollstonecraft that Godwin produces in Memoirs. Not only was Memoirs composed and published shortly after Wollstonecraft's death, but a second revised version was also published in the same year, highlighting not the historicity but the textuality of the work. A cornparison of the two versions with Godwin's private recollections of his wife recorded in his journal, reveals that Mernoirs was far from a simple biographical account of Wollstonecraft's life. Rather, as his Preface to Memoirs suggests, Godwin's desires for public sympathy for himself and for Wollstonecraft's life and politics exceed the traditional boundaries of biography. 1 argue that Memoirs is more remarkable for its particular inscription of Godwin's own desires than for its portrayal of Wollstonecraft. In fact, Godwin's transposition of Mary Wollstonecraft from historicai existence to discursive figure in Memoirs affects both his subsequent dornestic novels and Shelley's fiction. Hence, I explore the intertextual circuits of desire that Memoirs initiates by reading for the figure of Wollstonecraft in Godwin's St. Leon, Fleetwood, and Deloraine. These three domest ic novels, among other things, either idealize Wollstonecraft in contradiction to the sometimes unflattering characterization of her in Memoirs, or reconstruct the husband's position as voyeur of her life. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications for Mary Shelley of Godwin's detailed, visceral portrayal of her birth and her mother's subsequent death. Godwin's publication and, thus, textualization of Mary Wollstonecraft's life transforms his work into an origin that haunts both the father's and daughter's writings of desire. Crucial to my study is the awareness that Shelley's relationship to her mother is always already textually mediated by her father. Through the recognition of the process by which the discursive construction of Wollstonecraft emerges in Memoirs, in Chapter Two I return to Godwin's earlier Caleb WilJiams as a text that figures Godwin within a libidinal economy of male hornosociality that cannot recognize itself as such. Insofar as Caleb Williams confronts the insecurity of male privilege, and moreover resolves the ambiguously hostile relationship between the aristocratie Falkland and the inquisitive Caleb neither within the political nor the libidinal context of the narrative, Godwin's novel intimates that there may be an alternative to "things as they are." That Godwin wrote two endings, and published only one, further points to the excess that this novel ieaves for future readers, the most notable one being Mary Shelley. My readings of Memoirs and Caleb Williams in the first two chapters of this study reveal a disjuncture in Godwin's writing career that 1 delineate by periodizing his relationship with Wollstonecraft. Thus, 1 discuss the "pre- Wollstonecraft Godwin" of Caleb Williams, whose concern with political justice blinds him to the libidinal dynamics of the social fabric, and the "post-Wollstonecraft Godwin" of Fleetwood and Deloraine, whose awareness of the significance of passions and emotions conflicts with his own earlier desires. In Chapter Three 1 explore the consequences for Mary Shelley's literary corpus of these twin legacies of a masculinist, homosocial pre-Wollstonecraft Godwin and a pro- feminist, conflicted post-Wollstonecraft Godwin. Through a close reading of the narratological and characterological structures of Frankenstein, particularly of the Creature, Safie, and the signifier "Safie," I argue that this first work by Shelley both inherits Godwin's contradictory legacies and maps out a possible alternative. If, as a result of its inheritance of Godwinian structures, Fyankenstein recalls various narrative patterns and characters from Caleb Williams, Shelley's novel is also indebted to Godwin's desire for articulating a more feminist (Wollstonecraftian) voice. 1 suggest, then, that Shelley is both disabled and enabled by Godwin's own conflicted desires as they appear in Memoirs and in his later fiction. Thus, Frankenstein remains a cryptic feminist text. The concluding chapter on Mathilda both establishes Shelley's ability to construct effectively a critique of the Godwinian legacies that this novella also reworks, and traces the contours of another trajectory of desire that, among other works, constructs Godwin's Deloraine as a textual response to Mathilda's depiction of father-daughter incestuous desires. 1 suqgest that because Mathilda was sent to Godwin who refused to publish the manuscript, Shelley's trope of father-daughter emotional incest surfaces in her other published works. For both the brief tale "The Mourner" and Shelley's last novel Falkner focus on the father-daughter intimacy that arises after the premature death of a loving mother, and on the daughter'ç ambivalent response to this relationship. These two works aiso return, as does Mathilda, to Godwin's depiction of Wollstonecraft in Memoirs. What is most striking about Shelley's Mathilda and "The Mourner," however, is their constructions of a father- daughter legacy. In addition to revisiting the familiar pattern of pursuit from Caleb Williams and to recreating partly frorn Mernoirs an ideal figure of Wollstonecraft in the character of Emilia, Godwin's last novel Deloraine also reconsiders the value of father-daughter love through the portrayal of Catherine's affectionate fidelity to her only parent, Deloraine. This particular rendition, however, is precisely what is remembered and disfigured in Shelley's last novel Falkner. Falkner's depiction of the strong and fiercely independent Elizabeth Raby, whose devotion to her adopted father Rupert Falkner scandalizes Shelley's characters and some of her readers because of its incestuous overtones, also enacts a textual response to Godwin's portrayal of the spirited yet submissive Catherine. My concluding chapter thus intimates that in reading William Godwin's and Mary Shelley's fictional and non-fictional narratives together, one uncovers a dialogic process that both generates and communicates desire in and between these familial texts. If desire is an excess that circulates between authors and their texts in the social field, and can only be traced by the gaps in the texts, the very presence of desire, produced as it is out of absence, signals the fragmentary and Romantic nature of the Godwin and Shelley works 1 consider. That a recognition of the familial intertextual dynamics of literary production, especially through Godwin's Memoirs, leads to tnis discovery of the circuitous paths of desire in Godwin's and Shelley's writings further implies that neither history nor textüality is a stable entity free from the influence of the other. This study, then, argues that an awareness of the fragrnentary and fluid nature of texts as sign systems is crucial to an understanding of the creation of the historical subjects we know as "William Godwin" and "Mary Shelley." This focus on textual process allows us to discuss the writer's and reader's desires not as expressions of a historical individual but as generative forces that materialize the body in discourse. Thus, rny exploration of the libidinal economy of William Godwin's and Mary Shelley's respective works considers the act of narration and the writing of narratives by authors and fictional characters as constituting their social and textual identities within circuits of desire and relations of power.14

l4 Throughout this study, the following abbreviations will be used in rny citations. The different works by William Godwin will be abbreviated as follows: for Political Justice, CW for eb WiLIjams, Mernoirs for Mernoirs of the Author of "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman", a for Fleetwood and pE for Deloraine. The works by Mary Shelley that 1 discuss will be referred to as follows: FR for Frankenstein and for Betty T. Bennett's and Charles E, Robinson's edition of vathilda. Chapter One "The Most Hurtful Performance" : Shelley's Memories and Godwin's Mernoirs of Wollstonecraft

Though Mary Wollstonecraft's polemical writings are an early instance of feminist intellectual scholarship in the Anglo-American tradition, she is rernernbered more for her controversial life than for her political 2nd fictional works. Both in and out of British Romantic studies, Wollstonecraft's life, like Mary Shelley's, overshadows her writings. Wollstonecraft's illicit love affairs, attempted suicide, unwed pregnancies, religious unorthodoxy, and death in childbirth dominate interpretations both of her and her daughter's fiction. In scholarship on the fictional works of this remarkable family, critics such as Anne Mellor or William Veeder often assume a mimetic relation between so- called factual details and fictional representations, making the life the signified for the work.' This type of psychobiographic literary criticism is fuelled by what is arguably the first psychobiography of Wollstonecraft:

' While Veeder and Mellor provide valuable insights into the libidinal dynamics of the Godwin-Shelley family, their readings tend to rely on biographical rather than textual details. In "The Negative Oedipus : Father, Frankenstein, and the Shelleys" Veeder states that "the Shelleys encourage a critical methodology which integrates the traditional disciplines of biographical and close textual analyses1' (367). However, as in his Marv Shellev and Frankenste n: The Fate of Androavnv,- Vreder often conflates the Shelleys with their fictional characters. According to Veeder, in Mary Shelley's later fiction there is an "obse~sive'~ recurrence of emotionally incestuous father-daughter relationships: instead of interpreting these fictional relationships within a Romantic tradition that employs mother-son or brother-sister incest as a poetic trope, Veeder claims that this "obsession is Mary Godwin's" ("The Negative" 371). William Godwin's 1798 Memoirs of the Author of "A Vindication of the Riahts of Woman". Written shortly after the death of Mary Wollstonecraft, Godwin's detailed recollections of his famous wife in Memoirs transform her life into a "text" that receives more attention from biographers and literary scholars than do her own writings. While the fictional works of women writers are often interpreted as thinly veiled accounts of their lived experiences, this occurs rarely witn male writers. Nevertheless, the primacy afforded Godwin's biography of Wollstonecraft eliminates the necessary gap between the linguistic representation and the "Real," by which 1 mean that material and unconscious reality that is before and beyond language. Most critics read Godwin's Memoirs as a factual, historical document, especially because of his position of intimacy in relation to his subject matter.' Criticism on the younger generation of the Wollstonecraft/Godwin family has recognised the issue of parental influence, while neglecting that of spousal influence. Although critics such as Neil Fraistat, Mary Favret, and Susan J. Wolfson have rectified this scholarly irnbalance through their recent discussions of the significance of Mary Shelley's editorial interventions in the historical construction of Percy Shelley, critics of Godwin and Wollstonecraft have yet to consider the effects of Godwin's later writings on our current image of Mary

For instance, Mitzi Myers observes that Godwin's biography became the standard source for Wollstonecraft's life imrnediately upon publication, even for those who, like Mary Hays, had been her intimates. Hays draws on Godwin for interpretive assessrnent as well as fact in her "Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft." ("Godwin's Femoirs" 299) Wollstonecraft.' Mary Shelley's erasure of particularly controversial ideas in Percy's writings, such as his notion of free love, made him more presentable to the 1824 British reading public, as Neil Fraistat also implies (106).' As well, Mary altered the dates of her relationship with Percy and described him as her husband when he was only her lover. In so doing, Mary Shelley disrupts the cnronology of historical events and highlights the discursive constructedness of lived experience.' Godwin believed he was doing the same for his spouse, that is, improving the public image of Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary Shelley does with Percy as her father does with Wollstonecraft, but Godwin exposes while Shelley conceals. In bath cases, however,

Favret ("Mary Shelley's Syrnpathy and Irony"), Fraistat, and Wolfson al1 discuss how Mary Shelley's edition of Percy Shelley's works has created the Romantic poet as we know him today. In his biography of the Godwins and the Shelleys, William St Clair also notes that The Poetical Works of Percy Bvsshe Shellev in four volumes edited by Mrs. Shelley which appeared in 1839 established Shelley finally and irreversibly amongst the great poets of the English language, his genius undisputed even by those who most detested his message. Mary Shelley brought Shelley into the mainstream of the national culture. (491-2)

William St Clair makes a similar observation, Despite the master-student and father-son relationship of Godwin and Percy Shelley, St Clair notes that in 1831 Mary Shelley wrote 'a memoir of Godwin without mentioning Shelley" and in 1839 she wrote "her notes in [sic] Shelley without rnentioning Godwin" (492). Moreover, in her editorial notes on Percy's writings, Mary makes references neither to Claire (also known as Jane Clairmont) nor to Harriet. These biographical omissions are surprising considering that Claire, Mary's step-sister and probable mistress of Percy, accompanied the Shelleys on their European tour, and that Harriet, Percy's first wife, committed suicide while pregnant with his third child (492). literary scholarship has generally focused not on Mary Shelley's or Godwin's role in constructing a history of a person but on the content of that construction. The Godwinian image of Wollstonecraft in Mernoirs haunts any study of her, including imaginative recreations of the mother figure in Mary Shelley's own fictional works. Moreover, Godwin's textualization of Wollstonecraft's life also appears in critical assessments of Mary Shelley's fictional writings. Though there are few articles that focus only on Godwin's Memoirs, most critical discussions of Mary Wollstonecraft's and Mary Shelley's fiction contain private details provided by this biography, especially the particulars of Shelley's birth and Wollstonecraft's death. In Godwin's later works, in al1 of Mary Shelley's fiction, and in scholarly interpretations of these writings, the Godwinian version of Wollstonecraft affects the rendition of mothers, daughters, wives, and, especially, sexually liberated women. We need to recognize that while Godwin intended to portray Wollstonecraft's principles and how she lived by them, he simultaneously silenced her desires--her voice--and subsumed them into his own."hat Wollstonecraft's death in childbirth had a profound effect on the literary productions of Godwin and Mary Shelley is not in question. What is problematic is the way critics use Godwin's biography as the basis for a discussion of the historical person of Mary Wollstonecraft and, in so doing, overlook the fact that this biography, like any other, is still a textual construct. Godwin's publication of a revised version of Memoirs in the summer of 1798 in response

We also need to acknowledge, however, that it is Wollstonecraft's "voice" on gender issues that prompts Godwin to reevaluate his political principles. In this case, then, Godwin's desires are always already mediated by Wollstonecraft's. to hostile criticism of the first publication in January of that year fürther underscores the textuality of Godwin's ostensibly factual biography. 1 suggest that we might read the figure of Wollstonecraft as an affect of a punlic narrative written by a husband in mourning. 1 claim that, in Godwin's biographical memoirs, Woilstonecraft is transposed from historical existence to discursive construction through the operation of his desire.- And It is this textual construction that encourages us to unravel the desires in and around Godwin's Memoirs. In this chapter, 1 want to reconsider the function of Memoirs for both Godwin's and Shelley's fictional writings. To this end, we must reconceive the generic limits of biography, that is, we must consider whether biography shares some of the elements of autobiography. Because of Godwin's complex, libidinally charged relationship with his subject matter, Mernoirs may be more productively read as an autobiographical confession, or public act of giving voice to one's desires. Memoirs thus frames two spaces: the public and the private. By uncovering the desires embedded in the narration and production of Memoirs, we can reestablish it as a generative text in the circulation of desire in Godwin's and Shelley's works. Described as "the most hurtful performance" of 1798

' Virginia Sapiro in Vindication of Political Virtue also views Wollstonecraft's life and writings as inextricably connected, although Sapiro does not develop this line of thinking: It is as though . . . [Wollstonecraft's] writings offered the hypothesis that women should demand their emancipation and her life offered the consequences. The life and writings became bound up as a continuous text. How that text was read depended on the political perspective of the reader. (277) (emphasis added) (qtd. in Myers 301), Godwin's Memoirs not only damaged the vision of Mary Wollstonecraft as a champion of women's rights in the early part of the nineteenth century, but also, according to Marilyn Butler, "contributed to a situation in which, for at least two generations, it was hard for women to articulate the ferninist case" (Romantics 94). Though Godwin's Mernoirs presents a straightforward account of Mary Wollstonecraft's life from early childhood until her death, it is the brutal honesty with which Godwin discusses her dysfunctional family, her erotic desires, her attempts at suicide, her unconventional opinions, and the gynaecological details of her death that appalled his contemporaries. Moreover, that Godwin would publicize these accounts within four months of Wollstonecraftts death, in Mitri Myers' words, "still retains its power to surprise, if not shock" ("Godwin's Memoirs" 301)- Godwin's Memoirs were read as a cautionary tale against fernale promiscuity and, implicitly, female equality. William St Clair notes that in the index to the Anti-Jacobin Review, one of the "most influential periodicals" of the day, only one entry was listed for the term "prostitution": "see Mary Wollstonecraft" (185)."n fact, Godwin's stated intention

"he animosity toward Wollstonecraft was so vicious that satires and parodies in novel, prose, and verse became the fashion of the day. B. Sprague Allen quotes a passage from the 1817 "scurrilous book" The Sexauenarian: or The Recollections of A Literarv Life which describes Wollstonecraft's suicide attempt after Gilbert Imlay's desertion. The description confirms the public assessrnent of Wollstonecraft as a loose and immoral woman whose life was not short enough: The lady did not indeed, in imitation of Sappho, precipitate herself from another Leucadian rock; she chose a more vulgar mode of death; she put some lead into her pockets, and threw herself into the water. She did not, however, use enough lead, as there was still gas sufficient left in her head to counterpoise to soften the public assessment of Wollstonecraft as a "sturdy, muscular, raw-boned virago" by emphasizing her 'Tmost engaging sense, ferninine in manner" (Memoirs 232) merely reinstated a more pernicious view of Wollstonecraft as an exemplar of unrestrained fernale sexuaiity. Godwin's own status was also tarnished after the publication of Memoirs. Earlier, with the enormous success of his philosophical treatise Political Justice and its fictional counterpart Caleb Williams, Godwin's admirer William Hazlitt had claimed that "he [Godwinj Dlazed as a Sun in the firmament of reputation; no one was more talked of, more looked up to, more sought after, and wherever liberty, truth, justice, was the theme, his name was not far off" (qtd. in Collins 77). A. S. Collins points out in The Profession of Letters that Godwin was so farnous and so well respected that he was able to arrange his contract for Caleb Williams "before a line was written, and lived on the produce of . . . [it] at the same time as he was composing" the novel (97). Godwin's fame diminished later because of the negative view of the French Revolution, which Godwin supported ardently; the 1794 treason trial of Thomas Holcroft, who was Godwin's oldest and dearest friend; anu his frank disclosure of his relationship with Wollstonecraft in Memoirs. 9

it. She was rescued from the watery bier, and lived again to experience the feverish varieties of the tender passion. (qtd. in Allen 62)

. William St Clair suggests that after the success of Po1 J t~cal. Justice and Caleb Williams, Godwin became an "active political figure, trying to put into practice his theory of impartial individual liberalism" (127). The treason trial of Thomas Holcroft and other radicals, such as John Horne Tooke, who wanted parliamentary reform prompted Godwin to publish anonymously in the Mornina Chronicle his most politically 25 If Memoirs was denounced for revealing the private life of Mary Wollstonecraft, Godwin and his text were also attacked for encouraging politically radical actions. Godwin was criticized bitterly not only for his willingness to live out revolutionary ideas such as pre-marital sexual relations between consenting adults, which Memoirs detailed, but also for what was seen as his promotion of these notions in his act of making them publicly available for a price. Memoirs was read as an extension of Godwin's earlier liberal ideas and criticism of despotic goverment structures, especially the law. Because of Godwin's well-known political beliefs, the publication of Memoirs changes his relationship with Wollstonecraft: instead of remaining a private affair, it becomes a sign of zealous French revolutionary ideals gone awry. Memoirs, then, cornes to symbolize a social and political threat to the moral fabric of British society. The act of producing familial narratives for public consumption politicizes the domestic space and threatens the private/public divide. For Godwin, the political philosopher and notable defender of British radicalism, these effects are especially intense. In "The Reaction Against William Godwin1' B. Sprague Allen describes the paradoxical response to Godwin's modified views on marriage which created additional hostility towards him: Outraged that the philosopher [William Godwin] effective work: Cursorv Strict-ureson the Charae delivered bv Lord Chief Justice Evre to the Grand Jurv (1794). This article and Godwin's later rebuttal to an anonymous reply to his work contributed to the release of Holcroft and the others from the charge of high treason. This incident demonstrated not only the political power of individual words, especially from one who was so esteemed in the public eye, but also the danger of such writings. should have felt himself under obligatio? to apologize for his indulgence in marriage [in Memoirs], an institution of which he had made previously such unsparing criticism [in Political Justice], Rev. Robert Hall branded Godwin's book [Memoirs] as "a narrative of his licentious amours." When former adrnirers of Mary Wollstonecraft read of "the errors which love should have concealed," "the iaol they had worshipped" became ''an image of clay." (61-2) Ironically, the revelation that Godwin and WoUstonecraft had married--after discovering her pregnancy--alienated the couple both from the radka1 circle and the larger reaaing public. Radicals were norrified that the two champions of freedom and sexual equality would enter into marriage, an institution that both had criticized. Others saw Wollstonecraftls marriage to Godwin as proof of her promiscuity because they had assumed that Wollstonecraft was married to her former lover Gilbert Imlay despite her declaration that she had adopted his name out of "necessity in France" (Memoirs 261). Godwin maintains that while she was, and constantly professed to be, an unmarried mother; she was fit society for the squeamish and the formal. The moment she acknowledged herself a wife, and that by a marriage perhaps unexceptionable, the case was altered. (Memoirs 260) Wollstonecraft's marriage to Godwin proved the truth of her assertions to their non-radical acquaintances and inspired more disparaging reviews of both their works, especially Godwin's Memoirs. In 1801, the Anti-Jacobin Review and Maaazine, or, Monthlv political and Literarv Censor published the "vision of Liberty: Written in the Manner of Spenser," an anonymous critique of the effects of "foreign magic, " that is, the ideology of the French Revolution, on England (1.8). In the "Vision of Liberty," three stanzas are devoted to the relationship of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft as depicted in Memoirs. These stanzas demonstrate the extent to which Wollstonecraft becomes a discursive figure for wanton female sexuality, and Godwin's text becomes a trope for heinous ethical transgression. This public discussion of Wollstonecraft's character and Godwin's exposure clearly exceeds a simple criticism of Memoirs: William hath penn'd a waggon-load of stuff, And Mary's life at last he needs must write, Thinking her whoredoms were not known enough, Till fairly printed off in Dlack and white.-- With wondrous glee and pride, this simple wight Her brothel feats of wantonness sets down, Being her spouse, he tells, with huge delight, How oft she cuckolded the silly clown, and lent, O lovely piece! herself to half the town. ("The Vision" XVII)IC

'"alph Wardle's Marv Wollstonecraft: A Critical Bioora~hv and Mitzi Myers' article on Memoirs brought this poem to my attention. The two stanzas that precede stanza XVII in "The Vision of Liberty" imply that Wollstonecraft had transgressed the gender boundary to become, in the words of the 1798 anti-Jacobin theologian and poet Richard Polwhele, one of the "unsex'd fernales" (qtd. in Ty 3). The title of Eleanor Ty's critical work, Unsex'd Revolutionaries, foregrounds the threat of Wollstonecraft's radical thinking to the anti-Jacobins who denounced the activities of the French Revolution. From the anti-Jacobin perspective, Godwin's laudatory reflections on his wife in Memoirs implies an excessive sensibility, and thus emasculates and renders him ridiculous. Then saw I mounted on a braying ass, William and Mary, sooth, a couple jolly; Who married, note ye how it came to pass, Although each held that marriage was but folly?-- And she of curses would discharge a voliey If the ass stumbled, leaping pales or ditches: Her husband, sans-culottes, was melancholy, For Mary verily would Wear the breeches-- God help poor silly men from such usurping b----- S.

Whilom this dame the Rights of Women writ, That is the title to her book she places, Exhorting bashful womankind to quit All foolish modesty, and coy grimaces; And name their backsides as it were their faces; What is significant in this brief poem is the criticism of Godwin's act of publishing his wife's life in "black and white." The implication is that this public textualizing of Wollstonecraft is the preeminent sin among the long list of grievances against the couple. Godwin occupies the dual role of author, or linguistic pimp cornmodifying his wife's materialist existence, and cuckold, or ignorant victim of female sexual desires. Both Godwin's reaction to his wifels death in the form of a public "text" and the reading public's vitriolic response in the form of disapproving words or "texts" align the discursive construction of Wollstonecraft with the historical person. I suggest, then, that Godwin's audience was not offended by the racy details of Wollstonecraft's life so much as they were horrified by Godwin's violation of the polite boundary between private and public." This private/public distinction is based on the need to maintain a separation between Wollstonecraft, the "real" person, and Wollstonecraft, the biographical subject, which Godwin collapses in his portrayal of what she meant to him. Rather than view Godwin's Memoirs as a therapeutic act of giving public expression to private grief, his contemporaries accused him of pxesenting a false or too revealing portrait of Wollstonecraft. This critical desire to fuse the

Such licence loose-tongued liberty adores, Which adds to fernale speech exceeding graces; Lucky the maid that on her volume pores, A scripture, archly fram'd, for propagating w---- S. ("The Vision" XV-XVI)

l1 In their introduction to the Collected Novels and Memoirs ef William Godwin Marilyn Butler and Mark Philp rnai~tainthat Hemojrs is "also an unrepentant and forceful defence of the way she [Wollstonecraft] had chosen to live her life, and it was this which most enraged its reviewers" (16). boundary between representation and the "Real" foregrounds the autnority with which Godwin's Mernoirs is willingly invested both by his contemporaries and current scholars. A close reading of some of Godwin's personal letters to friends informing them of Wollstonecraft's death, as well as his diary entry on his wife's sudden demise, however, reveals the gap between the public text of Memoirs and the more private context of its production. About six weeks after his wife's death, in a letter dated "Oct. 24th, 1797" Godwin discusses his state of mind with Wollstonecraft's close friend Mrs. Cotton: 1 love to cherish melancholy. I love to tread the edge of intellectual danger, and just to keep within the line which every moral and intellectual consideration forbids me to overstep, and in this indulgence and this vigilance I place my present luxury. (qtd. in Paul 281) Though Godwin desires to dwell on his loss, he is also aware of the inherent "dangers" of such an "indulgence-" From Godwin's detailed journal entries, we know that he was too anguished to attend Wollstonecraft's funeral. Instead, he spent the day at one friend's house where he wrote to another friend.12 In a letter dated "Sep. 15th, 1797" Godwin writes that, Nothing could be more soothing to my mind than to dwell in a long letter upon her [Wollstonecraft's] virtues and accomplishments, and our mutual happiness, past and in prospect. But the attractions of the subject are delusive, and 1 dare not trust myself with it. (qtd. in Paul

l2 In William Godwin: His Friends and Contem~orariesCI Kegan Paul notes that "Godwin was too prostrate both in mind and body himself to attend the funeral or meet the friends who did so. He spent the day at Marshal's lodgings and thence wrote to Mr Carlisle" (285). It is useful here to remember Freud's definitions of melancholia and mourning. Mourning is characterized by the individual's ability to incorporate the lost object into his or her psyche; melancholia arises with the failure to perform this task and is, thus, marked by the individual's inability to confront the loss of a beloved.:' Although Godwin's absence at his wife's funeral implies that he may have had a melancholic disposition, the presence of Mary Wollstonecraft as an attractive but "delusive" subject in his letter to Mr. Carlisle constructs Goc:c;z as a husband who was attempting to introject his loss into his psyche. Writing about his relations with his wife substitutes not only for bearing witness at her funeral but also for the comfort of sympathetic friends. That Godwin began composing Memoirs two weeks after her death reveals that dwelling upon Wollstonecraft was "soothing" for him. The act of writing about Wollstonecraft's premature death and tragic life

l3 K. N. Cameron notes that the "handwriting [in this letter to Carlisle] is contracted and unsure, showing the effects of Godwin's profound dejection: 'My mind is extremely sunk and languid"' (198 n. 48).

l4 "This would suggest that melancholia is in some way related to an object-loss which is withdrawn from consciousness, in contradiction to mourning, in which there is nothing about the loss that is unconscious" (Freud, "Mourning" 245). That the melancholic remains unconscious of the "10st'~ object also implies that the onset of suffering is only triggered by, for example, a recent death but actually refers to a more hidden past loss. According to Freud, the melancholic is self-deprecating and "reproaches himself, vilifies himself and expects to be cast out and punished" ("Mourning" 246). "In mourning it is the world which has become poor and ernpty; in melancholia it is the ego itself" (Freud, "Mourning" 246). While mourning is considered the "normal" state after a tragic event, especially the death of a loved one, melancholia is the pathological condition that issues from an unsuccessful period of mourning. externalizes Godwin's "loss" and exposes the lost object. In short, writing about loss prevents the onset of melancholia since the creative act enables a new construction not only of the beloved but also of the lover. Indeed, both Godwin's journal and the later Memoirs are implicit records of his emotionâl response to Wollstonecraft's death. For as Kenneth N. Caaeron points out it "is always necessary in reading Godwin or reading about him to look beneath the surface stoicism he cultivated" (192). Though Godwin kept a meticulous daily journal of his reading habits and meetings with various friends, the day of Wollstonecraft's death (Septernber 20th, 1797) is marked by the absence of any description: "20 minutes before 8" followed by three straight lines (Carneron 196 and Plate VIII)." In his biography, Godwin provides several details of Wollstonecraft's condition and the various doctors and friends who helped her; however, the moment of her death is described in the same way as in his journal: "She expired at twenty minutes before eight" (Memoirs 271). In both genres, the diary and the memoir, Godwin's recording of the facts intimates that he is

" In an appendix to his biography on the Godwins and the Shelleys, William St Clair provides Godwin's secret record of his sexual relations with Wollstonecraft. The journal begins on August 18, 1796 and ends on March 29, 1797, the day the couple married. A typical entry reads as follows: "Essay, p. 110-113. Terence, Andria, Acts 3, 4, and 5: D'Orleans, p. 166. Meet Butler Odon & Sharp: Stoddart calls. chez elle, -- - " (497). According to St Clair, the dash and the dot following the description of "chez elle" or "chez moi", which do not appear in Godwin's regular journal, indicate the location and success of Godwin's and Wollstonecraft's love-making, St Clair concludes that £rom the "pattern of abstinences" it is clear that Godwin was probably applying some system of birth control, hence the record (499). Clearly, Godwin used the dash to indicate intimate experiences of deep emotion, Wollstonecraft's death being the preeminent example. controlling his desires through writing. Cameron explains that Godwin's "cryptic" and stoical, apparently objective, presentation of the facts heightens the reader's awareness of Godwin's deeper emotions of anxiety and fear.'bodwinqs conscious attempt at emotional restraint exposes his struggle with the twin desires of unleashing his grief and preserving his calm at the site of writing. Writing, in this sense, is the instrument and site both for creating Godwin's stable subjectivity in his period of sorrow, and facilitating the later expression of his desires, as seen by his need to remember Wollstonecraft in Memoirs. Godwin's construction of his desired image of Wollstonecraft in Memoirs, then,. is not only a scandalous public transgression but also a necessary private introjection of past love, In Freudian terms, Memoirs represents Godwin's mouxning process. The discursive construction of Wollstonecraft makes her present again in the realrn of Godwin's fantasy, enabling both him and her to live in a happier past. That Godwin should make his fantasy a public literary production, however, complicates any simple interpretation of his biographical act. Godwin begins his Memoirs with a Preface in which he declares his intention to vindicate Mary Wcllstonecraft's

l6 K. N. Cameron states that: In the Memoirs he [Godwin] is writing after the fact and with the evident desire to preserve as much as possible an air of objectivity. Read carefully, however, the account in the Memoirs reinforces the implications in the cryptic Journal entries of an almost frantic anxiety and a growing feeling that the medical men brought in were somehow rnissing important clues. This would explain his disagreement with Dr. Poignand, his calling in Mary's friend, George Fordyce, his turning to his own closest medical friend, Anthony Carlisle, and calls he made on Septernber 3rd. (192) character in the public eye. He reasons that the "more fully we are presented with the picture and story of such persons as the subject of the following narrative, the more generally shall we feel in ourselves an attachment to their fate, and a sympathy in their excellenciesl' (Mernoirs 204).

Godwin's use of the terms "story," "narrative, " and "picture" to describe his work points to his awareness of the projectls constructed nature? Like any biographer, Godwin researched his topic extensively. Unfortunately, as C. Kegan Paul notes, Woilstonecraftls sisters refused to help Godwin, hence "the meagreness and even inaccuracies [of the record], in some parts" (291). Furthermore, Godwin's admission that most of Memoirs is based on his own and Wollstonecraft's recollections of her life as told to him implies that thk biography has much to do with his memories and his investment in tnose memories. Mitzi Myers characterizes Godwin's rnemoirs as an "unusual hybrid, one which unites Wollstonecraft's notion of herself, Godwin's reading of her character, and his analysis of that character's impact on himself and his philosophy" ("Godwin's Memoirs" 300). Both a re-construction and a re-membering, Godwin's Memoirs is a public performance of the libidinal dynamics between wife and husband, past and present, memory and desire. In her discussion of the politics of performance, Peggy Phelan notes that the "image of the woman displays not the subjectivity of the woman ho is seen, but rather the constituent forces of desire of the man who wants to see her" (26). In other words, Memoirs presents not so much a biography of Mary Wollstonecrâft as an autobiography

l7 Both Godwin's Deloraine and Mary Shelley's Mathilda, novefs 1 discuss in Chapter Four, thematize the significance pictures or portraits for constructing relationships between surviving family members and dead or missing ones. of William Godwin's desires mapped out on Wollstonecraft's body. What one remembers is as significant as how these memories are reconstructed to gxatify specific desires. Godwin's biographical recollections of Wollstonecraft serve his desires for syrnpathetic understanding (a hermeneutic act) but through the disclosure of subjective memories concerning the private reaim (an erotic act) . Through its "sheer intensity of feeling and sincerity of emotion," Godwin's ~iographyexplodes "certain well- accepted eighteenth-century conventions . . . [such as] the pious family memoir" according to Richard Holmes for whom Memoirs is also "nothing less than a revolution in literary genres" (16). But is it merely the presence of passionate feelings that makes Godwin's biography extraordinary? 1 have already suggested that Godwin's account of Wollstonecraft is heavily invested with his desires for understanding both his loss and its effects on nim. In my discussion I have not provided an image of Wollstonecraft that best captures Godwin's desires because, as Holmes notes, one weakness in Godwin's biographical style is his lack of a "strong visual sense" (54). Godwin describes neither Wollstonecraft's appearance, nor the physical details of their shared apartments. 1 agree with Holmes that in "Godwin's mind, she always moves and lives in something of an abstract void" (54). Before her abstraction in Godwin's written text, Wollstonecraft has already been idolized in Godwin's memory. His intention of giving the public an objective vindication of Wollstonecraft's character is undermined by his preeminent desire to solicit sympathy for himself and praise for her. Even if one agrees that biography itself enacts a form of hermeneutics because it is the site of the meeting of two personalities--the implied author and the constructed biographical "subjectW-- Godwin's plea in the Preface to Memoirs for public "çympathy" exceeds the limits of the biographical genre (Memoirs 204) . Godwin's desire for public reassurance translates into his need to revise his first published version of Memoirs, Significantly, what Godwin's revisions to his January 1798 edition of Memoirs illustrate is his increasing understanding of the sexual connotations of particular words and phrases and the possible damage that specific details can have both on his position as biographer and on Wollstonecraft's character. Indeed, Godwin becomes a reaaer of his own previous text. For example, in his description

l8 Michael T. Gilmore in "Eulogy as Symbolic Biography" reminds us that: Eulogy has been called the oldest form of biography. . . . By treating the dead as a kind of cultural ideal, the eulogist seeks in effect to compose the collective biography of an entire people. Thus, the true subject of the eulogy is the speaker and his community rather than the character and career of the person nominally portrayed. (131) William Wordsworth, too, makes a similar point in his Essav U~on E~ita~hs:"an Epitaph was not to be an abstract character of the deceased but an epitomized biography blended with description by which an impression of the character was to be conveyed" (89). We might regard Godwin's Memoirs as a type of persona1 eulogy that he wishes, nevertheless, to share with the public. Since Godwin and his group of radical writers and political activists were becoming rapidly disillusioned with the exploitation of French Revolutionary ideals of freedom, equality and liberty for tyrannical purposes, the death of Wollstonecraft, an impassioned critic of despotism, can be read as a symbolic loss for the radical left, In his praise of her activism, Godwin declares that "Mary Wollstonecraft will perhaps here-after be found to have performed more substantial service for the cause of her sex, than al1 the writers, male or female, that ever felt themselves animated in the behalf [sic] of oppressed and injured beauty" (Mernoirs 232). The second edition replaces the last phrase with "animated by the contemplation of their oppressed and injured state" (Godwin, Memoirs 232 n. c). Indeed, Godwin was prescient in his assessment. of Wollstonecraft's teenage friendship with Fanny Blood, Godwin replaces "fervent" in the January 1798 edition with "warm" in the second edition (Memoirs 210) . His honest description of Wollstonecraft's passion for Gilbert Imlay is also modified in the later edition. Ic the first edition, Godwin writes that Wollstonecraft "was willing to encourage and foster the luxuriances of affection. Her confidence was entire; her love was unbounded. Now, for the first time in her life, she gave a loose [sic] to al1 the sensibilities of her naturetf (Memoirs 242-3). In his revised edition, as if recognizing the sexually explicit nature of his description, Godwin deletes the phrase "she was willing to encourage and foster the luxuriances of affection" and adds a lengthy criticism of Wollstonecraft's actions, concluding that she "did not give full play to her judgement in this most important choice of life" (Memoirs 243 nef). In another instance in which Godwin describes the first signs of his and Wollstonecraft's mutual passions, he ornits in the second edition the reference to himself as Mary's "lover." As well, he deletes from the second edition his defense of pre- marital sexual relations. With William St Clair's publication in 1989 of that portion of Godwin's diary that records his sexual relationship with Wollstonecraft, we know the exact date of Godwin's first sexual encounter with his future wife; however, this detail is not Fncluded in the Mernoirs either. Instead in a moment of persona1 confession, Godwin alludes to his virginity admitting that he "had never loved till now" (Memoirs 258) . Godwin's act of reissuing a second revised edition of Memot=- in the same year as the first publication thus also highlights the theatrical structure of spectator/spectacle implicit in biography. For Godwin's readerly attempts to construct a convincing portrait of his dead wife places him in the spectator position in relation to the spectacle of Wollstonecraft that he creates through writing. In other words, positioning Wollstonecraft at the centre of his discourse, Godwin uses the physical act of writing to transform her life into a fetishistic reminder of his love for her in the form of a biographical tribute called Memoirs. Writing, then, is â crucial site for the enactment of Godwir,'~desires. In this context, we might recall Godwin's response to reading Wollstonecraft's Letters Written Durina A Short Residence in Sweden, Norwav, and Denmark (1796). A journal of Wollstonecraft's persona1 and political reflections, Letters was recorded auring her European visit following the end of her affair with Gilbert Imlay. In Memoirs, Godwin remarks that if ever there was a book calculated to make a man in love with its author, this appears to me to be the book. She speaks of her sorrows, in a way that fills us with rnelancholy, and dissolves us in tenderness, at the same time that she displays a genius which cornrnands Our admiration. (249) Godwin admits that he can love a textual representation of Wollstonecraft, a woman he had yet to know well. It is the discursive construction of Mary Wollstonecraft, whether produced by her or by Godwin, that elicits a passionate response. That the spectacle of a suffering woman can effect such a response betrays the role of desire in Godwin's characterization of his wife in Memoirs: Wollstonecraft is portrayed not as the heroic feminist but as the pitiful victim. Curiously, this portrayal of a woman made desirable through suffering appears in two later novels by Godwin and in Shelley's Frankenstein. The eponymous protagonist in Godwin's Fleetwood remarks that his desire for his much younger ward and future wife, Mary Macneil, is increased by her miserable condition: "Her desolate situation renaerea her tenfold more interesting. 1 now felt, for the first time in my life, how delightful a task it is to console distress, when the sufferer is a woman, beautiful and young" (176-7). Similarly, Deloraine, the protagonist of Godwin's novel of the same name, claims that though his desire for the much younger Margaret Borradale cannot compare to his love for his dead wife, Margaret acquired an additional interest . . . inasmuch as she was the child of misfortune, oppressed with a calamity that never could be removed, and who therefore called forth that peculiar species of tenderness which is the sister of pity. (DE 106) Shelley's description of the courtship of Victor's parents in her 1818 edition of Frankenstein resonates witn Godwin's 1805 Fleetwood and perhaps confirms the image of Margaret Borradale in his 1833 Deloraine. Victor recollects that his father Alphonse married Caroline Beaufort despite their age differences because she was a "poor girl, who committed herself to his care."" In the 1831 edition, Shelley adds

'? ~aryShelley, Frankenstein, ed. D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf (Peterborough: Broadview, 1994) 64. As is well known, Mary Shelley made some substantial revisions to her original 1818 edition of Frankenstein in the 1831 version. Because of a critical practice that considers the author's last revisions as the definitive version of a text, most reprints of Frankenstein use Shelley's 1831 version. I believe, however, that in order to map out the initial libidinal dynamics at work in the composition of Frankenstein, it is necessary to work between editions, and to use the 1831 edition to supplement the 1818 one. 1 agree with Anne Mellor's conclusion that the 1818 edition is "more convincingly related to . . . [the] historical contexts" of Shelley's text ("Choosing" 31) . Criticism of Frankenstein relies on James Rieger's edition of Shelley's 1818 text and M. K. Joseph's edition of the 1831 text. The Rieger edition was originally published in 1974 and, according to Stephen C. Behrendt, is "complicated by Rieger's decision to interpolate in the main text the autograph variants contained in the copy of the novel that the author gave to her acquaintance that Alphonse "strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardcner" (FR 322). The spectacle of Wcllstonecraft's life and of Godwin's desires for Wollstonecraft thus circulates in Memoirs iike desire through the fictional writings of father and daüghter, both of whom required, albeit for different reasons, the textual fantasy of melancholic love. The idea that this Godwinian fantasy or act may be "hurtful" or a "dismal spectacle" as Charles Brockden Brown, an admirer of Mary Shelley and Godwin, labelled it (qtd. Sapiro 334 n. 60) merely demonstrates the role in which the viewer or reader is cast by Godwin's Memoirs. Because Godwin intends to rectify a public image of his wife and in the process to elicit sympathy for her character, the implied reader is necessarily placed in the sole of sympathetic spectator. Perhaps what is most striking about Godwin's biography is that both the reader and the autnor of Memoirs are placed in the role of voyeur, peeping into Wollstonecraft's life and into Godwin's psyche. Godwin's Memoirs is a conflation of various desires, autobiogrephical and biographical, and therefore, is an intensely voyeuristic act not without its concomitant pleasures of exhibiting. As in the case of the hysteric, the autobiographer's attempts at communication may be seen as an inevitably partial hermeneutic act, in that understanding is solicited but not al1 the required elernents for complete understanding are provided. While both the hysterical and the autobiographical acts (and we could include biographical

Mrs. Thomas in 1823" (9). I prefer the recently publisheu Broadview edition which reprints the original 1818 manuscript and relegates to an appendix the changes noted by Rieger, Shelley's subsequent changes, and Joseph's standard edition of the 1831 text . acts as well) reveal personal desires, they also conceai those desires tnat cannot be expressed given the coordinates of the discourse. One may recall that Freud expiains hysteria through the example of a person (most often a woman) who rips off her clothes with one hana while clutching her garments to cover her body with the ~ther.-'~ Similarly, auto~iographicalnarration reveals some persona1 elements while concealing orhers. By constructing a fiction of the self in autobiography, the autobiographer manages to ward off the readerls desire to penetrate even more into the autobiographer's life. As 1 have mentioned, in Memoirs Godwin does not include a physical description of either Wollstonecraft or the lodgings they shared at "The Polygon" (St Clair 173)-" Furthermore, while in Our time Godwin's secret record of his sexual relationship with Wollstonecraft enables us to reconstruct the frequency of their encounters, these details were not provided in Memoirs, and therefore, were concealed from his contemporaries. Indeed, the genre of persona1 writing--autobiography and biography--reveals enough tantalizing details both to satisfy the voyeudreader and to protect the concealment of others- This double gesture of disciosure and protection is able to maintain the appearance of keeping the power not with the voyeuristic reader but with the producer of the show (when, in fact, neither has the power since what the producer shoxs is always in excess of what he tells) . In Memoirs, Godwin is simultaneously reader, director, and subject matter. And

'"reed mentions this case twice. See "Hysterical Phantasies and Their Relation to Bisexuality" (1908, 166) and "Some General Remarks on Hysterical Attacks" (1908-9, 230) .

21 William St Clair's biography reconstructs from letters and journals the location of Godwin's and Wollstonecraftls shared apartments. with every revised edition of his Memoirs he f~rther compromises his role as authoritative biographer and exposes his own desires. As Paul de Man reminds us, autobiography does not constitute a genre but a "figure of reading or of understanding that occurs, to some degree in al1 texts" (70). While rnaking Wollstonecraft into a figure of sympathy, Godwin transforms himself into the preeminent figure for understanding her. One of the most severe criticisms of Memoirs has to do with Godwin's honest portraya1 of Wollstonecraft's affairs with the married and bisexual Swiss painter Henry Fuseli and the womanizing American businessman Gilbert Imlay."7 - B. J. Tysdahl in Our own age "speculate[s] on the psychological undercurrents in Godwin's mind that enabled him to luxuriate in the idea of his wife being so happy with another man1' (79). Godwin describes Mary Wollstonecraft's relations with Fuseli as inevitable and "heightened, by the state of celibacy and restraint in which she hitherto lived, and to which the rules of polished society conaemn an unrnarried woman" (Mernoirs 234). Although Godwin discloses the most persona1 details of Wollstonecraft's life to criticize the gendered and biased sexual code of his time, it is al1 the same oda that he would do so since his justification for his wife's actions would also contribute to his self-belittling in the public eye (in that Godwin's exposure of Wollstonecraft's loss of virginity with another man reflects

22 Godwin describes Imlay as a "native of the United States of North America" (Memoirs 239) . In his biography of the Godwins and the Shelleys, William St Clair notes that "Europe swarmed with American real-estate [sic] salesmen . . . but few were as literary as Imlay" (159). In his notes to Godwin's Memoirs, Richard Holmes adds that Imlay, who was born in New Jersey, was a "soldier, author, businessman and adventurer . . . [who] served as an officer during the American Revolutiont' (302 n.53). badly on his choice of her as a wife). Why, then, does Godwin insist on furnishing his readers with details about Wollstonecraft's previous liaisons? Godwin's description of Mary Wollstonecraft falling in love with Henry Fuseli, for example, is an astonishingly frank rendition of female desire and sexuality: She had, at first, considered it as reasonobie and judicious, to cultivate what 1 may be permitted to call, a Piatonic affection for him; but she did not, in the sequel, find all the satisfaction in this plan, which she had originally expected from it. , . . General conversation and society could not satisfy her. She felt herself alone, as it were, in the great mass of her species; and she repined when she reflected, that the best years of her life were spent in this comfortless solitude. . . . These ideas made the cordial intercourse of Mr. Fuseli, which had at first been one of her greatest pleasures, a source of perpetual torment to her. (Memoirs 237) Though Godwin was Wollstonecraft's husband, his statement that what he lacked in terms of emotions and intuitions "Mary possessed, in a degree superior to any other person" (272) suggests at the very least a tutelary relationship. In fact, Godwin concludes his Memoirs with a few paragraphs discussing "the improvement . . . [he] was in the act of receiving" (273) from his association with Mary Wollstonecraft (272). In this sense, we might regard Godwin as occupying a filial position in relation to Wollstonecraft. 1s Godwin, therefore, trying to justify his position as the only true husband of Mary Wollstonecraft, as the Freudian son needs to legitimize himself? 1s Godwin trying to elevate his position as the saviour of the pitifully neglected Wollstonecraft, and thereby regain his position as the defender of victims of patriarchal despotism? Or was Godwin trying to appear open-minded when, in fact, he was not so generous to th ers in positions similar to Wollstonecraft's such as Mary Hays? The implication seen by scholars such as Tysdahl is that Godwin takes perverse pleasure in recalling his wife's promiscuity.

However, 1 maintain that Godwin's need to aisplay in à public narrative this apparentiy "perverse" voyeuristic pleasure is still part of his desires for shared slppathy in - - his mourning process. -' We also can read Godwin's textual replay of Wollstonecraft's affairs as his attempt to abject those aspects of his wife's life that would be the most difficult for him to acknowledge. Julia Kristeva notes that abjection is caused by what "disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules" (Powers 4).

23 In Memoirs Godwin claims that there are "no circurnstances of . . . [Wollstonecraft's] life, that, in the judgement of honour and reason, could brand her with disgracet' (256). The perversity that critics are so quick to apply to Godwin's intentions is misplaced and prevents them from seeing the cornplexities of Godwin's desires. Of al1 the scenes of Wollstonecraft's affairs in Memoirs, it is Godwin's portrayal of his own courtship with Wollstonecraft that is the most intimate and explicit, but also the clearest evidence of his intense love and admiration for her: It was friendship melting into love. Previously to our mutual declaration [sic], each felt half-assured, yet each felt a certain trembling anxiety to have assurance complete. . . . 1 had never loved till now; or, at least, had never nourished a passion to the same growth, or met with an object so consurnrnately worthy. . . . We did not marry. . . . certainly nothing can be so ridiculous upon the face of it, or so contrary to the genuine march of sentiment, as to require the overflowing of the sou1 to wait upon ceremony, and that at which, wherever delicacy and imagination exist, is of al1 things most sacredly private, to blow a trumpet before it, and to record the moment when it has arrived at its climax. (258) It is, of course, ironic that Godwin needs to declare in a public text that he desires to keep his privacy and not "to blow a trumpet before it, [or] to record the moment when it has arrived at its climax." Indeed, for the sexually inexperienced Godwin, Wollstonecraft's relations with other men constitute sucn a disturbance. The fact that Godwin writes about his voyeuristic desires would thus be not a perversion but an act of abjection: "Voyeurisrn accompanies the writing of abjection. When that writing stops, voyeurism becomes a perversion" (Powers 46). Godwin's return to various events in Wollstonecraft's fife that he would find painfcl to rernember arises from his desires both to recognize and to externalize her desires. The key question is whether we can read Memoirs as a tribüte to Godwin's profound love for Wollstonecraft, or as an autobiographical exposure of the workings of his desire, or as both. For the desire to represent the other's desires is, in itself, a recognition of one's own desires for the other and not a signifier of the other's desires. That Godwin returns in his later fiction to scenes reminiscent of those in Memoirs indicates a failure in his use of a textualized, performative act to alleviate his grief over his wife's death and to gratify his needs for shareci sympathy. I suggest that there is a deeper desire connecting what critics have regarded as "pleasure" to the narration of mourning that surfaces when reading Godwin's later novels with Memoirs. Commenting on his relationship with Mary Wollstonecraft, Godwin States in the revised edition of Mernoirs that "her sensibility determined me to a careful development of my feelings" (277). Earlier Godwinian scholars, such as B. R. Pollin and F. E. L. Priestley, tend to argue that Godwin's intimacy with Wollstonecraft and her daughter Fanny convinced the rational philosopher of the importance of private affections, and that this change is reflected in the third edition of Political Justice, revised and published in 1798 after Wollstonecraft's death (Pollin 39-41; Priestley 86-7). Mark Philp in Godwin's Political Justice suggests, however, that with his second 1796 edition of Political Justice "from before his relationship with Mary Wollstonecraft . . . Godwin adopts a more relaxed (and reasonable) conception of the place of sexuality" and persona1 emotions (183). In other words, it is not Godwin's affair with and subsequent marriage to Wollstonecraft that persuades him of the importance of private passions. Rather, Godwin's theoriss of the role and significance of private affections for political justice are brought to life and made persona1 in his relationship with Wollstonecraft. If Wollstonecraft "awakened" Godwin to the pleasures of the private "empire of feeling'' (Memoirs 277, 2761, her death also introduced him to its profound pain. And it is this pain fused with pleasure that Godwin also tries to trace in Memoirs. Thus, what we might cal1 the "pre-Wollstonecraft Godwin" is quite different from the "post-Wollstonecraft Godwin": by 1796 the pre-Wollstonecraft Godwin may acknowledge that individual emotions affect social decisions, but it is the post-Wollstonecraft Godwic who has experienced these emotions and who tries to reconcile them with his ideas of social justice. Memoirs, then, represents a significant text in Godwin's corpus since it marks the transition from an earlier period of writing primarily concerned with rational anarchisrn, as seen in Political Justice and Çaleb Williams, to a later period predominantly focused on domestic politics such as in Fleetwood and Deloraine. Following the publication of Memoirs, Godwin's fiction depicts jealous husbands cuckolded by rational, beautiful wives or tragic husbands who rnourn the loss of wives whose ideas and personality resemble those of Wollstonecraft. Fleetwood and Deloraine are two such novels, the former exploring an insecuxe and jealous husband's slow destruction of his marriage to a young and attractive woman, the latter depicting the repercussions on a second marriage of a husband's inability to overcome the loss of his first ~ife.~~Prior to these two works, in 1799 a year after the critical attacks on Memoirs, Godwin published St. Leon: A Tale of the Sixteenth Centurv. St. Leon is a historical novel about a Count whose discovery of the elixir of life enables him to survive both illness and death, and live through the centuries. Although resernbling the gothic novel, St. Leon is also a tale about the principles of justice. St. Leon holds a curious place in my discussiofi of Godwin's libidinal economy because of its portrayal of Marguerite de Damville--a portrayal that for many readers invokes the spirit of Wollstonecraft. Don Locke and Mark Philp both note that St, Leon, which was published in December 1799, was begun a few months after Wollstonecraft's death on Septernber 10, 1797: Godwin wrote St. Leon from December 31, 1797 to October 23, 1799 (Locke 361; Philp 219 n.5). Memoirs was written, published and revised while Godw3n was still working on St. Leon. That the biographical reflections of Wollstonecraft, a mortal woman subjected to the misfortunes of illness and death, are composed in the midst of the fictional adventures of the Count de St. Leon, an immortal man protected from disease and death, suggest that perhaps fiction provided an

24 AS with Godwin's Memoirs, there is a virtual absence of critical articles on Godwin's Fleetwood and, especially, on Deloraine. In "Editing Women" Marilyn Butler states that Godwin's Deloraine "hover[s] on the verge of cult status, though . . . [it] still need[s] librarians' help to cross it" (277). alternative to Godwin's reality. Whether or not Godwin was trying to work through the death of his wife by writing about a man who lives forever, Godwinian scholarship is right to assume a connection between the fictionai Marguerite and the historical Wollstonecraft. For Godwin appears to rectify his biographical depiction of the passionate and overtly sexual Wollstonecraft in Memoirs with a fictional portrait of the traditionally feminine and virtuous Marguerite in St. Leon. As William St Clair points out, "the portrait of Marguerite was intended to signal an important recantation" on Godwin's part (211). However, in the Preface to St. Leon Godwin states that 1 apprehend domestic and private affections inseparable from the nature of man, and from what may be styled the culture of the heart, and am fully persuaded that they are not incompatible with a profound and active sense of justice in the mind of him that cherishes them. (10) This Preface may be another attempt to vindicate ~ollstonecraftfslife in that Godwin recognizes the powerful presence of individual passions in "the nature of man." Godwin appears to intirnate that Wollstonecraft's confident sexuality and lack of religious sentiments are, in fact, "not incompatible with a profound and active sense of justice" because she "was a worshipper of domestic life" (St. Leon 10; Memoirs 262). Yet, his image of the motherly and loyal Marguerite in St. Leon undermines the biographical tribute to Wollstonecraft in Mernoire simply because through his fictional female character Godwin idealizes al1 those socially sanctioned feminine virtues that Wollstonecraft opposed both in her life and writings. While Godwin was clearly influenced on a persona1 level by his relationship with Wollstonecraft, his writings (whether a biography, preface, or novel) betray a conflicted view of the "empire of feeling" (Memoirs 276). Moreover, female sexuality as it surfaces in dornestic relationships becomes an increasingly crucial issue in Godwin's later novels. Unlike the forgiving and thoroughly domestic Marguerite in St. Leon, the women in Godwin's later fiction have conflictual desires and sexuâl entanglements. If St-Leon is Godwin's atternpt to return to the familiar territory of Caleb Williams in which he illustrates his political theory through the struggles of his characters, Fleetwood and Deloraine mark a radical departure since they are more concerned with the familial space ana its private desires, such as obsessive curiosity, insane jealousy, and possessive passion. Thus, St. Leon and Memoirs both occupy pivotal moments in the development of Godwin's systern of political and social justice. Like many of his novels, Godwin's Fleetwood is a retrospective first-person fictional explanation for the present tragic circumstances of the male protagonist, Casimir Fleetwood. The novel opens with Fleetwood's statement that "the proper topic of the narrative 1 am writing is the record of my errors" (& 21). As with Godwin's Caleb Williams and Deloraine, Fleetwood finds relief in the act of recording his "errors." Fleetwood says that to "write it, is the act of rny penitence and humiliation" (fi 21). Deloraine, who kills his second wifels childhood sweetheart because of his inability to trust her with him, also writes that he rnust "record the fortunes of . . . [his] life" to conquer his evil self (DE 8). In addition, the first-person fictional autobiographical narratives of Mary Shelley, namely Mathilda, Frankenstein and The Last Man, portray writing as the preerninent act that enables the various characters to repent or to justify their actions, record their adventures for posterity, or elicit sympathetic understanding. The fictional characters in Shelley's and Godwin's texts are preoccupied with the value of the writing act, especially its ability ta empower individuals by providing public atonement. In fact, ail the novels 1 consider in this study occupy what we rnight cal1 a juridical space since the fictional characters telling their stories seek to be judged or exonerated by a sympathetic reader.--7 c An analysis of specific scenes in Fleetwood illustrates this complex path of desire that connects Godwin's biography to his fiction. First published in 1805, Fleetwood was revised and reissued in 1832 with the subtitle, "The New Man of Feeling," ironically pointing to Fleetwood's discovery of sensibility, but only as it applies to him. Fleetwood focuses on the problems that arise in a marriage between individuals who have no family or trüstworthy friends to guide them. Fleetwood's initial pessimistic view of human understanding enables hirn to assert rnisanthropy as the only rational course to follow until he discovers that he loves his female ward, Mary MacNeil. Fleetwood's subsequent marriage to the young woman is marred by his unfounded suspicions about his wife's extra-marital relationships. Far from transforming him into a "new man of feeling," Fleetwood's marriage to Mary converts an otherwise rational man into an overly-sensitive delusional man of excessive feeling? Fleetwood is too attu~edto his own emotions,

25 In addition, while Caleb Williams is explicitly political, the other fictional works 1 consider in this study-- Fleetwood, Deloraine, Fran kenstein, Mathilda, "The Mourner, " and Falkner--have an implicit legal dimension concerned with wills, inheritance, criminal trials, or legal rights.

26 For me Fleetwood is the narrative that the arrogant, selfish and paranoid Falkland frorn Godwin's Caleb Williams would 50 and this leads to his jealous fantasies about his wife. Yet the novel is not so much a critique of marriage as of Fleetwood's inability to balance his rational and emotional sides because of an indulgent youth. The last section of the novel, detailing the growth of Fleetwood's poisonous jealousy, resembles the plot of William Shakespeare's Othello insofar as Gifford's relation to Fleetwood Fs comparable to that of Iago to Othello. Fleetwood tells his confidant and evil nephew Gifford that his sick imagination is for ever [sic] busy, shaping the attitudes and gestures . . . [of Mary's affair] . Was it with nands, with eyes, or with lips, that they cornrnunicated their souls? Was the fire of lust in tneir glances? or did their srniles betray a conscious guilt? Did he thrust his arm about her waist, or with sacrilegious fingers invade the transparency of her bosom? (fi 235-6) This sexually explicit fantasy is one of many that Fleetwood nourishes with Gifford's aid, because Fleetwood is unable to feel any of these desires for his young wife once they are married. We get the sense that it is only in fantasy that Fleetwood can vicariously experience the pleasures that he believes are his bct is unwilling to engage in with Mary. In fact, it is his absence from these jealous fantasies that Euels his burning rage and increases his yearning for complete possession of Mary. Fleetwood's pleasure in constructing scenes of desire in which he is absent is literalized in his last insane act. As Gifford's masterly role in feeding Fleetwood's jealousy approaches its climax, Fleetwood declares that he "should like to see . . . [his wife] torn with red-hot have written if he were more sincere in his intentions. In other words, Fleetwood fleshes out the outlines of Falkland's character. piccers" (fi 257), a vindictive plan significantly repeated in Victor's destruction of the female creature in Shelley's Frankenstein. At the height of this fantasy, Fleetwood orders life-sized wax figures of his wife and his other nephew Kenrick, whom he suspects of being her lover. Fleetwood tells the syrnpathetic reader that he commissioned a "celebrated modeller in wax" (a263) to "make a likeness, as exact as he could, of the size of life" (a264) of his wife based on a miniature of her that he had. Reminding us of Victor's active role in creating his monstrous progeny, Fleetwood informs us that he is "not without some ski11 in modelling, and . . . directed and assisted" the rnodeller (a264). Moreover, it is Fleetwood who presumabiy dresses the wax models with an outfit that Gifford has managed to steal from Fleetwood's wife and "a lieutenant's uniform, made to pattern, according to the mode of the regiment to which Kenrick belonged" (a263) . As well, Fleetwood purchases a "cradle, and a chest of child-bed linen" (fi 264), symbolizing his misgivings about his future child. Because he believes that his now very pregnant wife is having an affair, he professes that he cannot look forward to the birth of their child. Fleetwood then orders a feast in his rented rooms and orchestrates the scene, complete with organ music, to be enacted on the day of his first wedding anniversary (which he chooses to spend away from his wife because of her so-called adulterous behaviour). These bizarre arrangements only intensify Fleetwood's desires. He claims that it "is inconceivable what a tormenting pleasure 1 took in al1 these preparations. They ernployed me day after day, and week after week" (a264) . Fleetwood's comments can be read as a gloss on Godwin's intentions in composing Memoirs. For Godwin, too, spent "day after day" working on his biography of Wollstonecraft, and, as 1 have argued, most likely took pleasure from this project. Fleetwood's wax figures of his wife and her supposed lover literalize his perverse jealousy, just as Victor's creation in Shelley's Frankenstein symbolizes the scientist's desires for omnipotent power, and Godwin's discursive recreation of Mary Wollstonecraft in Memoirs makes her alive again, if only favourably for the biographes and negatively for the public. Like William Godwin and Victor Frankenstein, Fleetwood is a narrator retelling past events through his story. However, like Victor, Fleetwood is recounting an actual event of giving form and substance to his desires. The narrator's delight in remernbering his experience of recreating his desires originates from recalling an absence. But the event itself causes a temporary satiation of desire by creating a literai presence. In other words, Fleetwood enjoys recounting the "errors" of his younger days £rom a mature perspective because this pleasure is based on the absence of those events from his immediate present. In his interaction with the wax figures, Fleetwood's desires are encouraged, not by an absence or loss, but by the friction with these "real" wax and cloth bodies, Desire is then circulated both as presence and as absence between bodies and narrative fantasies. On the day reserved for his persona1 show, Fleetwood sets the scene and imagines the sexual intimacy of his wife and lover. The passage is a remarkable representation of the literal embodiment of desire and is worth quoting in its entirety: Al1 the materials wbich 1 had procured with so much car€ and expense, were shut up in the closets of this apartment. 1 locked myself in, and drew them forth one after another. At each interval of the ceremony, 1 seated myself in a chair, my arms folded, my eyes f ixed, and gazed on the object before me in al1 the luxury of despair. . . . 1 have a very imperfect recollection of the conclusion of this scene. . . . While 1 was playing on my organ one of the tunes of Kenrick and Mary . . . my mind underwent a strange revolution. 1 no longer distinctly knew where 1 was, or could distinguish fiction £rom reality. 1 looked wiidly, and with glassy eyes, all round the room; 1 gazed at the figure of Mary; 1 thought it was, and it was not, Mary. Witn mad and idle action, 1 put some provisions on her plate; 1 bowed to her in mockery, and invited her to eat. Then again 1 grew serious and vehement; 1 addressed her with inward and convulsive accents, in the / [sic] language of reproach; 1 declaimed, with uncommon flow of words, upon her abandoned and infernal deceit; al1 the tropes that imagination ever supplied to the tongue of man, seemed to be at my command. . . . while 1 was still speaking, 1 saw her move--if 1 live, 1 saw it. She turned her eyes this way and that; she grinned and chattered at me. (FJ 264) This section of the narrative begins with Fleetwood's conscious enactment of his fantasy to confront his wife with - - her infidelity on their first wedding anniversary.' Yet, as Fleetwood draws forth each of the items of his fantastical play, he appears to retreat to a pre-conscious stage or an Imaginary order. The bringing forth of desired objects, of course, evokes Freud's famous Fort! Da! game described in Bevond the Pleasure Princide (1919). Freud observed that when his grandson played with a cotton reel, the child would make certain sounds that corresponded to the reel's movements. As the child throws the reel out of his cot, he utters an expressive "O-O-O-O," a sound approximating the "German word 'fort' ['gone'] (Freud, Beyond 14, 15). When the child

27 In this scene, Fleetwood's role significantly pref igures the Creature's voyeuristic observation of Victor Frankenstein's wedding night. pulls the reel bacK, upon its reappearance he proclairns "a joyful 'da' ['there'] (Freud, Bevond 15). This action is interpreted by Freud as the child's awareness of his or her needs. For Lacan, this garne symbolizes the child's active participation in language because the child is using the linguistic system to control the absence and presence of a mother whose actions are beyond the child's control. IR controlling the scene of desire, Fleetwood acts as the child with the reel; only Fleetwood's reel is the wax body of his wife. Fleetwood's narration of this effigy scene also enacts a version of the "fort-da" game since he is using the linguistic structure of narrative to control his libidinous eruption at the time of the original desires. He remarks that he has a "very irnperfect recollection of the conclusion of this scenetland that his "mind underwent a strange revolution." His inability to "distinguish fiction from reality" is resolved through the act of writing. As with Godwin's need to control his suffering through the order of language, Fleetwood can provide coherence to his irrational desires only in writing. Moreover, like Godwin in Memoirs, Fleetwood in his autobiographical recollections indirectly addresses his wife Mary. While both Memoirs and Fleetwood are public narratives, they are also partially private confessions of a husband's repentance or grief. Fleetwood's need to address his wife "with inward and convulsive accents, in the / [sic] language of reproach" and to imagine her moving, grinning, and chattering in response are fulfilled in narrative, just as Godwin's desire to acknowledge and criticize what he thought was Wollstonecraft's excessive sensibility is satisfied through Memoirs. Fleetwood's retrospective acknowledgment that the "figure of Mary" he constructed "was, and . . . was not, Mary" can easily be applied to Godwin's account of Wollstonecraft in Mernoirs. In this sense, we can argue, in the words of Peter Brooks, that "the principle of most narrative approaches to the body could 5e considered fetishistic, because they so often involve detours by way of accessory objects," especially in Fleetwood, in which the absent body of Mary is "reconstituted and animated through the present pieces of clothing" (44). Though this entire scene from Fleetwood is a curious ficti~nalepisode that reminds one of Godwin's voyeuristic role in depicting Wollstonecraft's prior semai escapades in Memoirs, Fleetwood's act arises out of rage and erupts in violence as opposed to Godwin's conflicted ernotions that are produced in mourning. Fleetwood occupies a particularly significant position in my reading of the circulation of desire in Godwin's writings because the novel's graphic depiction of a husband's jealous rage suggestively attributes meaning to what remains an aporia in Memoirs, namely the reasons behind Godwin's public disclosure of his late wife's sexual activities. In a moment of madness during the effigy scene, Fleetwood destroys the wax figures, first ripping the clothes off the figure of his wife witn his teeth: 1 dragged the clothes which Mary had worn, from off the figure that represented her, and rent them into long strips ana shreds. 1 struck the figures vehemently with the chairs and other furniture of the room, till they were broken to pieces. 1 threw at them, in despite, the plates and other brittle implements of the supper-table. 1 raved and roared with al1 the power of my voice. 1 must have made a noise like hell broke loose. (fi 265) While such a scene is fictional, it replays Godwin's position as voyeur and, according to his critics, destroyer of Mary Wollstonecraft. Fleetwood's symbolic rape and murder of the wax figure of his wife can be used to reflect on the critical reception of Memoirs which reviewers claimed stripped Wollstonecraft of her dignity by revealing her innermost desires. Even though Godwin's stated intention in Memoirs was to vindicate Wollstonecraft's sexual politics, the fictional replaying of the voyeuristic structure of imagining one's wife with another man points to, at the very least, Godwin's recognition and acknowledgement of the damaging effects of writing about Wollstonecraft's affairs. On the other hand, because this bizarre effigy scene of unleashed anger in Fleetwood is not adequately accounted for by the novel's earlier development of Fleetwood's personality, the scene produces an excess that may hint at Godwin's ünresolved feelings for Wollstonecraft. In other words, what Godwin the biographer portrays with disinterested logic, Fleetwood the fictional creation reenacts with emotional fervour. Indeed, Memoirs and Fleetwood appear to occupy dialogically complementary positions in Godwin's libidinal economy insofar as Godwin's overdetermined attempt not to be jealous of Mary Wollstonecraft's former lovers contrasts with Fleetwood's excessive jealousy of Mary Macneil's supposed lover. In addition to the repetition of the spousal first name 'Mary,'' Godwin's discursive voyeurism of Wollstonecraft is structurally similar to Fleetwood's fantasy of spying on Mary Macneil. Significantly, both in Fleetwood and in Godwin's last published novel, Deloraine, the husbands' suspicions of their wives are unjustified: both Mary Macneil and Deloraine's second wife Margaret Borradale are proven innocent of extra-marital relationships, unlike Mary Wollstonecraft who is proven guilty of pre-marital affairs through Godwin's Memoirs. While Godwin as biographer seems generous in his estimation of his wife, Fleetwood and Deloraine as fictional autobiographers are overly suspicious of their spouses. But, as 1 have implied, a husband's public exposure of his wife's sexual escapades is far from an act of sympatnetic understanding. 1 have discussed Godwin's compositiori,, publication and revision of Memoirs as constituting his mourning process, that is, the narrative process through which he tries to incorporate the loss of his beloved Wollstonecraft and reconcile himself to her absence. However, from the perspective of Fieetwood's life with Mary Macneil, as well as Deloraine's second marriage to Margaret, Godwin's seeming tolerance of Wollstonecraft appears overly compensatory. 1 suggest that in the apparent generosity he displays towards her in Memoirs we might trace a textual desire to castigate Wollstonecraft for abandoning Godwin, a textual excess that only surfaces in the fiction. In other words, by assuming the guise of the objective biographer who faithfully records every detail for his readers, Godwin is able to reveal those aspects of Wollstonecraft's life that simultaneously tarnish her reputation and mâgnify his suffering. The husband's desire to punish a blameless wife for her sexuality manifests itself in Fleetwood's misogynistic attitude to Mary and Deloraine's cruel treatment of Margaret. In discussing the Freudian prima1 scene, Peggy Phelan notes that an "imagined history and a history of a real ocular experience have similarly weighted consequences for the psychic subject" (4). Godwin's detailed account of Wollstonecraftls affairs with Henry Fuseli and Gilbert Imlay in Memoirs are, from Godwin ' s perspective, " imagined" since he reconstructs these events from his conversations with Wollstonecraft. As 1 have discussed, it is the recalling and recording of these two "imagined" affairs that construct Godwin as- a voyeur. Godwin's inclusion of these affairs in Memoirs, then, may be read not so much as an act of generosity towards a woman well-known for her radical sexual politics but more as an act of literary creation by a writer who desires to solicit sympathy for the loss of a beloved spouse. While a bereaved husband rnay resent the death of his wife, especially when other men have had relationsni-s with her, he may also believe that his chivalrous justification of his wife's other relationships is a vindication of her actions when, in fact, it rnay be the method by which he seeks pity. If we read Godwin's exposure of Wollstonecraft's affairs from this perspective, it is clear that these "imagined" moments of liberated fernale passion have a prima1 emotional force that Godwin is unable to reconcile with Wollstonecraft's death. This is why these scenes of liberated female sexuality in Memoirs resurface as patriarchal male fantasies of the wife's infideiity in Fleetwood. Thus, Godwin's fictional repetition of narrative structures of voyeurism involving husbands and wives is another element in his process of mourning. If the narrative of Wollstonecraft's sexual entanglements in Memoirs functions as a primal scene for Godwin, 1 argue that they do so precisely because they are not experienced by him; that is, they are moments constituted by his absence. By using the notion of the primal scene 1 do not intend to lirnit my discussion to the child's fantasy of seeing his or her parents engaged in sexual intercourse: this is just one of the many imagined scenes that Freud labels "primal phantasies" ("The Paths" 371). I refer instead to Freud's general definition of the primal fantasy as a "phylogenetic endowment. In them the individual reaches beyond his own experience into primaeval experience at points where his own experience has been too rudimentary" ("The Paths" 371) . Godwin's fictional return to moments of sexual intimacy betweer! wives and men other than their husbands further indicates that it is not so much Godwin's actual feelings of resentment toward or jealousy of Wollstonecraft that recur in a different form in his fiction as his preoccupation with the expression and repercussions of female desire outside of marriage. Indeed, the portrayal of a sexually liberated woman in Memoirs may be the "phylogenetic enaowment" that the texts of Fleetwood and Deloraine inherit. From another perspective, Godwin's need to write about his wife's sexual activities could be regarded as his way of containing and controlling what he views as ungovernable fernale desire, or of punishing that fernale sexuality through public exposure. Recalling my discussion of the tutelary aspect of Godwin's association with Wollstonecraft, yet another reading of Memoirs alongside the narrative of conjugal relations in Fleetwood (in which the husband occupies the tutor role in relation to the wife) reveals that Godwin's possible resentment at being reduced by Wollstonecraft from adulated philosopher to inexperienced lover surfaces indirectly in Memoirs and directly in his later fiction. If Godwin as author suffers from feelings of abandonment, loss and insecurity (especially in relation to his wife's sexual experiences), Godwin through Fleetwood and Deloraine enacts his fantasy of mastering and disciplining the fiercely independent wife. However, because the fictional wives are revealed to be innocent of their husbands' accusations, we might argue that Godwin desires to indulge the anger and jealousies of the husbanàs but also to vindicate the innocence and devotion of the wives. Whereas in Mernoirs we do not get to hear Wollstonecraft's opinions regarding Godwin's characterization of her, Mary and Margaret in Fleetwood and Deloraine respectively are allowed to explain their actions and correct their husbands' false assumptions of them. Moreover, Fleetwood and Deloraine resemble Memoirs in that the husbands do not directly criticize their wives: Fleetwood unleashes his anger on a wax effigy of his wife, while Deloraine hurts his wife by killing her suspected lover, Godwin's return to the scenes of marital bliss that are overshadowea or destroyed by the wifels potentially ungovernable sexuality--Wollstonecraft's ex-lovers in Memoirs, Mary Macneiils supposed affair in Fleetwood, Margaretls fond mernories of ber chiidhood sweetheart in Deloraine--exposes his inability to incorporate completely within his psyche the loss of his beloved Wollstonecraft. Godwin's conflicted attitude towards Wollstonecraft's sexuality, a sexuality that his radical politics of gender equality support but his personal experience of sexual awakening and loss oppose, thus surface in a reading of the libidinal dynamics between xe text of Memoirs and the narratives of Fleetwood and Deloraine. Kristeva's concept of intertextuality or "transposition" enables us to read Godwin's fictional narratives as a transposition of desires from the "signifying system" or genre of biography to that of fictional autobiography (Revolution 60). Moreover, because the Godwin and Wollstonecraft in Mernoirs are as discursively constructed as the Fleetwood and Mary in the novel, the circulation of desire is not from "life" to text but involves a transposition between texts. Althougn discussing a novel by Mary Hays--one of Godwin's contemporaries-- Tilottama Rajan's explanation of the relationship between life and text is useful here. Rajan states that, The fact that Hays draws on her own experience is a way of authorizing what she does, and of reciprocally implicating the reader in the text. But it is also a way of putting the finality of the text under erasure, by suggesting that what it "does" or where it ends is limited by its genesis in the lifs of a conflicted historical subject. ("Autonarration" 150) That Godwin continues to use his experiences with Wollstonecraft as raw materials for his fictionai narratives after the 1798 publication of Mernoirs puts the "finality" of each subsequent Godwinian novel "under erasure," thereby ensuring the flow of desire from one discursive scene to another. Both Godwin's and the readerrs desires are thus created and sustained through the repetition of themes and structures, or in the transposition of scenes between texts. Published in 1833, Deloraine is the last novel Godwin wrote before his death three years later. Though written when Godwin was 76, the first two volumes of Deloraine focus on courtship and the early stages of marriage and, thus, revisit the themes of the third volume of Fleetwood. Deloraine is yet another autobiographical confessional narrative that follows the path of desire among Godwin's lived experiences, the act of narration, and f ictlonal events. As we have seen, through Memoirs Godwin constructs an image of Wollstonecraft that enables him to confront, or at least work through, his anguish over her death. In Fleetwood and Deloraine there is a curious repetition of Wollstonecraft-like portraits of women, emotionally charged "primait' scenes (such as the death of a beloved wife or viewing one's wife with other men), or simply the names "William" and "Mary." 1 believe that these textual transpositions fictionally inscribe Godwin's further attempts to resolve his feelings for his wife. I suggest that because both Fleetwood and Deloraine contain an Othello-like plot and resemble each other in various other ways such as in the portrayal of the young wives, these two novels and Memoirs form a triptych that traces the nuances of Godwin's relationship with Wollstonecraft. Like Mernoirs and Fleetwood, Deloraine is about a husband's recollections of his wife and her past. Moreover, in their resemblance to Wollstonecraft, the fictional female protagonists in Deloraine recall the depiction of liberated sexuality in Memoirs. While we might read Fleetwood and Memoirs as antithetical cornpanion pieces in Godwin's corpus of domestic writing, Deioraine appears to occupy a mediating position between these twc texts since this last Godwinian novel presents one male character who combines the spousal desires explored in both the earlier texts. Deloraine himself is both the sympathetic lover and the vindictive husband, while the various other male characters in this novel are either sensitive and understanding or jealous and mournful. Whereas Deloraine's later suspicions of his second wife Margaret resemble Fleetwood's obsessive behaviour towards Mary, the courtship and short-lived relationship between Deloraine ana his first wife Emilia Fitzcharles are reminiscent of Godwin's affair with Wollstonecraft as described by him in Memoirs. Throuqh two different rnarriages, then, Deloraine both alludes to and reconsiders the libidinal dynamics of Godwin's complex relationship with Wollstonecraft, a theme initiated by Memoirs and continued in Fleetwood. Indeed, the portrayal of Deloraine's relationship to Emilia Fitzcharles remind readers of the idyllic moments of Godwin's vemoirs. Not only are there striking similarities between the portrayal of Emilia in Deloraine and of Wollstonecraft in Memoirs, but, more importantly, both Deloraine and Godwin describe their courtship and marriage to their respective wives as the perfect union of intellect and passion. In his biographical tribute to Mary Wollstonecraft, Godwin declares "1 think I may venture to Say, that no two persons ever found in each other's society, a satisfaction more pure and refined. What ït was in itself, can now oniy be known, in its full extent, to the survivor" (Mernoirs 262). As if to ciefend hirnself from charges of hedonism, Goàwin adds that his relationsnip with Wollstonecraft "was not an idle happiness, a paradise of selfish and transitory pleasures" (Memoirs 263). In describing his profound love for Emilia, Deloraine explains that Each party was free; and, on that account, the silken cords of ingenuous passion sat a thousand times more ligntly upon me . . . 1 had never before been in unreserved communication with an accomplished female of my own age. . . . We married; and, if ever man was happy / [sicj in the wedded state, 1 was so. (DE 13-4) Deloraine's exuberant description of his emotional state of mind supplernents Godwin's restrained articulation of his desires in Memoirs. Curiously, though Deloraine's marriage to Emilia lasts longer than Godwin's to Wollstonecraft, the fictional character appears to echo his author in proclaiming that "al1 the pleasures 1 afterwaras experienced, never had the power to obliterate rny vivid remembrance of the days of courtship" (DE 14). Because Godwin's Mernoirs narrates a brief period of happiness curtailed by Wollstonecraft's premature death, I argue that Godwin's ability to render an alternative or extended period of married bliss for his fictional character is restrained by his deployment of the discursive figure of Wollstonecraft. Since Godwin's second marriage to the educated Mary Jane lasted thirty-£ive years, Godwin's failure to portray fictionally a lasting and satisfying marriage cannot be explained so simply by a biographical reference to his experiences with his first wife. Rather, the constructed figure of Wollstonecraft in Memoirs is the ruling sign for subsequent depictions of intelligent and attractive women in Godwin's fiction. It is not Godwin's lived experiences but his textual translation of those experiences in Memoirs that functions as a limiting discourse to the portrayal of intellectual, passionate women who are desired and desire Godwinian male characters. In short, it is Godwin's fantasy image of Wollstonecraft that he cannot get beyond. We might be tempted to regard Godwin's second marriage to Mary Jane (formerly Mrs. Clairmont and also known as Mary Vial) as the basis for Deloraine's second marriage to the considerably younger Margaret. Margaret, however, is more a conflation of the fictional Mary Macneil from Fleetwood and the constructed Wollstonecraft from Memoirs. Like Mary, Margaret is a spirited woman who tries to defend herself from her older husband's accusations of infidelity. Moreover, the physical descriptions of Mary and Margaret are remarkably similar: both are described through their husbands' eyes as having fair complexions, soft skin and extremely beautiful features (fi 161; DE 43) . In Godwin's writings, al1 the desirable women are described in a rather conventional and similar manner. For example, the physical description of Emilia, Deloraine's first wife, is essentially indistinguishable from that of Margaret. What differentiates these Godwinian female characters are their specific emotional situations prior to meeting their husbands. Whereas Mary is completely devastated by the tragic deaths of her parents and sisters in a fatal boating accident, Margaret is wholly absorbed by the possible death of her beloved childhood sweetheart William. When Godwin meets Wollstonecraft, she too suffers from a broken-heart

Deloraine the nusband's suspicions result in the shooting of William and the death of Margaret, who dies from the shock of witnessing the murder. Given the repetition of Godwin's first name and the temporal position of the narrative of William and Margaret in Deloraine's retrospective account, the William-Margaret relationship seems to be present in the second half of the novel as a reminder of the ideal marriage between Wollstonecraft and Godwin as portrayed in Memoirs. Thus, the two-part structure of Deloraine includes those aspects of desire that can be gleaned £rom a reading of Fleetwood juxtaposed with Memoirs, that is, a husband's complex emotions for a beautiful yet intelligent wife. If Wollstonecraft's death and the tribute to ner in Memoirs function as the transitional moments in Godwin's writings such that we can differentiate between a pre- and post-Wollstonecraft Godwin, in the plot of Deloraine the premature death of the idealized Emilia functions as the key event in the narrative that marks the transition from the generous to the suspicious Deloraine. But the post-Emilia Deloraine becomes engaged in another relationship; hence, the difference in Deloraine's personality is illustrated through two marriages. The Deloraine-Emilia marriage is characterized by tenderness and compassion, while the Deloraine-Margaret relationship suffers from jealousy and spite. Although Deloraine is Margaret's legal husband, he fears that she still considers William her one true love. Like the predominantly misogynistic Fleetwood, Deloraine views Margaret not as an equal but as a 'pearl beyond al1 price" (DE 102): Margaret was to me what a favourite toy or plaything is to an affectionate child. She was like the little bird, that the child thinks she can never enough caress, or testify her fondness for. She was the fetiche [sic] of an Arabian devotee, a relic in which a portion of the divinity is supposed to take up its residence, and which is as an amulet, that, as long as it is retained, fails not to "keep far off each thing" of calamity or evil. . . . It was impossible then that 1 should not be superlatively happy; for did I not possess her? (DE 103) Objectified and exoticized, Margarer is more a signifier of Deloraine's desires than an individual character with her own desires. In Fleetwood's retrospective tale, Mary, too, becomes a rare object to possess and to exhibit. Significantly, Godwin's exposure of Wollstonecraft in Memoirs also objectifies and displays her Doth for the reading public and for Godwin. Through a reading of al1 three texts--Memoirs, Fleetwood, Deloraine--one can detect a trace of Godwin's unfulfilled desires for the figure of Wollstonecraft, particularly his desire to live a life of perfect happiness with her. In Deloraine this male desire for ultimate fulfilment in a marriage is transformed fictionally into Deloraine's desire for cornplete possession of Margaret. Yet Deloraine's desire is never satisfied because of the shadow of Margaret's former lover. Indeed, in a pang of agony Deloraine utters what Godwin may have felt about Wollstonecraft: "1 had her body, al1 outward duty, honour and observance; her mind was another's" (DE 106). Unlike Godwin, who assumes a dispassionate perspective in the biographical Memoirs, in Deloraine's retrospective narrative he does not temper his emotional outrage: he unleashes his utter indignation at discovering that Margaret, "this thing so emphatically my own" (DE 106) still loves William. While Fleetwood's fantasies of Mary and Kenrick are encouraged by Gifford's evil machinations, Deloraine's rage is fuelled by his own false readings of seeing Margaret and William together. As in Fleetwood, this voyeuristic narrative episode is structurally similar to Godwin's voyeuristic descriptions of Wollstonecraft's pre-marital affairs in Memoirs. The repetition of this particular structure of a husband observing a wife's supposed infidelities suggests that Godwin never quite accepted either the knowledge of Mary Wollstonecraft's liberated sexual activities, or her death so soon after their wedding. Thus, Godwin's domestic fiction foregrounds his conflicted need to control and contain the expression of female desire, even as he feels compelled to allow it a voice. In interpreting the writings of the Godwin/Shelley family, Romantic scholars usually discuss the absence of Mary Wollstonecraft even though, as I have implied, she is very much present, if only as a textual symbol. Reading Fleetwood, Deloraine, and Memoirs as intertextual discourses of desire reveals yet another pattern: the pleasure of the male figure in constructing scenes of his absence. These three Godwinian narratives about heterosexual relationships contain scenes in which the narrator either describes his suspicions or provides his perspective on his wife's promiscuity in a public text. In Memoirs these are the sections on Wollstonecraft's affairs with men other than Godwin as described by Godwin, the biographicàl narrator (who, as 1 have suggested, is not the same as Godwin the historical figure). Godwin as narrator is comforted but also aroused through his act of recalling and writing about Wollstonecraft's relationships with Fuseli and Imlay. Fleetwood also gets enorrnous relief and excitement in recollecting his perverse fantasies of his wife's infidelities, fantasies marked by his absence and his madness. Deloraine, too, experiences such pleasures. In each case, because the narrator is not present himself in these particular scenes as a character, and yet, nevertheless, narrates them, 1 suggest that there is a voyeuristic pleasure in observing one's wife with cther men, a pleasure derived from vicariously identifying with the other man. Fleetwood's suspicions of Mary Macneil's associations with Kenrick, and Deloraine's obsessions with his second wife's relationship with her childhood sweetheart William (whose name alludes to another set of narcissistid voyeuristic replications) recall the pattern in Memoirs. Because these fantasies of desire are comparable both thematically and structurally to Godwin's Memoirs, 1 suggest that Memoirs, Fleetwood, and Deloraine are, to a certain extent, mirror images of one another, only from different angles. The writing of autobiographical recollections always already implies a voyeuristic and narcissistic pleasure because the narrator is watching both others and himself. Writing itself already fragments subjectivity into the "1" that is doing the writing and the "1" that is represented in the linguistic sign. The autobiogrâphical narrator foregrounds this aspect of writing in that he or she fashions a new self at the site of writing through his or her selective memory. The biographical narrator also constructs a position in language from which to narrate. This position is often described as objective; however, as 1 have argued, this supposedly objective biographical perspective is equally constructed. We might say that the autobiographer is more aware of his or her own desires in writing than the biographer who hides behind a false mask of objectivity. In both cases, the act of creating a self in language structurally resernbles the Lacanian mirror stage in which the child assumes the fom of the other, that is, his or her mirror image. Lacan states that each time that the jubilant assumption of the mirror stage is retrieved along sirnilar lines, each time that the subject is captivated by one of his fellow beings, well, then the desire revives in the subject. But it is revived verbally. ("The see-saw" 171) In constructing a history of one's past in autobiography or in locating an objective stance to stabilize a present subjective position in biography, desire is produced in tne very gap between the "1" that narrates and tne "1" that is presented in the narrative. This "1" that is presented in the narrative cm be the sign for the self or character of one's autobiography or the sign for the biographical self that relates someone else's life. It is in this gap in the double acquisition of identity in the mirror stage between the "1" who watches and the "1" who is viewed, and the "1" who speaks and the "1" who is represented in that utterance that desire surfaces. The scene with the wax mannequins of Mary and Kenrick in Fleetwood embodies the voyeuristic desire to view one's wife with another man. The insane Fleetwood who destroys these wax "bodies" in the effigy scene is the incarnation of the male narrator who desires to be present but also to be absent from his voyeuristic fantasy insofar as Fleetwood is present in body but absent in mind. In his violent destruction of the wax figures and in his raving, roaring and reduction of language to a "noise like hell broke loose" (a265) Fleetwood's subjectivity disintegrates. Through his insanity he exits from the scene and is absent from the fantasy and from responsibility. Deloraine, too, runs away £rom the enactment of his jealous desires. After killing William, Deloraine prepares to leave his property, mansion, and dying wife for a new country. Like Caleb Williams, Deloraine does not believe that he is guilty of a crime: In my own eyes 1 stood justified for the act of destroying him [William]. But 1 knew enough of the laws of rny country, [sic] to know that that which in my mind was a vindication, would not be so received in an English court of justice as to obtain my acquitta1 of the crime of murder. (DE 148) At this point, the novel begins to resemble the vârious adventures Caleb nas while he is pursued as a criminal. Whereas Fleetwood mentally escapes from his jeaious fantasies in that he goes insane, Deloraine physically runs away from the reality of his desires. Because Fleetwood restricts the expression of his anger to substitute bodies (wax figures), he is able to consider a reconciliation with his wife Mary in a way that Deloraine never can since his fury directly affects Margaret. Deloraine can recreate Margaret only by textualizing her life, as Godwin does with Wollstonecraft in Memoirs. In the Lacanian model, the male exchanges his literal body for the symbolic power of the nom-du-père and, therefore, establishes his presence in the order of language. Women are considered symbolically lacking and are, thus, associated with the absence of the mother. In Memoirs, Fleetwood, and Deloraine woman is reintroduced in the symbolic order of the narrative as a discursive figure or metaphoric wax body (Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Fleetwood) that determines the male narrator's subjectivity. In Deloraine it is Margaret's reaction to William's death, namely her own death, that determines Deloraine's identity as a pursued murderer. In the effigy scene in Fleetwood, it is the action of destroying the wax body of Mary that drives Fleetwood insane. This last psychically and ernotionally deranged Fleetwood is deluded by Gifford into dissolving his marriage and disinheriting his child but is rescued by Kenrick from such actions. By the end of the novel, Fleetwood's destruction of his marriage prevents his wife Mary from forgiving him entirely and there is no attempt by Godwin, the writer, to distance the reader from these final scenes. We are left with the perspective of this emotionally unstable Fleetwood. However, because we are reading an autobiographical narrative, we are encouraged to suppfement the final moment of the novel with a more dispassionate narrator. In Memoirs readers are asked to sympathize with Godwin's loss by supplementinç the text of history with his version of Mary Wollstonecraft. The interaction with what we might terrn the corps-de la-mère in Fleetwood (or indirectly in Deloraine) and the nom-de la- mère in Memoirs (for Wollstonecraft is literally reincarnated as a name, a discursive identity) transforms the male narrator's subjectivity. Thus, unlike Lacan's, and implicitly Freud's, conventional formulation of desire in terms of the mother's absence and the father's presence, in the Godwin/Shelley farnily it is the male/father figure who, through his absence, rematerializes the female/mother figure in writing. One could argue that Godwin's authorship of the novels 1 am discussing precludes any discussion of the fictional narrators as equal to and not subsumed by Godwin's narration. In "What 1s an Author?" Michel Foucault distinguishes between the historical writer and the "author" to deconstruct the assurned stability of the writer's subjectivity. Foucault argues that the author serves only

certain functional principle by which, in our culture, one limits, excludes, and chooses; in short, by which one impedes the free circulation, the free manipulation, the free composition, decomposition, and recomposition of fiction. ("What 1s" 264) Hence, he discusses "author functions" and not "authors" in texts. 1 want to ernphasize this distinction between Godwin, the historical person, and Godwin, the author-function. In these three narratives (Plemoirs, Fleetwood, Deloraine) it is the gaze of the "author function" marked by the sign "William Godwin" that is displaced ont0 the male narrators, whether fictional or biographical. 1 am not suggesting that the historical subject William Godwin transfers his desires onto his fictional characters. Rather, in the act of writing, the subjectivity of Godwin, the historical writer, is fragrnented, and it is the resulting identities--in Memoirs Godwin as author-function, Godwin as biographical narrator, Godwin as autobiographical character--that resemble the fictional positions of Fleetwood as narrator, Fleetwood as autobiographicai character and so on. William Godwin as "author function" initiates this circulation of desire through the very act of subjecting his identity to writing, an act that reveals the instability of that identity. That the fictional Fleetwood and Deloraine narrate tales of desire resembling what Godwin as biographical narrator tells in Memoirs suggests a transposition of desire from one sign system to another. Significantly, neither Fleetwood's nor Deloraine's suspiciors about their wives are confirmed in their respective narratives. Both Mary Fleetwood and Margaret Deloraine are portrayed as innocent victims of their husbands' jealousy. It is in Memoirs that the wife's reptation is tarnished by the husband's confirmation (because Godwin claims to present the "facts" of Wollstonecraft's life). Although the portrayal of Mary Wollstonecraft's affair with the married Fuseli in Mernoirs is not the same as Fleetwood's or Deloraine's misgivings about their wives, there is a structural transposition from ostensibly vindicating Wollstonecraft's character in Godwin's biography to analyzing the personality of the jealous husband in Godwin's fiction. In other words, the movement from Mernoirs to Fleetwood and Deloraine shifts the narratorial perspective. We go from the viewpoint of the honourable and iorgiving husband (Godwin, the biographer ana autobiographical character) who strives to vindicate the proven prorniscuous woman (Mary Wollstonecraft) in Memoirs, to the inner workings of the mind of the jealous husband (Fleetwood and Deloraine) who in fantasy rnanifests vengeance for his wife's unproven adultery. The splitting of subjectivity in Fleetwood, Deloraine and Memoirs is also comparable to the triangulation of male narrators in Shelley's Frankenstein in which three distinct characters are portrayed: Robert Walton, Victor Frankenstein and the creature. The structural transposition of the male gaze from biography to autobiographical fiction, from Mernoirs through Fleetwood and Deloraine to Frankenstein, replicates desire along a homoerotic and narcissistic circuit. In each narrative reconfiguration, it is the spectral presence of wife/mother figures in fantasies and the actual absence of husband/ father figures in narrative scenes that produce and proliferate desire. The male figures remain outside a scene, at the borders of the narrative frame, as they direct the gaze towards the female presence within. This narrative scopophilia is narcissistic because, as 1 have discussed, the act of writing splits the subjectivity of the narrator. This act is also homoerotic for the male characters get pleasure from observing their wives with other men, a pleasure that 1 suggest stems from a desire for the other man, for the other mant s pro~ess.~'

In Frankenstein this voyeuristic structure is distorted. Victor's act of narrating the horrible events that occur on his While the qualities of the suspected male rival changes, the figure of the wife in each instance resembies the positioning of Mary Wollstonecraft in Godwin's autobiographical biography of her. If Memoirs is a performative act for Goawin, it is also a pedagogical spectacle for his daughter. William St Clair notes that Ciaire Clairmont (Mary's adopted sister from Godwin's second marriage), Mary, and Percy Shelley read and reread al1 of Godwin's and Wollstonecraft's works during their European journey. And this would include Memoirs." Not only did the trio try to live by Godwinian principles of justice and try to adopt Wollstonecraft's notion of sexual equality, they also presumably learned some harsh lessons concerning the ramifications, especially for women, of sexual freedom. For Mary Shelley, however, reading Memoirs gave her a particular kind of history. Whereas Memoirs may have facilitated Godwin's mourning process, it spectacularly displays Shelley's site of origin in Godwin's detailed description of Mary Wollstonecraft giving birth. Moreover, as an introduction to a mother Shelley never knew, Godwin's account of his sexual relations with Wollstonecraft explicitly foregrounds Shelley's origin in erotic desire. From the beginnkg, Shelley, along with the interested reading public, views both her mother and her father as wedding night, namely the creature's deadly destruction of Elizabeth, is a perverse and horrific version of viewing one's wife with another male (creature).

29 In her edition of Mary Shelley's "History of A Six Weeks' Tour" (1817), Jeanne Moskal notes that after reading aloud Mary Wollstonecraft's Letters Written durina- a Short Resjdence in Sweden. Norwav.- and Denmark (1796), Claire Clairmont, Percy and Mary Shelley on their way to Germany "followed the book with Godwin's Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1798) on 3 September" (34). individual sexual beings with desires for others (as in Wollstonecraft's affairs with Fuseli and Imlay) and for each other: they are already sexualized in Shelley's eyes. The publication of Memoirs is a transposition of Shelley's primal scene from unconscious fantasy to conscious reality, from the Imaginary space to the Syrnbolic order. For Mary Shelley, it is her birth and her motherls death shortly thereafter that forrn her primal scene. Memoirs complicates a simple interpretation of Shelley's primal scene because this "imagined history" (Phelan 4) of origîns is a Godwinian fictional rendition that can be neither negated nor confirmed by the mother. The father, in short, effectively kills the mother in providing his version of what she felt in giving birth to Shelley. To use Peggy Phelan's words, though the "formation of the '1' cannot be witnessed by the 'eyel," Godwin gives Shelley an "1" to be "witnessed" by al1 "eyesf' including her own (4-5). Not only is this narrative of Mary Shelley's birth a decisive moment in the formation of her subjectivity, but it also represents discursively the passage from the Imaginary to the Symbolic order. Through Godwin's text we read of the loss of the mother as the birth of the girl subject. In the Lacanian and Freudian models, an individual assumes his or her identity and enters into the order of language, which is ruled by the father figure, by abjecting the mother who belongs to the imaginary realm. For Mary Shelley, the mother is literally part of the Imaginary order since her recollections of Wollstonecraft are always already mediated by the father's language. In reading about her birth in Memoirs, then, Shelley reenacts her mirror stage because she rnisrecognizes herself in the mirror that is her father's text and is constructed by the words of her father's description. Moreover, if "the memory of the prima1 scene also functions as a rehearsal for one's own death" ~ecausethe primal scene is a "psychic revisiting and anticipation of the world without oneself" (Phelan 5), the narrative of Mary Shelley's birth and Mary Wollstonecraft's death memorializes the child's and mother's historical presence together in exchange for the mother's physical absence. However, far from being an absent figure of desire, the mother, Mary Wollstonecraft, is preserved as a discursive presence in the symbolic order, and hence, for Mary Shelley. Thus, to discuss Shelley's primal scene is to account for its presence in a public text not in a private fantasy. The issue of spectatorship, then, is crucial to our understanding of the function of Mernoirs for Mary Shelley. One might contend that Godwin's public exposure of Wollstonecraft's body presents womafi, especially her sexual body, according to conventional expectations as a spectacle to be looked at and desired. I suggest, however, that instead of presenting a sexualized and sanitized version of male desire, however, Godwin displaces the objectified woman of the male gaze. The "taboos around the female body as grotesque (the pregnant body, the aging body, the irregular body) and as unruly when set loose in the public sphere" (Russo 214) are subverted by Godwin's public narrative in that he exposes Wollstonecraft's sexual, pregnant and puerperal or ruptured body not as objects of arousal or disgust but as subjects of human pain and passion. For example, Godwin tells us that after Wollstonecraft's delivery, her "placenta was not yet removed" and that "Dr. Poignand, physician and man-midwife" had to extract "the placenta . . . in pieces" (Mernoirs 266). We are informed that "the loss of blood was considerable, and produced an almost uninterrupted series of fainting fits" (Mernoirs 266). By describing his wife's labour and death in such gynaecological detail at this one point in his memoirs when the risk of turning his wife's suffering into a spectacle of female horrors is the greatest, Godwin incarnates the abstract image of woman: he fleshes her out with a body that can suffer and that can secrete blood. Furthermore, through this detailed description Godwin literalizes the connection between female sexuafity, on the one hand, and birth and mortality, on the other. Though Wollstonecraft is a discursive construction, she is not an aesthetic abstraction in this scene. If Shelley was deprived of her blological rnother, here was the next best thing--the image of a flesh and blood woman. Godwin inadvertently provides a fetishistic image of Mary Wolistonecraft for his daughter to consume; however, far from a fantasy abstraction, Shelley receives a brutal lesson on the tribulations of femininity and pregnancy. In its spatial and typographical representation of a dialogue between mother as an abstraction and mother as a "real" woman, Julia Kristeva's "Stabat Mater" is a significant intertext for Godwin's Memoirs since it textualizes the mother's body as flesh. Though "words" themselves are metaphors, the abstraction of wornan in the linguistic realm is a double displacement from her body. That Kristeva can write about the rnother in terms of her flesh removes this second-order displacement. One can read Kristeva's lyrical testimony of childbirth as a supplement to Godwin's narrative in Memoirs, which is necessarily limited by his historical perspective both as male and as observer: One does not give birth in pain, one gives birth to pain: the child represents it and henceforth it settles in, it is continuous- . . . Dark twisting, pain in the back, the arms, the thighs--pincers turned into fibers, infernos bursting veins, stones breaking bones . . . Al1 tbse words, now, ever visible things to register the roar of a silence that hurts al1 over. . . . Yet the eye picked up nothing, the ear remained deaf. . . . Frozen placenta, live limb of a skeleton, monstrous graft of life on myself, a living aead. Life . . . [sic] death . . . [sic] undecidable. (Kristeva, "Stabat Mater" 167-8 ) (emphasis added) Unable to see or hear the "silence that hurts all over," Godwin disrupts his objective account to include one statement by Wollstonecraft on her ordeal: "Speaking of what she had already passed through, she declared, 'that she had never known what bodily pain was before"' (Memoirs 266) . In this terse response to childbirth, any female reader who nas also given birth can hear Kristeva's acute description of pain. Thus, Mary Shelley's reaction to reading about her birth goes beyond the psychic trauma of revisiting one's prima1 scene. For Mary Shelley, whether before or after she had given birth to her own children, the act of reading Memoirs, especially ûf reading about her mother's pain, enables her to admire and understand a mother she never knew. Memoirs also encourages Shelley to connect with her mother's suffering fleshly body and ecstatic sexual body in a way that is otherwise foreclosed by the mother's death. As we know, Mary Shelley gave birth in 1815 to a premature baby who did not survive, and subsequently lost others who died prematurely in childhood. Percy Shelley's inability to comfort his wife and Godwin's refusal to sympathize with his daughter's loss during these times prolonged her mourning process. Kristeva explains that by "giving birth, the woman enters into contact with her mother; she becornes, [sic] she is her own mother; they are the same continuity differentiating itself" ("Motherhoodff239). The woman becomes rnelancholic "as soon as the child becomes an object, a gift to others, neither self nor part of the self, an object destined to be a subject, an otner" (Kristeva, "Motherhood" 239). Through the recognition of her female body's potential to suffer both in labour and at the hands of men, as well as through the memory of ber own pain of childbirth and losing her children to death, Shelley can empathize with her mother's agony and sympathize with her fztherls loss. For Godwin's trauma over his wife's ueath is the subtext of the publishing of Memoirs. Furtherrnore, 1 scggest that like her father, Shelley displaces ner sorrow ont0 her fiction, thereby converting melancholia into mourning through the creative act of abjecting that which is painful and terrifying. It is in this textual context, then, that we must consider Shelley's fiction. Memoirs originates a family drama in which Godwin as father is always already oedipalized in the eyes of Shelley as daughter because he both rnediates her conception of her mother and figures himself as a sexual subject. Memoirs, in this sense, shatters the fantasy of origins, establishing that origin firmly in textuality. It is significant that Shelley's fictional creature in Frankenstein also discovers the truth of his origins in a text--Victor's journal of his experiment. Marilyn May argues that Shelley "was literally commodified at birth and imrnediately entered the speculative economy of the marketplace" (493). Indeed, the textual rendition of her birth in a published work inserts Shelley into the realm of the symbolic order where desire constructs her identity and language provides her a place from which to speak. In his analysis of the birth scene in various eighteenth-century British novels, Robert Erikson declares that according to the midwife lore of the era, the moment of birth is the "critical Minute" at which the rnidwife senses the child is to corne forth, and her procedures then may have a crucial bearing on the subsequent developrnent of the child. She is thus in a very real sense the child's fate, and the moment of birth is one enveloped in utterance and speech. . . - One's fate is then in a sense that which is spoken for one at birth, so that every person's name--and every name is a sign of inexhaustible rneaning--constitutes an emblenatic script for one's life. (11) Godwin's portrayal of Mary Shelley's birth places him in the position of midwife who brings forth the child into subjectivity. That Godwin renders this figurative birth in language makes Shelley's entrance always already oedipalized, that is, always already frorn within the symbolic order. Godwin's Memoirs can thus be described as a generative text, one that literally produces Mary Shelley's identity in language. The biography also gives birth to a mother that Shelley has never known except frorn the perspective of a father she does know: it is the male voice vorniting forth its secret though "a voice / 1s wanting," and "the deep truth is irnageless" (fl II.iv.115-6). 1 argue that it is this paternal voice telling a tale of fernale desire, rnotherhood, and a "grotesque" birth (because it ends in death) that influences Shelley's first adult attempt at fictional writing. Indeed, Shelley's textual rendition of the male voice and masculine desire in Frankenstein is related to her father's desire to narrativize her mother's desire. In other words, 1 argue that Shelley's novel can be read profitably as a response to a father who appropriated the female voice. As 1 have noted, Victor's mutilation of the female creature significantly returns us to the scene of Fleetwood's destruction of the wax-figure of his wife and metonyrnically to Godwin's exposure of Wollstonecraft's sexual life. Furtherrnore, in each case, the intended fernale object or victirn is imagined to be sexually uncontrollable, either in her capacity as mother or as wife. Victor's reflection that his female creature might propagate "a race of devils" (FR 192) incites his destruction of her, while Fleetwood's delusion that his wife is comrnitting adultery stimulates his aggression. From Shelley's perspective, male egotism and masculine desires, ultimately, kill female expression, According to Anne Mellor "Victor's most profound erotic desire [is] a necrophiliac and incestuous desire to possess the dead female, the lost mother" (Marv 121). Mary Shelley's creation of Victor's twin desires--"necrophiliac and incestuous"--thus signals her simultaneous occupation both of her father's and her own role in relation to the absent Mary Wollstonecraft. Shelley conflates the father's desire to possess the wife and the daughter's desire to reunite with the mother at the site of her fictional character Victor. As a writer Shelley identifies with the authorial voice of Godwin, but as his daughter she reads and criticizes his assumption of this position, especially in exhibiting her mother's desires as he d~es.~~As Hélène Cixous has claimed about the woman writer in "The Laugh of the Medusa," "there is always within her a little of that good mother's milk. She writes in white ink" (251). Mary Shelley's struggle is over the site of writing, whether in white ink or in her father's ink. Critics such as Anne Mellor and William Veeder have

30 Shawn Lisa Maurer in her discussion "The Female (As) Reader: Sex, Sensibility, and the Materna1 in Wollstonecraft's Fictions" reminds us that in "a social system in which women's sexual desire must be subsumed into a marriage contract that treats women solely as property, the desire that is stimulated by reading can become an important instrument of female liberation" (47)- also discussed the absence of loving mothers and the uncomfortably incestuous father-daughter relationships in Shelley's writings, ranging from the explicit portrayal of incestuous desires in Mathilda to the trope of father- daughter incestuous intimacy in Lodore ( 1835) and Fa1 kner (1837). As a literary daughter of William Godwin, however, Shelley's representation of father-daughter incestuous passion must be read as a trope for the apprenticeship of the literary daughter to her father's patriarchal, hierarchical profession. This apprenticeship is also a willing "forsaking [of] her literal mother" (Kowaleski- Wallace, Their Fathers1 Dauahters Il), but for Shelley it means to identify with the position of her literary mother Mary Wollstonecraft. C. Kegan Paul claims that Wollstonecraf t died in her prime, intellectual and physical, leaving to the daughter to whorn she gave birth a mingled inheritance of genius and sadness, of filial duty, met by coldness at home, of deep wedded joys and deep widowed sorrows. (288) Shawn Lisa Maurer also suggests that though Mary Wollstonecraft died prematurely, like her character Maria £rom Wollstonecraftls The Wronas of Woman, "she also endowed her daughter, not surprisingly named Mary, with a kind of mernoir," and by "learning to read and to recognize the mother as author, the daughter is authorized to write herself" (51). 1 would add that it is through Godwin1s textual rendition of her death and through her own texts that Wollstonecraft.as both textual figure and literary author bestows her daughter with two legacies: the sorrows of female sexuality as Paul intirnates, and the authority by which to change that representation as Maurer irnplies. 1 argue, then, that Mary Shelley may be writing over the literal body of her dead mother, but she is also identifying with the literaxy body of her mother's corpus. Memoirs is a textual nodal point for my study because of its pivotal position in the circulation of desire between father and daughter, For Mary Shelley's novels, the biographical construction of Wollstonecraft provided by her father stimulates a reappraisal of both this paternal image of her mother and her father's role in its construction. Similarly, for Godwin, Memoirs is a type of prima1 scene that he returns to repeatedly if only to consider it from different angles? For both Shelley and Godwin the author's libidinal investment in the discursive construction of Wollstonecraft is displaced ont0 imaginative recreations in fictions. Far from a simple one-to-one correspondence between some inaccessible Real and its representation, Shelley's and Godwin's introjection and abjection of the image of Wollstonecraft complicates and ultimately dismantles any binary opposition between fiction and reality. Reading Memoirs as a text that transgresses the boundary between biographical and autobiographical desires releases it from Godwin's authority. This reading, thus, allows Memoirs to circulate in the textual economy of a father and a daughter, a libidinal relationship marked by the constructed immortality of the absent, and yet present, mother: Mary Wollstonecraft.

31 Godwin's return to the scenes of bis wife's sexual entanglements with other men and her subsequent death also structurally resembles the child's fantasy of her parents' sexual activity and the desire to kill the parent of the opposite sex. Chapter Two Political Anxiety: William Godwin, Ca1-eb Williams and Masculine Cesire

Godwin published his first notable work of fiction Thinus as Thev Are, or The Adventures of CaleD Williams (1794) the year after the publication of his enorrnously successful Enauirv Concernina Political Justice and Its Influence on Morals and H~DD~~~ss(1793). William Hazlitt in his "Review of Cloudeslev [Godwin's 1830 novel] and Estimate of Other Works" states that "few books have made a greater impression than Caleb Williams [sic] on its first appearance" (144). Considered by some the first psychological thriller and a precursor to the detective genre, Caleb Williams not oniy captured the imagination of its original audience but continues to be the only work in Godwin's vast corpus of political and fictional writings that is studied in any depth in current scholarship.' Caleb Williams is a fictional autobiography or memoir about the titular character's confrontation with the Law in its paternal, social and legal forms. The narrative begins with Caleb's confession that his fame and happiness have been thwarted by his enemy, who has "shown himself inaccessible to intreaties and untired in persecutior." (m 3). Caleb then recounts the history of this hostile relationship with his former employer, the nobleman Ferdinand0 Falkland. Embedded in these first few chapters

l Although some critics such as Jerrold Hogle and Gary Kelly refer to Godwin's novel as Thinas as Thev Arg, which was the main title until the 1831 edition, 1 prefer the subtitle The Adventures of Caleb Williams or the shortened version Caleb Williams because the subtitle emphasizes the novel's exploration of the private sphere of individual subjective desires as opposed to the "status quo" implied in the main title (Hogle 277 n.1). is the tale of Falkland's decline from a position of respect to one of shame, as remembered by Caleb from conversations with Falkland's servant, Mr. Collins. Based on Mr. Collins' narrative, Caleb describes how the proud but vulgar Barnabas Tyrrel humiliated Falkland, causing the latter secretiy to murder Tyrrel. Caleb informs us that Falkland was legally acquitted of this crime; however, Caleb's narrative suggests that Falkland's reticence about his past points to a guilty secret. The first part of the novel, then, introduces the character of Falkland through Caleb's inquisitive eyes. The second half of Caleb Williams reverses tflese roles in the plot. Falkland becomes the spy who is obsessed with tracking the activities of nis former servant, Caleb Williams. Caleb's intellectual struggle to determine the secret of Falkland's past in the early section of Godwin's tale results in this shift in Caleb's position from loyal secretary to pursued outlaw, but this is only in Caleb's narrative of the events. Most of the novel traces the adventures of Caleb Williams, who appears in several court trials and encounters various men £rom different classes as he tries to escape the omnipotent gaze of Falkland. As in Fleetwood's and Deloraine's confessional narratives, Caleb comments on the difficulty of constructing a persuasive narrative that will move the reader to sympathize with his victimization by Falkland. Because of Caleb's desire to elicit sympathetic understanding, we must question his portrayal of Falkland. John P. Zomchick, for example, claims that in Caleb's story "Falkland is represented both as an object of conscious imitation and as an obstacle to the narrator's own aggrandizement" (183). Caleb's need to vindicate his character in the face of Falkland's false charges is at odds with his narrative, which simultaneously describes Falkland as a worthy individual imbued with erotic desire, and as the most heinous representative of the tyranny of the upper-classes towards the disenfranchised members of society. What emerges from both Falkland's and Caleb's need to defend their respective characters, as well as from the textcal record of various male relationships in Godwin's novel, is an excess of desire that L argue Caleb's narrative both produces and, ultimately, transmits to the reader . In the last chapter, 1 explored Godwin's conflictual desires in Mernoirs. Memoirs is a crucial transitional work in Godwin's corpus because it underscores the differences between the pre- and post-Wolistonecraft Godwin, between the Godwin who ignores and the one who recognizes the importance of private affections and the issue of gender. Though Godwin's stated purpose in writing Memoirs was to vindicate his wife's actions and beliefs, what Godwin's biographical/ autobiographical narrative does is erect a textual monument for Mary Wollstonecraft that transcends its author and transmits his desire for sympathetic understanding to its readers. Reading Memoirs as one moment in the circulation of desire in the Godwin/Shelley family not only destabilizes Godwin's authority, but, more significantly, reveals the instability of the f/Fatherls position, his Law and desire.' In Political Justice, the pre-Wollstonecraft Godwin dismisses the libidinal aspect of politics; however, 1 argue that these emotions and desires still play a significant role in his fiction. In this chapter, 1 thus return to the earlier Caleb Williams precisely because the novel focuses on the construction of male subjectivity and on the

I use "f/Father'sn Law to refer to the injunctions of both the specific father and the symbolic Lacanian Father. dissemination of masculine desire under the Law. Aithough critics have classified Caleb Williams as a political novel, the narrative nevertheless reproduces a male homosocial world, and, therefore, has something to Say about the domain of private desires. ' Often read as a work that fictionalizes many of the key themes in Political Justice, Caleb Williams has been approached primarily through the twin problems of the motivation for Falkland's pursuit and the novel's ending. Godwin wrote two distinct endings for Caleb Williams: the original unpublished one in which Caleb descends into madness, emphasizing Caleb's intellectual as well as actual failure to bring Falkland to justice, and the published one in which Caleb, though able to extract Falkland's confession of murder, does so with guilt, remorse and self- deprecation.' This excess guilt on the part of Caleb, who is the lower-class victim of the aristocratic Falkland's tyranny, is not adequately explained by religious arguments such as that of Rudolf Storch who suggests that "ultimately

1 refer to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's definition of "homosocial desire" as the potentially erotic and libidinous "unbrokenness of a continuum between homosocial and homosexual" (Between Men 1). Sedgwick's definition importantly rezognizes desire in al1 male relations, while correlating "the cornplex and historically varying relation between erotic and gender systems" (Traub 104). ' In Appendix 1 of David McCracken's edition of Godwin's novel, McCracken informs us that Godwin originally wrote a different ending for Caleb Williams: His [Godwin's] diary indicates that he finished the first version of the novel on 30 April 1794, but he was apparently dissatisfied with it, had a better idea, and on 4 to 8 May wrote the published version. The original ending consists of nine manuscript pages, two of which are lost. The action begins with the final trial scene, imrnediately after Falkland enters the court-room to face Caleb's accusations. (327) the source of rebellion is guilt, which in Caleb Williams is clearly Calvinistic" (189). Nor do current critics such as Gary Handwerk, who argues that Caleb's excessive guiit points to his self-victimization and thus thorough indoctrination by Falkland, satisfactorily explain why Caleb is unable to regard himself as a victim of a corrupt system although he "can absolve Falkland of personal enmity" because he sees him as "a victim of socially conditioned chivalric ideals" (946). There are numerous interpretations that fa11 somewhere between these two extremes. No one, however, considers the erotic valences between Caleb and Falkland as the key factor that is indicative of their simultaneous hatred and veneration of each other, a consideration which can explain several of the problematic passages in the text, especially the novel's impassioned ending . ' In his 1832 Preface to Fleetwood, Godwin gives an account of the composition of his most famous novel Caleb Wm.Perhaps recognizing the presence of the libidinal dynamic and the crucial role of desire in al1 relations, Godwin recasts the relationship of Caleb and Falkland as a symbolic marriage: 1 rather amused myself with tracing a certain similitude between the story of Caleb Williams and the tale of Bluebeard, than derived any hints from the admirable specimen of the terrific. Falkland was my Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes, which if discovered, he might expect to

Alex Gold's persuasive discussion of the metaphors of "selling, buying, and mingling [as] constitut Ling] in Caleb Williams the legal intercourse of economic wedlock" (148) suggestively opens up the novel to erotic considerations. However, Gold does not consider the implications of this metaphoric economy for the ending, and his analysis is limited to a consideration of love in Caleb's search for surrogate parental figures. have al1 the world roused to revenge against him. Caleb Williams was the wife, who in spite of warning, persisted in his attempts to discover the forbidden secret; and when he nad succeeded, struggled as fruitlessly to escape the consequences, as the wife of Bluebeara in washing the key of the ensanguined chamber, who, as often as she / [sic] cleared the stain of blood from the one side, found it showinq itself with frigntful distinctness on the other. (Godwin, Preface, 1832 il) In this gendered analogy, which has received little critical attention, Godwin explicitly alludes to an erotic connection between his two male protagonists. While the tale of Bluebeard focuses on a young wife's transgressive curiosity about what hides behind a locked door, Godwin's novel (and Caleb's autobiographical tale) centre on a young man's overwhelming curiosity concerning his patron's past history, supposedly locked in a forbidden trunk. Both disobey specific injunctions and discover, to their horror, that those whom they admired and loved are, in fact, murderers. Both Caleb and the young wife are motivated by a burning curiosity that simultaneously implies the fear of retribution and the pleasure of transgression. Godwin's comparison of Caleb to Bluebeardts wife sugjests that we think of the relationship between the protagonists in Caleb Williams as a conjugal one in which Caleb occupies the ferninine position. Although the available criticism on Caleb Williams focuses predorninantly on the novel's political and psychological themes, most of the readings do allude to the erotic valences of Caleb's relation to Falkland. Storch's 1967 "Metaphors of Private Guilt and Social Rebellion in Godwin's Caleb Williams" characterizes Caleb's and Falkland's relation as one overshadowed by "guilt and . . . the ambivalence of love and hate" (191), comparable to what one finds in "romantic lovers" (195). Ian Ousby's 1974 "'My Servant Caleb': Godwin's Caleb Williams and the political trials of the 1790s" points out that Caleb's flaw is his claim to intimacy with Falkland, a relationship that "even a social equal would have no right" to enjoy (53). More recent criticism such as Karl N. Sirnrns' "Caleb Williams' Godwin: Things as they Are Written" ercticizes Caleb's narrative by arguing that Caleb's transgression of the bounds estabiished by Falkland "take [s] the form of a loss of virgin innocence" (351). David Punter in The Literature of Terror States that "Caleb's feelings clearly partake of rejected love" (139) and James Thompson in "Surveillance in William Godwin's Çaleb Williams" comrnents on the persistent trope of desire in the struggles between men. Alex Gold's "It's Only Love: The Politics of Passion in Godwin's Caleb Williams" argues that "Freud and Godwin are both analyzing the effects of love when it throatens to 'sexualizel the social instincts" (155). Although this is not an exhaustive catalogue of the critical readings of the Caleb/Falkland relation, this selection suggests that whatever else may be occurring between Caleb and Falkland, the structure of their alliance is unmistakably libidinal. Indeed, Godwin's novel of heightened psychological terror and cursuit is also a tale of the murderous relation between two men, whose anxiety and paranoia are channelled through exchanges that are dynamically sexual and whose libidinal contract is homoerotic. "

It is useful to preserve the word "hornoerotic" to indicate the degrees of desire within the male spectrum of diverse relationships. G, S. Rousseau, a historian of sexuality, offers the following distinction between homosocial and homoerotic: homoerotic refers to "male-oriented friendship not necessarily oral or genital," whereas homosocial refers "to relations which are less than hornoerotic friendship, thus a weaker form of Godwin's portrayal of male relationships in Fleetwood situates his gendering of Caleb and Falkland in the 1832 Preiace within a homosocial paradigm. While Fleetwood is about marital jealousy, it is also an explicitly homosocial novel tnat exposes the roots of the hero's misanthropy in the absence of strong female figures, specifically mothers. As with Caleb Williams, the main cnaracters in Fleetwood are motherless or orphans. Women exist only as daughter-figures to be exchanged in marriage or mistresses to be used and discarded. In the latter part of the novel, the family man Macneil advises the aging bachelor Fleetwood to marry in order to cure his misanthropy: Marry! Beget yourself a family of children! You are somewhat advanced in life; time must elapse before your children will be at an age to occupy much of your cares; if you feel any vacuity in the interval, cal1 about you your [sic] distant homoerotic behavior" ("In The House" 341). Although neither homoerotic nor homosocial necessarily implies any form of hornosexual relationship, I will be using homoerotic to define a potential desire for intimacy between persons of the same gender, and homosocial to define the conditions of male associations and the structures of power unuer patriarchy--structures that may or may not be hornophobic. What 1 find valuable in Rousseau's definition of the two terms is the acknowledgement of the presence of desire in both. As Robert K. Martin has stated, "even the most sexless of friendships with members of whatever gender contain in many cases crucial elements of the erotic" (126-7). My synonymous use of desire with "erotic" stems from Valerie Traub's statement that "anxiety and desire are two sides of the same erotic coin" (121). Furthermore, to describe the fear of homoeroticism at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries in Britain 1 shall use the term "anxiety" instead of Eve Sedgwick's 'panic" because 1 believe that homophobia was not at this the, as the term "panic" implies, "an endemic and ineradicable state" of heterosexuality (Sedgwick "The Beast" 185). Rather, homophobia was a growing anxiety in the minds of individual men. Panic is a term that aptly defines the nineteenth century and current fin de siècle public debates about and legal regulations on sexuality, especially homosexuality. relations! Sit down every day at table with a circle of five or six persons, constituting your own dornestic group. Enquire out the young men on the threshold of Xfe, who, from the regulations of society, have the best claim upon your assistance- Cal1 thern round you; contribute to their means; contribute to their improvement; consult with them as to the rnost promisinq adventure in which they can Launch themselves on the ocean of life, Depend upon it, you wiil not the^ feel a vacuity; your mind will no longer preÿ upon itself, (fi 165) Significantly, the wife is not rnentioned: "Beget yourself a family of children" emphasizes the male role in reproduction and its outcome, and "domestic group" is used to refer to the implied male "relations" and kinsmen with whom Fleetwood is to surround hirnself. Furthermore, in order to create his own such domestic group, Macneil recommends that Fleetwood should marry a young girl whon he can educate and for whom he can be "a protector, a guardian, a guide, and an oracle"

(fi 167) , While in the latter part of the novel Fleetwood marries Macneil's youngest daughter Mary, as we have seen in the previous chapter, he spends rnost of his time with his nephew Gifford, in Othello-Iago fashion, plottinq his revenge for Mary ' s perceived adultery. The solution for rnisanthropy in Fleetwood is to establish a homosocial community by marrying a much younger girl, thereby forming a syrnbolic father-daughter incestuous relation, For it is through relations with women that homoerotic emotions may be abjected and male friendships may remain platonic. Yet it is this repression of erotic emotions in male relations, whether platonic or sexual, that returns as a terrifying fear of the other. While women serve as the traditional repository for sentiment and desire, the absence of women incites these desires, encouraging them to resurface in homosocial relationships. The inability to acknowledge the erotic component in the male-male relationship manifests itself as homoerotic anxiety. Though Caleb Williams does not depict any overt homosexüal rêlations, Caleb's narrative lingers over highly erotic scenes between men. 1 suggested in my discussion of Memoirs that Godwin's writings serve as scenes of instruction for Mary Shelley's understanding and reactive portrayal of mother figures in her fiction. In tracing the psychological effects of persecution and guilt on men, 1 shall argue that Caleb Williams also affects the writer-daughter's fictional representation of male desire. For it is through the novel's depiction of male relations, especially their libidinal excesses, that the notion of homoerotic anxiety is transmitted to future readers, such as Mary Shelley. While Caleb Williams implicitly criticizes a rigid class hierarchy in which men abdicate their rational capacities in favour of blind submission to authoritative structures, the novel does so by eliciting a fear (in the absence of women) of intimate relations, whether erotic or platonic, among these class- bound men, In short, Caleb Williams suggestively eroticizes unequal power dynamics between men of different classes and, therefore, may be a significant intertext for Mary Shelley's exploration of male interactions, especially in Frankenstein, In "The Characters of Men Originate in Their External Circumstances" from Politka1 Justice , Godwin argues that while parents and teachers continue to educate the young according to "established rule[s], it is clear that politics and modes of government will educate and infect us all" (Vol* 1, 49): They poison Our minds, before we can resist, or so much as suspect their malignity. Like the barbarous directors of the Eastern seraglios, they deprive us of Our virility, and fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle. So fahe is the opinion that has too generâlly prevailed, that politics is an affair with which ordinary men have little concern. (PJ, Vol. 1, 49-50) Godwin's assessment of the general opinion "that politics is an affair with which ordinary men have little concern" as false demonstrates his awareness of the ubiquitous power of governrnent and other juridical structures in constructing the lives of "ordinary men" to sustain a specific system of power relations. In other words, Godwin acknowledges, in a manner reminiscent of Michel Foucault's analysis of institutions, that the political is also personal. Godwin States that even the private site of the family and the semi-private transitional space occupied by teachers is not wholly free from the taint of government, such that al1 authority figures are invested with a "poison" that they transmit to the innocent child. This image of contagion is also used in Caleb Williams to depict the destructive power of the aristocracy in its relations with others. In using this image to discuss the appearance of public "laws" in private spaces--the "poison" that crosses this social boundary--this passage clearly reveals Godwin's anxiety about the contagion between the two spaces. A closer reading of the specific rhetorical play of words in this passage from Political Justice points to a textual libidinal excess. This textual excess subjects Godwin's critique of institutions to a further analysis of his gendered ideological investments. For it is significant that Godwin uses the analogy of "barbarous directors of the Eastern seraglios" to depict the system of power which robs men of their manhood or "virility. " The image of creating harem guards by castrating men, that is "fit [ting] . . . [men] for their despicable employment" as eunuchs, is no doubt orientalist in its disgust toward a little understooa profession; however, more importantly, these images participate in the structures of homophobia and gynophobia. Because genitaiity is used to determine gender, eunuchs occupy the socially constructed positions of both men and women. That Godwin compares the power of authority figures with that of male castrators implies a fear of being reduced to the gendered position of "woman," who is associated with vulnerability, social powerlessness, and excessive emotions. The spectre of misogyny thus appears in Godwin's use of the eunuch image because he fears the reduction of man to a position of effeminacy.' This fear points to a hatred of the gendered implications of being a woman. The eunuch is, significantly, a man; therefore, we need to read this figure as always double since he functions both as a man (in guarding a harem) and a woman (in his sexual incapacity). Hence, we might regard Godwin's use of the eunuch image to criticize the governrnent's power over the male citizen as also homophobic. I am using "homophobic" to refer to this implicit fear in Godwin's passage of men being reduced to effeminacy as eunuchs (insofar as homophobia is understood as the fear and hatred of those men who, from the straight man's perspective, willingly relinquish their subject status

7 In his "Analysis of Own Character. Begun Sep 26, 1798" Godwin foregrounds what is only implied in the Eastern seraglio passage in Political Justice, namely the male fear of appearing effeminate or weak: Rather owning to a softness, approaching to effeminacy- -No man is more willing, more desirous to be informed; but no man anticipates with so vigilant a fear what is rude, mortifying or distastefub-to things of this soi1 1 am so much alive, that 1 seem to stand in need of a world made on purpose for me. (55) to be the object of another man's desire).' Godwin's point, then, is that both the family and the teacher collude with qovernment to create a society of impotent and effeminate subservient men. ' Curioüsly, in Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Riahts of Woman (1792), publishod a year before Godwin's Political Justice, the seraglio is also used to signify

"hile in common parlance homophobia generally refers to the heterosexual's hatred and fear of gays and lesbians, I am using the term homophobia to define a fantasy of fearing the intimacy of the Other of the same gender. This fear is a fantasy (which nevertheless is experienced as "real") because it is based on an irrational apprehension of the Other, who elicits a simultaneous attraction and repulsion, This structure of awe is similar to the psychoanalytic conception of the (M)Other who is both hated and desired, and thus addresses the homophobia of both homosexuals and heterosexuals while foregrounding the homoeroticism and "homorepulsion" present in both. Indeed, homophobia may be stronger in hornophobic hornosexuals than in homophobic heterosexuals, since for the former the Other who is feared is alsa the seif. What 1 want to expose in Godwin's deployment of homophobic depictions of men is the twin elements of homoerotic desire and homoerotic anxiety present in homosocial relations.

') Marilyn Butler reminds us that in Godwin's discussion of Fénelon, Godwin identifies with the servant class, and hence with the class represented by his fictional character, Caleb Williams (Burke 246 n.2). In Political Justice, Godwin argues that if Fénelon and his servant were caught in a fire, and we could Save only one of them, we should Save the aristocratic Fénelon rather than the servant even if the latter is Our mother. Additionally, in his 1805 Preface to the first edition of Fleetwood, Godwin situates himself not only in the servant class, but also in the feminine position (if we concede that wornen are the predominant preparers of food) in his address to his fellow readers: "Gentleman critics, 1 thank you. In the present volumes 1 have served you with a dish agreeable to your own receipt, though I cannot Say with any sanguine hope of obtaining your approbation" (13). Inhis T houa h ts Occa~ionedbv the ~erusalof Dr. Parr's S~italSermon (1801) Godwin also uses a suggestively gendered procreative image to describe his authorship of Political Justice: "My book, as was announced by me in the preface, was the child of the French revolution" (284). weakness and mental imprisonment. Whereas Godwin applies the image of eunuchs guarding a seraglio to the situation of male submission in the face of oppressive governmental controls, Wollstonecraft alludes to the position of women in the seraglio as being the same, perhaps even better, than the condition of middle-class and upper-class uneducated women in England who have "so Little ambition as to be satisfied with such a condition," that is, a state in which "they supinely dream life away in the lap of pleasure, or the languor of weariness, rather than assert their daim to pursue reasonable pleasures and render themselves conspicuous by practising the virtues which dignlfy mankind" (The Riahts of Woman 98). As Godwin irnplies that men who are forced tc obey an authoritarian government do not think for themselves and thus lose their "virility," Wollstonecraft States that if "women are to be made virtuous by autnority, which is a contradiction in terms, let them be imrnured in seraglios and watched with a jealous eye" (The Riahts of Woman 260). Both, then, use an orientalist image of the seraglio as a threat to awaken the indolent British citizenry. In its assertion that the private and semi-private spaces of the family and education participate in this "despicable employment" only when they follow the "established" rules, the text of Political Justice leaves a potential space open for reform. Indeed, the reform of political systems in order to have "truel'justice is Godwin's explicit agenda: in his prose through a rigorous critique of the present systems, in his fiction through an exposure of the consequences of an unjust system of disparate power relations, best portrayed in Caleb Williams. Godwin's fiction performs the role of parental injunction by relating the negative effects of political injustice. What 1 am pointing CO is the libidinal excess that arises from the space of desire in Godwin's writings. In short, Godwin's use of words with erotic cormotations or his use of sexual imagery (as in the eunuch analogy) creates another textuai excess in addition to his explicit desire for political reform. Both the textual excess, or what we might label the text's unconscious desire, and tne author's desire, or what may be termed the text's stated desire, are transmitted to the attentive reader. My "desire" to consider Godwin's most explicitly political novel Caleb Williams as a narrative of masculine anxiety--specifically homoerotic anxiety--intertwined witfl juridical and class oppression stems from Godwin's recognition that both love and politics operate through the same system of unequal power relations. In "Of Love and Friendship" from Thouahts on Man: His Natures, Productions and Discoveries, Godwin concludes that love cannot exist in its purest form and with a genuine ardour, where the parties are, and are felt by each other to be, on an equality, but that in al1 cases it is requisite there should be a mutual deference and submission. (297) As love requires unequal power relations, so do governmental and juridical structures. In Chapter XV, "Of Political Imposture," in Political Justice Godwin describes government as the system of political imposture [which] divides men into two classes, one of which is to think and reason for the whole, and the other to take the conclusions of their çuperiors on trust. . . . The two classes which it creates, must be more and less than man. (Vol, If, 136-7) To "be more and less than man" implies a manness that can be separated £rom the body. This is not the traditional Cartesian mind/body split but an individual/institution or body/power split in which power signifies virility. The fear of losing one's manhood is a justifiable anxiety only if masculine virility is seen as something that exists outside of the ordinary man's body, but is potentially attainable. If we recall Godwin's Eastern analogy in connection with this description, rnasculinity is clearly an abstraction equated with power in the same way that Lacan's phallus is. While not identifiable as the wenis, the Lacanian phallus is a signifier of power that takes its figuration from the male anatomicàl orgân of virility. Although rnasculinity is the norm, it is either conferred on an individual through institutional power or withdrawn because of a lack of institutional support. The body, then, remains a space to be marked by power, which is gendered masculine. Without this gendered marking, the body appears to occupy by default the position of the social woman, hence Godwin's expressed fear of the "barbarous directors of the Eastern seraglios.'' In Godwin's writings, then, inequality is the sanctioned basis for erotic relationships and the despised structure of political associations. Despite this difference that requires unequal power relations to be accepted in love but criticized in politics, it is the elements of the erotic relation--namely love, worship, blind adoration, awe, "deference and subrnission"--that are al1 potentially the tools of political oppression used by governments, parents, and teachers alike to rnaintain the status quo. Thus personal, private, libidinal desires are implicitly the foundation upon which collective, public, political desires are instituted and maintained." Far from

In his introduction to the 1993 reprint of Homosexual Desire by the French philosopher and activist Guy Hocquenghem, Michael Moon analyzes an anonymous cartoon that appeared in 1971 in a special issue of FHAR (Front Homosexuel d'Action being an anachronistic imposition on Caleb Williams, my reading of the homoerotics of political space as central to the novells portrayal of the ruthlessness of power is in fact called for within Godwin's own understanding of the systems of political (in)justice and love. I suggest that attention to the implicit, and sometimes explicit, eroticism of Godwin's political novel is indispensable to an understanding of the intimate, whether murderous or friendly, relations between and among men in Caleb Williams. Libidinal desire is the abject, or discarded foundation of the subject, which I wish to recover in my project of tracing the circulation of desire in Godwin's writings. If we remember Our position of reader as one that is historiczlly inflected, it is through the "supplement of Our reading" (at a socio-historic moment when issues of sexuality are not only ubiquitous but are also matters of political and econornic urgency) that we can inject these intensely persona1 dimensions back into a discussion of this novel." The ambiguous nature of the male relations in Caleb Williams--as well as in Godwin's Fleetwood--invites us to recover the libidinal dynamic

Révolutionnaire) . The cartoon entitled "La Puissance ou la Jouissance" depicts various aggressive and egotistical male behaviours with bubbles portraying the homoerotic subtext. For Moon, the cartoon is a "critique of male behavior that cannot recognize itself as erotic, that systernatically misreads itself as 'about' everything but sexual desire" (13). From his views on love and politics, Godwin too implies that jouissance is the flip side of puissance which 1 suggest he demonstrates in Caleb Williams.

l1 Tilottama Rajan's The Suo~lementof Readinq analyzes the audience's role in reading Romantic literature. Rajan's formulation of the reader as "supplement" has been useful in situating my position relative to my desire to trace the libidinal econorny in Godwin's work. through what Tilottama Rajan has termed a negative hermeneutic, "in which the act of reading supplies something absent from and in contradiction to the textual surface" (Su~~lement5). Notwithstanding this rhetorical strategy, the history of changing sexual discourses before, during, and after the 1790s in Britain also confirms an increasing preocrüpation with sex, specifically a reaction against various forms of non-reproductive sexual acts, whether heterosexual or homosexual-", - In fact, it is during this transitional period from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries that there is a sharp increase in public executions of men accused of ~odorny.'~Lee Edelman in 'The

l2 In The Historv of Sexualitv Foucault implies that the imposition of the couple as a "model" was one of the consequences of a more defined homosexual subculture in the late eighteenth century in Britain (3). This new standard for sexual behaviour created a surveillance state of sex and desire that regarded all other forms of sexuality as peripheral if not deviant (Foucault, Historv 42). Building on Foucault's insights, Henry Abelove notes that the denigration of non-procreative sex coincided with the emphasis on material production in Britain's economy (339). Alan Bray, a historian of plebian sexuality, explains that the hostility to homosexuality arose in this transitional period in the 1790s because homosexual activities were becoming less diffuse and "less obtrusive" (92).

l3 Strictly speaking, sodomy is "anal penetration of either sex (et[sic] homosexual or heterosexual sodomy) not necessarily with persona1 homosexual involvement" (Rousseau 341). It is significant, however, that in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, only the act of sodomy between men is punishable by law. Clearly, it is not the sexual act (otherwise why not punish heterosexual sodomy?) nor the possibility of same- sex eroticism (for lesbians were invisible in both the eyes of the public and the law) but the threat posed by, to use Valerie Traub's words, "non-monogamy and non-reproduction" (141) especially, 1 would add, in a patriarchal, increasingly capitalistic society in which pre-menopausal women were the most valuable commodities. Sodomite's Tongue and the Bourgeois Body in Eighteenth- Century England" argues that with the rise of the miudle class at the end of the eighteenth century in Britain, the threat of sodomy for the bourgeois gentleman became more than a physical fear of being pe~etratedby another man. Sodomy came to be regarded as a "menace to the bourgeois body's capacity to maintain, control, and articulate tne signifying intentions of a self conceived as the property the bourgeois gentleman inalienably possesses in himself" (Edelman 128). In many ways, Godwin's desire for political reform arises from this fear that men no longer have the "capacity to maintain, control, and articulate the signifying intentions" of their own selves. Therefore, authoritarian governments reduce men to figurative eunuchs. In his autobiographical writings, Godwin describes with vivid intensity the feelings of shame and "ignominious violation" ("Autobiography" 33) that he suffered after being whipped with a rod by his tutor Reverend Samuel Newton. Marilyn Butler and Mark Philp remind us that this staternent was written by Godwin "some thirty years" after the actual incident (8). The fact that Godwin remembered and recorded this experience of humiliation suggests that his investment in political justice and his erotic characterization of govermental power is partially based on private emotions. Thus, Godwin's persona1 reflections, his prose writings, and his socio-historic context substontiate what queer theoretical analyses of male homosociality and masculine desire enable us to read in Caleb Williams, namely that this novel is partly about "male homoerotic anxiety" although this anxiety gets displaced into the public sphere of politics and the private sphere of revenge. If the gothic novel, as several critics have argued, is the preeminent genre of libidinal desires, it is also an intenseiy political genre." By displaying the simultaneous attraction and repulsion of eroticism--its desire and anxiety--gothic novels expose the contradictions inherent in society. Furthermore, in its exposure of the dark siàe of human consciousness--its taboos ana erotic desires--the gothic novel of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century was also reacting to the changing status of famiiiai connections under the rise of capitalism. The gothic novel, more than other genres, is concerned with the disintegration of traditional familial ties, and the collapse and transgression of sexual taboos within the family space. David Punter has argued that it is no coincidence that the gothic novel surfaces 'with a specific stage of the reorganisation of English society and economy" ("Narrative" 10). Punter insists that The merit of Gothic seen thus is as a kind of transgression--which, of course, is by no means the same as an escape. The 1790s were chaotic years in which domestic unrest and fears of invasion from abroad shaped political and cultural life, and the literary market was flooded with a mass of fiction which rejected direct engagement with the activities of contemporary life in favour of geographically and historically remote actions and settings; but these two facts must be positively connected. (The Literature 61) That the gothic appears not to engage in any political concerns per se is precisely its reaction to the turbulent times of the 1790s. In other words, the gothic novel

l4 David Punter in The Literature of Terror States that Gothic fiction is erotic at root: it knows that to channel sexual activity into the narrow confines of conventionality is repressive and, in the end, highly dangerous, that it is a denial of Eros and that Eros so slighted returns in the form of threat and violence. (411) negotiates a space in which to deal with tne various issues of the day. This space, though historically displaced in tirne, then engages with political and social problerns, albeit indirectly. Harriet Guest in "The Wanton Müse: Politics and Gender in Gothîc Theory After 1760" suggests that this space "may constitute a region of extrapolitical activity that can reflect upon ana inform, perhaps reform, the nature of what it is excluded from; a negative image that marks the positive imprint with traces of its own processes of development" (121). My reading of Caleb Williams reveals such a space of "extrapolitical" desires. Though Caleb Williams is usually read as a political novel, with gothic overtones, 1 believe that the political is intertwined with the more explicitly erotic concerns of the gothic. Indeed, the gothic elements of prohibition, transgression, secrecy, guilt, death, disease, infection, persecution, and terror are present in Godwin's novel. This does not imply, however, that the gothic aspects of Caleb Williams function in the same manner as they do in Matthew Lewis's The Monk (1796) or Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Unlike the typical gothic novel with its female heroine and ruthless male villain, Caleb Williams is a work in which both the victims and the oppressors are men. In the "Radcliffean Gothic Model: A Form for Ferninine Sexuality" Cynthia Griffin Wolff argues that in the gothic novel, "the sexual inclinations that rightly belong to women are projected ont0 men [who] . . . take on the active role in the drama while the women are relatively passive" !107). When both the active and passive roles are occupied by men, as in Godwin's tale, and there are no clear rules as to the nature of the relationship, the conflict becomes a power struggle to daim the active position, or the role that appears in the guise of masculinity in the traditional gothic narrative." Near the beginning O£ the novel, Caleb relates a crucial event in Falkland's past that explicitly points to this ideological contestation as the site of expressing one's masculinity. During his stay in Italy, Falkland finds himself in the uncornfortable position of having to prove that his intimate dealings with one Lady Lucretia Pisâni should not be regarded as rivalling the courtship of Count Malvesi. Falkland admits that his feelings for the Lady are "not those of a lover" (E 14), and the narrative empnasizes his affection for the Count who regarded the former as the "god-like Englishman" (a15). Because of their mutual admiration, both the Count and Falkland attempt to avert the inevitable challenge to their honour posed by Lady Lucretia's position between them. After successfully doing so, Falkland declares that the "laws of honour are in the utmost degree rigid, . . . there was reason to fear tnat, however anxious 1 were to be your friend, 1 might be obliged to be your murderer" (m 15) . In other words, the social codes for masculine conduct--the protection of one's xeputation and honour being foremost in the world of Caleb Williams--enable men to associate only under two conditions: as friends through a woman, or as rivals because of a woman. Falkland's obsession with both his honour and the later persecution of Caleb, and Caleb's curiosity and increasing paranoia stem from each man's inability to delineate the contours of their ambiguous emotionally charged relationship in the absence of a woman. It is because of this confusion over masculinity and its precise function in exclusively

l5 See Eve Sedgwickls Between Men and "The Beast in the Closet" for an insightful discussion about the libidinal dynamics of masculine subject acquisition and homosocial relationships in the nineteenth century. male relationships (in a period wnen male activities are not so thoroughly codified as they are in contemporary sports) that Caleb can fuel his burning desire for his patron, which results in the latter's overwhelmingly hysterical reaction. One can argue that in Caleb Williams the typical issues of the gothic novel, namely proper and improper female behaviour when confronted with the sexually aggressive gothic villain, are displaced ont0 the homosocial terrain of conflictual male relationships. Thus, Caleb Williams has implications for the economy of gender, including men's attitudes to women, as well as that of sexuality. 1 have suggested that Caleb Williams could be read as a political gothic narrative, âlthough women are remarkably not portrayed in their traditional gothic roles as pure maidens in distress or evil seductresses. The women in Caleb Williams are neither victims nor lovers; nor are they characterized as desirable. For example, Caleb considers Laura Denison a "materna1 character" even though he admits that "the difference" in their ages "was by no rneans sufficient to authorise the sentiment" (a293).16 Aside £rom Tyrrel's cousin Emily Melville, the only other significant female character is Raymond's wife who is compared to Thalestris, Queen of the Arnazons. Caleb's description of this "loathsorne" (m 214) woman transforms her into a monstrous figure far more terrifying than any of his portrayals of Falkland, who, more than any character,

l6 Caleb admits that he "honoured and esteemed the respectable Laura like a mother . . . [because] it was irresistibly suggested to me, by the fact of her always being presented to my observation under the maternal character" (a 293). That Caleb regards motherhood and female desirability as mutually exclusive implies a reluctance to consider female sexuality as already present in the familial roles of daughter, wife, mother and so on. desezves to be considered a villain in Caleb's eyes. Upon seeing her for the first time, Caleb notes tnat Her eyes were red and blood-shot; her hair was pendent [sic] in matted and shaggy tresses about her shoulders; her complexion swarthy, and of the consistency of parchment; her form spare, and her whole body, her arms in particular, uncommonly vigorous and nuscular. Not the milk of human kindness, but the feverous blood of savage ferocity seemed to flow from her heart; and her whole figure suggested an idea of unmitigable energy and an appetite gorged in malevolence. (ÇW 214):' Medusa-like and inhuman, women in Caleb's world are at least one of the following: horrific, ugl y, self ish, murderers, deceivers, traitors, or asexual. It is for this reason that their role as mediators between men is more despised than in the traditional model of exchanging women to form homosocial bonds. Not coincidentally, then, the powerful figure of the mother is noticeably absent or impotent. For Mrs. Hammond and Laura, the only notable mothers in the novel, are unable to help their young charges. In the Tyrrel-Falkland episode, Mrs. Hammond is introduced as a woman whom Emily "loved . . . like a mother" (m 87). Though Mrs. Hammond is "endowed with a masculine courage and impetuosity of spirit"

(ÇW 83) she is as ineffective in protecting Emily from Tyrrel's evil machinations as Laura is in sheltering Caleb from Falkland's wrath. Indeed, Laura is criticized for her provincial response to hearing of Caleb's supposed crimes

l7 The reference to the "milk of human kindness" is, of course, £rom Lady Macbeth's soliloquy in Shakespeare's Macbeth (1.5.15). Lady Macbeth claims that Macbeth is "too full o'th' milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way, " that is, to kill Duncan (Shakespeare, 1.5.15-16) . Caleb's description of Raymond's wife, then, implies that she is like Lady Macbeth in her ambitious desires. against Fa1kland. When Laura refuses to consider Caleb ' s side of the story, he replies, "Madam, madam! It would be impossible for you to hold this language, if you nad not always lived in this obscure retreat, if you had ever been conversant with the passions and institutions of men" (a 300). Additionally, Laura's belief that ignorance enables her "to preserve the innocence of . . . [her] heart" implies that women cannot be worldly and safeguard their inteqrity at the same time (ÇW 300). Whether one is masculine and active like Mrs. Hammond in her struggles to defend Emily from Tyrrel's brutality, or feminine and passive like Laura in her acceptance of the false accusations against Caleb, Godwin's narrative undermines the figure of the mother. The other women in Caleb's world are either blamed for their absence--1ike Tyrrel's mother--or blamed for their undesirability--1ike the plain Emily, the nameless horrid wife of Raymond, the matronly Mrs. Marney, and the haughty Lady Lucretia Pisani. In fact, Tyrrel's cousin Ernily is arguably the only female character who plays a significant role in the early parts of Caleb Williams. In many crucial ways, Emily's interest in Falkland parallels that of Caleb for his master in the latter half of the novel. However, althoügh Caleb describes Emily's tale as "those incidents in which my own fate was so mysteriously involved" (M 79), the gothic episode of her unrequited love for the enchanting Falkland is more than a mere feminine narratological counterpart to Caleb's relationship to Falkland. Ernily' s passion for Falkland, which the novel ' s mechanisms prevent her £rom pursuing and which leads to her death, foregrounds in the absence of any other male-female couples the fact that female desire must be brutally sacrificed for the exploration of male desire in the political economy of Godwin's narrative. Moreover, Godwin's inclusion of Emily's romantic tragedy as an embedded episode within the narrative of Caleb's desire for Falkland further suggests that Godwin could portray female desire and sexuality only as a figure of sympathy and cautionary instruction for male desire- Indeed, it is in Caleb's recollections of Mr. Collins' memory of Emily that we hear about her failed romance and pathetic cieath. Thus, Emily becomes a "prophetic emotional 'double'" (Gold 41-2) in Caleb's eyes. Caleb's narrative notes the similarities between Ernily's and his position relative to Falkland, but only to point to his own possible superiority as a suitable object for Falkland1s affections. Caleb informs us that both Emily and himself are orphans and, despite their lower- class backgrounds, they have strong emotions of admiration and love for the aristocratie Falkland. As well, they are both depicted as naive and innocent of the repercussions of their feelings: Emily is a virginal seventeen-year-old when she falls in love with Falkland, while Caleb is a youthful eighteen when he begins working for him. However, whereas Emily is described as "petite and trivial; her complexion savoured of the brunette; and her face . . . marked with the small pox, sufficiently to destroy its evenness and polish" (a39), Caleb describes himself as "uncommonly vigorous and active . . . [having] joints . . . supple, and . . - formed to excel in youthful sports" (m 4) and with skin that has "al1 the sleekness of a gentleman" (m 243) . The implication in Caleb's narrative is that he, more than Emily, deserves the intimacy that they both desire with the upper-class nobleman, Falkland. Although the Falkland/Emily episode occurs before the appearance of Caleb in Falkland's life, the narrative curtailment of Emily's desires as reported by Caleb (whom we might regard as Emily's diachronically àisplaced competitor) aligns her with the women described in Caleb's autobiographical reflectLons. In other words, as with the other female characters, Emily is less than attractive and serves more to justify the relations among men--in her case to connect Tyrrel to Falkland--than to be an object of desire for either man, It is Emily's youthful admirotion for and infatuation with the aristocratie Falkland thac increases the already bitter hostility that Tyrrel fetls towards the new nobleman in his district. After she is rescued by Falkland from a house on £ire, Emily's desires melt into love, and her "innocent effusions" about Falkland's manly character alienate Tyrrel from any feelings of affection he may have had for her (ÇW 45) . This incident of Falkland's heroism incites Tyrrel's hatred of him, prompting him to claim that he has been "debauched by this Frenchified rascal" (m 54). While one might be tempted to ignore the sexual connotations of Tyrrel's derogatory remark, his subsequent cornplaint that Falkland "has found means to spread the pestilence in my own family" (a54) suggests that we reaa "Frenchified" as a euphemism for contagion, perhaps venereal disease (one of several connotations for "French" at this time, according to the OED). That Tyrrel should describe Emily's love of Falkland as the latter's spreading of a "pestilence" further underscores Ernily's role as vesse1 for men's desires for each other. Like Mary Macneil in Godwin's Fleetwood, Emily inadvertently occupies the space of female mediator or daughter in the traffic of women in Caleb Williams. Although Caleb's narrative implies that Emily initially enjoys a warm relationship with her cousin, Tyrrel's behaviour following the arriva1 of Falkland suggests that Emily shares a symbolically incestuous relation with her guardian. For it is her daily praise of Falkland that prompts Tyrrel to "wreak upon her a signal [sic] revenge" (m 46) . His hatred for Falkland provokes Tyrrel into arranging a marriage between Emily and his henchman, the odious Mr. Grimes, to prevent her from rnarrying Falkland. Tyrrel's daim that "Grimes he selected as being in al1 respects the diametrical reverse of Mr. Falkland" (m 47 is a curious statement, for it ât once suggests that Tyrrel is more concerned with Falkland than with Emily and also that Tyrrel desires Emily vicariously through Fa1kland' s opposite. Although Tyrrel deciares that he is not attracted to Emily, the prospect of her "mortification" at being ravished by such a "half-civilised animal" (ÇW 47) as Grimes gives enormous satisfaction to him. When his plot to have Grimes abduct and marry Emily fails, Tyrrel enlists the aid of his trusty steward, Barnes, to arrest her for "a debt contracted for board and necessaries for the last fourteen years" (m 81) . While Barnes is described in Caleb's narrative as the "instrument of Mr. Tyrrelts injusticet1 (ÇW al), in Emily's terrifying nightmares she refers to Grimes as Tyrrel's "enginet' (ÇW 86) . Robert Kiely reminds us that these two terms--instrument and engine--were "cornmon

eighteenth-century epithets for penis" (88) . " Thus, Tyrrel's plan to marry his cousin to Grimes simultaneously points to Tyrrel's own desires for Emily and to his repressive homoerotic desires, since he finds pieasurable the thought of Grimes violating, and later of Barnes terrifying, Emily. Similarly, the incident involving Falkland's rescue of Emily from the fire is remarkable for

l8 Robert Kiely mistakenly attributes the term "instrumentr1 to Tyrrel's henchman Grimes instead of to Barnes. its "value in revealing Falkland os a man unable to respond to a loveiy young woman" (Miyoshi 29). In accidentslly saving Emily, Falkland not only precipitates her death but also seals his hate relationship with Tyrrei* in the world of Caleb Williams, then, women appear to facilitate the relationships between various men. Gerard Barker in "The Narrative Mode of Caleb Williams: Problems and Resolutions" points out that In the holoqraph manuscript of Caleb Williams there is an unnamed daughter who is not present in the published text: After the dying Mr. Clare tells Falkland that he has made him executor and referred to "some legacies," there foliow four sentences later crossed out: "1 have left a daughter. 1 do not desire any thing in her behalf because she is mine, but because she is a human creature. She stands in need of a protector* Be you that protector. " (2) Barker does not conclude anything from this except to suggest that Godwin's tale was less "predetermined" than he "would have had us later believe since he could still, a third of the way into the first volume, entextain a possibly radical shift of emphasis in his novel" (2). Far from being a radical shift, however, this addition/deletion reinforces the already evident homoerotic connection between Mr. Clare and Falkland, and the necessary exchange of a woman/a daughter to cernent these male bonds, as seeri in the Tyrrel/Grimes, TyrreWBarnes, and TyrreUFalkland couples. Moreover, this daughter of Mr. Clare's never does enter the narrative. Significantly, in a novel in which children are left with only one parent, usually a father, and daughters are generally orphaned, the only real role of these children, especially the female "possessions" or daughters, is to seal the relationships between men. Caleb, like Mr. Clare, however, finds himself in the position of being both the ferninine glue and the masculine other. And i: is this doubiy erotic position that kindles the terror in Falkland. In Caleb Williams, then, the real interaction occurs between men: between Falkland and the Count Malvesi, betweefi Falkland and the poet Mr. Clare, between Falkland and Tyrrel, between Tyrrel and his agent of destruction Grimes, between Tyrrel and his steward of injustice Barnes, between Tyrrel and his tenant Hawkins, between Falkland and Hawkins, between Falkland and his henchman Gines, and finally between Falkland and Caleb. Not only do these male-male pairings mirror and reinforce one another, but they slso replicate the tropes of homoerotic anxiety. The narrative's language of paranoia or anxiety relies on the fear of rupturing a human boundary, that is, a boundary that defines the "1" whether it is the physical body or some hermetic concept of self such as integrity, honour, or reputation. For example, the animosity between Falkland and Tyrrel, described as a relationship "pregnant with death" (m 29), is followed by a "malignant contagious disternper. . . which proved fatal to many of the [town's] inhabitants" (a31). This description of Falkland's acquaintance with Tyrrel suggestively employs the terms of heterosexual containment in that their relationship is characterized as a "pregnant" one. However, because the result of this "pregnancy" is "death" and disease, one may argue that Falkland's association with Tyrrel is transformed into a lethal form of heterosexuality, a transformation that foreshadows Caleb's sexually charged description of his feelings for Falkland later on. In fact, Caleb also uses the term "pregnant" to describe the moment in which he decides to write his version of Falkland's actions. Caleb says "this is a moment pregnant with fate. 1 know--1 think 1 know--that 1 will be triumphant, and crush my seemingly omnipotent foe" (m 314 ) . Furthermore, the image of Tyrrel's and Falkland's relationship as being self-enclosed like a pregnant body is repeated in more literal terms in Caleb's erotic emotions, which burst forth after encountering Falkland in his secret closet. In both cases, the rhetoric of heterosexual relations serves to define the intensity of the male bonds; however, precisely because the parties concerned are male, the traditionolly positive aspects of heterosexual engagements are markea by destructive powers. The incident with Mr. Clare in the first nalf of the novel explicitly connects homoeroticism and hornosociality with contagion. Significantly, Mr. Clare, who becomes a dear friend to Falkland and thereby (like Emily later on) the indirect cause of Tyrrel's hatred for him, is the first to be "seized" with the "malignant contagious distemper" that affects rnany of the town's citizens (m 31). As he is dying, Clare imagines that his body is a set of troops designated to protect the man £rom disease. In explaining why he has allowed Falkland to enter "his bedcharnber" (M 32) despite his infectious disease, Clare characterizes his ominous premature death as a bodily invasion that he hopes Falkland can resist : In your case, at least the garrison will not, 1 trust, be taken through the treachery of the commander. 1 cannot tell how it is, that 1, who can preach wisdom to you, have myself been caught. But do not be discouraged by rny example. 1 had no notice of my danger, or 1 would have acquitted myself better. (m 33) The alignment of health with resistance to treachery implies a fear of persecution. In Clare's use of military rhetoric, however, he accuses himself as the commander of this "treachery' which is never mentioned again in the narrative. Recalling Godwin's anxiety oves the poisonous influence of the public on the private sphere in Political Justice, we might read this passage as his acknowledgrnent that the private space, as represented by the figure Clare, is always already contaminated by the public domain. Alternatively, Clare's remarks--especially his implicit advice to Falkland that had he "notice" of his danger, he would have "acquitted" himself better--suggestively point to the need to defend the body against certain forrns of invasion. Clare's statement that he has "been caught" with his guard down but that Falkland should "not be discourâgeci by . . . [his] example" further implies that Clare's illness may be the result of indiscreet activities. The prophylactic undertones of Clare's military image register a narrative space of homoerotic desire that is not destructive or imbued with anxiety. Caleb's narrative of Clare implies that the desired impenetrability of the male body requires protective measures to the corporeal body, the spiritual self, and the "body politic": Yesterday 1 seemed in perfect health, and tomorrow I shall be an insensible corpse. How curious is the line that separates life and death to mortal men! To be at one moment active, gay, penetrating, with stores of knowledge at one's command, capable of delighting, instructing and animating mankind, and the next, lifeless and loathsome, an incurnbrance upon the face of the earth. Such is the history of many men, and such will be mine. (m 33) Aside f rom the juxtaposition of "penetrating" with "gay" (which according to the OED could refer, in Godwin's time, to one addicted to social pleasures and dissipations), Clare's sentiments are uncannily prophetic of narratives of gay men who have died from AIDS. Moreover, in a novel of homosocial anxieties, it is curious that the impassioned meeting between Falkland and Tyrrel is followed by a mysterious disease that plaques the small comrnunity and takes as its first victim Clare. As in gothic novels, the narrative's landscape mirrors the decline and chaos in the moral and social order upnelu by the male citizens. Falkland's and Tyrrel's mutual abhorrence becomes the poison that, like Lacan's conception of desire, circulates among whomever these men encounter. Unlike the positive aspect of desire (positive in that it constitutes the subject), the hatred of these men is destructive, for it precipitates Clare's death, and destroys Caleb's attempt to create a subjectivity for himself through his narrative act. Clare symbolically occupies, in his ambiguous name and function, the feminine mediator position between Fàlkland and Tyrrel, both of whom compete for his acceptance. As a nationally renowned poet, Cl-are's praise of any man's intellectual capacities distinguishes that individual as honourable and, therefore, worthy of a young woman's affections. Indeed, it is Clare's appreciation of Falkland's poem "Ode to the Genius of Chivalry" that infuriates Tyrrel to the point of vioience, since he considers this accomplishnent one that will seduce the available women in the town. To receive the flattering attention of women is not a goal in itself but an indicator to other men of one's virile masculinity. In this sense, these men vigilantly observe each other as if through the eyes of a worshipping young wonan. Male desire is thus refigured through the tropes of anxiety as a forrn of feminine self-surveillance, that is, the man's self- surveillance through the feminine gaze. Indeed, Godwin's resistance to essentialized portrayals of masculinity in Caleb Williams clearly participates in debates on both gender and sexuality during the 1790s. In Caleb's recollections of Collins' memories (this in itself suggests that the male gaze endlessly circulates among men), Tyrrel is depicted as a "muscular and sturdy . . . figure [who resembles] the whelp-lion that a barbarian might have given for a lap-dog to his mistress" (m 17). On the other hand, Falkland is "[ciJiminutiveand dwarfish" (m 20) with "polished manners . . . particularly in harmony with feminine delicâcy" (ÇW 19). Whiie Tyrrel is robust in body, Falkland is mighty in intellect- However, both Tyrrel and Falkland, as well as Caleb, mirror each other's roleç at various moments in the narrative. These role changes are marked by power: Falkland cornes to occupy Tyrrel's position but only in relation to Caleb; likewise, Caleb occupies a feminine position similar to Emily's in her infatuation for Falkland. Initially, after Emily's sudden death caused by Tyrrel's tyranny, Falkland is so distraught that he needs "to be guarded . . . like a madman" (m 90) . 'n Falkland's temporary madness, he prefigures Caleb's reaction to Falkland's ruthlessness in Godwin's original ending. For Caleb, in a way reminiscent of Falkland, goes mad. But in this first unpublished ending, which conclucies with Caleb's ominous statement "HERE LIES WHAT WAS ONCE A MAN! [sic]" (a 334), Caleb also resembles Emily whose death is preceded by nightmares and exclamations against "her cousin [Tyrrel], who had deprived her of her reasontt (m 86). Significantly, Falkland's momentary, insane rage is caused by seeing Emily's "sad rernains" (m 89), and in the published ending it is Falkland's final appearance as a "corpse" (m 318) that prompts Caleb to forgive his master for his tyranny. Thus, in this second published ending Falkland functions as a victim, like Emily, in relation to Caleb. In this ending, Caleb inverts the earlier position of Falkland insofar as Caleb views his master with compassion rather than with the fury with which the younger Falkland regarded Ernily, the victim of Tyrrel's "unparalleled cruelty" (s89) - If Godwin's portrayal of Caleb and Falkland, and implicitly Emily, maps olit shifting relational power dynamics, the characterization of Caleb, Falkland and Tyrrel is equally cornplex. For example, the term "lion" is used to describe Tyrrel on several occasions, but it is also used by Caleb when he resolves to "unfold a tale" that will expose Falkland's hypocrisy and lies (CW 314). Caleb tells nis implied audience that he must be "bold as a lion yet collected" in order to write his desired tale (m 314). In fact, Caleb's daim that he "will speak with a voice more fearful than thunder" in his revelation of Falkland's true nature (a314) recalls the fear that Tyrrel's voice was capable of instilling. But Caleb's war against Falkland is more ethereal than Falkland's with Tyrrel. Whereas Falkland secretly stabs Tyrrel £rom behind, Caleb says he will not use "daggers" against Falkland (ÇW 314). Rather, Caleb chooses to write a tale that will "stab him [Falkland] in the very point he was most solicitous to defend" (ÇW 315), namely his honour and reputation. In both cases, the intended victim is hurt in a manner consonant with his particular weakness, whether it is a physical failing or an obsession with some intangible quaiity like social reputation. Moreover, if we remernber Robert Kiely's note that "engine" could connote penis, Caleb's desire to metaphorically stab Falkland is erotically charged since Caleb declares that "with this engine, this little pen 1 defeat al1 his [Falkland's] machinations" (ÇW 315). These gendered positional slippages, then, foreground the sexual turmoil, especially the social confusion regarding heterosexual and homosexual masculinity, in Caleb Williams. Although my discussion focuses prirnarily on constructions of masculine sexuality, it is worth noting that Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Riahts of Woman, published in 1792, two years before Godwin's Caleb Williams, also contributes to these discussions of gendered sexuality. WolLstonecraftls revolutionary political treatise argues for women's education and legal rights in order for women to be respected by men not as women but as "human creatures" (Riahts of Woman 73). In her argument, Wollstonecraft defends her radical measures from charges that she is creating "masculine women" by statinq that if rationality and respectability are the domains of men, then she wholeheartedly supports the adoption of these virtues for women, making "masculine women" the aesired social fernale position (Riahts of Woman 74). In fact, Wollstonecraft describes the term "masculine" as "only a bugbeart' in the reform of female manners (Riuhts of Woman 76). That Godwin's descriptions in Caleb Williams of so- called truly masculine men evoke feelings of disgust rather than admiration in the young Caleb implies that Godwin was willing to consider an alternative view of masculinity such as the one proposed by Wollstonecraft in her Riahts of Woman. In Godwin's novel, not only is Tyrrel depicted as brutish, but so is his accomplice in Emily's abduction, Mr. Grimes. Caleb's narrative characterizes Grimes as an "uncouth and half -civilised animal" who regards women "as made for the recreation of the men, and . . . [who] exclaim[s] against the weakness of people who taught them to imagine they were to judge for thernselvesl' (ÇW 51). Significantly, these are the men whom Mary Wollstonecraft's Ricyhts of Woman condemns and Godwin's "Analysis of Own Character. Begun Sep 26, 1798" fears. The conflictual depictions of masculinity in Caleb Williams may also point to Godwin's subtextual doubts regarding proper and improper masculine behaviour, thereby locating this novel within the gothic tradition of exploring the correct fernale response in the face of a cruel patriarchal society. A closer reading of the bitter enmity between Tyrrel and Falkland illustrates the intersection of both sexuality and gender in assessments of masculine worth in the world of Caleb Williams. In describing his declining reputation, Tyrrel claims that he has been "debauched by this Frenchified rascal" (m 541, attributing a more physicaily active sole to the otherwise weak Falkland. Additionaily, in his dealings with his neighbouring iandlords, Tyrrel makes the general statement that he llhate[s] a Frenchified fop" (m 67) . As 1 have already mentioned, the frencn nationality in Godwin's time was a signifier for a whole set of behaviours. In the late eighteenth century, according to the OED, the term French could refer to manners and "articles of dress, stuff, etcv that are elaborate (as in exceedingly polite behaviour), artificial, fancy, and superior. In addition, "Frencn" could be used for "various names given to venereal disease," such as the "French disease" (OED). "Frenchified," however, refers to a conternpt for these "French manners or qualities" which can include, again, various sexually transmitted diseases. Thus, Tyrrel's insulting remarks about Falkland insinuate not only that Falkland has false refinement but also that he is decadent and, essentially, rotten to the core. The struggle between men, whether over property, reputâtion, or electoral rights, is always figured in homoerotic terms, albeit in a negative light as something degrading and despicable. Hence, Fa1kland ' s ref usa1 to fight with Tyrrel and his preference for a peaceful reconciliation are seen as signs of impotence and weakness, Tyrrel's resistance to Falkland's offer of friendship transforms their bond into one of hatred, and thereby maintains the required distance from the feared intimacy with another man (whether sexual or not). But this very distance is, nevertheless, a form of inverted intimacy since hatred connects these two men so closely. In fact, Tyrrel tells Falkland that "as long as I find you thrust into rny dish every day, 1 shall hate you as bad as senna and

valerian" (m 30) .19 ~yrrel'scomparison of his hatred to his passionate dislike of medicinal plants signifies a cornpulsory but dreaded relationship between the two men, Indeed, their bond is figured as an invasion, a "thrust" that Falkland potentially imposes on Tyrrel. Tyrrel's public beating of Falkland--which he deerns a "disgrace worse than death" (m 96)--and Falkland's subsequent private stabbing of Tyrrel are different forms of masculine bonds, both physically intimate but empty of affectionate or positive emotions. In a horrific form of sexual consumrnation, though Tyrrel dies, he manages to invade Falkland with the seeds of his hatred since his beating of Falkland scars Falkland's reputation, and transforms him into the ruthless villain Câleb encounters. Significantly, Falkland later confesses to Caleb that with a "sharp-pointed knife that fell in . . . [his] way, [he] came behind [Tyrrel], and stabbed him to the heart" (ÇW 135). Psychoanalytic interpretations aside, this murder is stiil highly erotic. especially in light of Falkland's "longest stay in Italy" (ÇW 10). often seen as the land of promiscuity and sexüal depravity during the eighteenth

l9 Senna and valerian are "two plants used medicinally: senna as a purgative and valerian as a sedative" (McCracken 348 n. 30). century Furthermore, Falkland's erotically charged murder of Tyrrel foreshadows Caleb's desire to wield his mighty pen against his master. In fact, Falkland's narration to Caleb of the murder of Tyrrei repeats the transmission of hatred from Tyrrel to Falkland insofar as Falkland's words instill the idea of his own destructio~in the mind of his young servant. For a political novel, then, the language of Caieb Williams is violently homoerotic. The detailed portraits of various male associations that are imaged as infectious and diseased in Volume One of Godwin's novel are also present in the subsequent two volumes, which focus on the Caleb/Falkland relationship in terms of metaphors of bodily and psychological invasions. Caleb's figurative distemper, like Clare's in Volume One, originates from erotic charges in his relationship with his patron, Falkland. However, unlike Clare or even Tyrrel, Caleb describes his feelings for Falkland in explicitly erotic language. In the first narrated scene of forbidden pleasure, Caleb describes his libidinous desires as he opens a door to Falkland's small secret closet: As 1 opened the door, 1 heard at the same instant a deep groan expressive of intolerable anguish. . . . 1 conceived that Mr. Falkland was there, and was going instantly to retire; but at that moment a voice that seemed supernaturally tremendous exclaimed, Who is there? The voice was ML. Falkland's. The sound of it thrilled my very vitals. 1 endeavoured to answer, but my speech failed, and being incapable of any other reply, 1 instinctively advanced within the door into the room. Mr. Falkland was just risen from the floor

20 Pamela Clemit is the only critic who remarks on Falkland's stabbing of Tyrrel from behind. Although she does not expand on its erotic connotations, she does discuss it as the "Italian method of revenge" (The Godwinian Novel 53). upon which he had been sitting or kneeling. (a7- 8 This scene of pote~tialexposure wnile committing an illicit act, that of spying, produces in Caleb an emotion so intense that it renders him temporariiy speechless. Caleb's pleasure at the sound of Falkland's voice which "thrilled

, . . [his] very vitals" cornes at the awareness of Falklanà's response to and recognition of Caleb's act of spying. This scene takes place in a closet with Falkland's "groan" inside and Caleb's "thrill" outside. Indeed, one might argue that the textual ercticism of this passage confirms the presence of a shadow of a forbidden sexuality, one that is literally in the closet. In a Godwinian world in which love is a "passion of the mind" (Godwin, "Essay XV" 2731, Caleb's narration of his gazingkpying on Falkland, an act clearly political and suggestive of govermental surveillance, is also undeniably sexual. As Caleb becomes more insatiably curious about Falkland's secret, he confesses to his readers the enormous pleasure he takes in spying on his master, despite his master's growing anger: I remembered the stern reprimand 1 had received, and his terrible looks; and the recollection gave a kind of tingling sensation, not altogether unallied to enjopent. The farther 1 advanced, the more the sensation was irresistible. . , . The more impenetrable Mr, Falkland was determined to be, the more uncontrollable was my curiosity. (cw 108) The more unapproachable Falkland becomes, the more Caleb wants to penetrate his hard exterior. This cornbined attraction and repulsion in the male couple suggests that only the deferral of the satisfaction of desire secures the two men in a permanent relationship. The fiction of homoeroticism keeps Caleb ernotionally tied to Falkland; however, it is the flip side of desire, nomorepulsion or anxiety, that unites the master to his servant. In one of Caleb's many self-reflective moments, he compares his debasement by Falkland to the circumstances of racialized others in order to hignlight the extent to which his curiosity has become "a principle stronger in . . . [his] bosom than even the love of independence" (m 143). Caleb claims that he "would have sacrificed . . . [his] liberty or . . . [his] life" or submitted "to the condition of a West Indian Negro, or to the tortures inflicted by North American savages" (a143) in order to gratify his curiosity. Caleb's derogatory characterization of North Arnerican natives as "savages" and his simultaneous recognition and rhetorical appropriation of the suffering of West Indian slaves clearly partake of British imperialist sentiments in the 1790s. Moreover, Càleb's narrative informs us that Falkland, "in addition to the large estate he possessed in England, had a very valuable plantation in the West Indies" (m 307). In this context, Caleb's self-characterization as a "West Indian" slave in relation to Falkland assumes that class solidarity can rnitigate racial differences in the slave system. That slavery is transformed through the operation of Caleb's desire into voluntary subservience implies that what begins as Caleb's mere youthful inquisitiveness gradually becomes a masochistic desire for knowledge about his master, Falkland. In a plot resembling the play Shakespeare's Hamlet designed to deduce Claudius's guilt, Caleb attends a trial in which Falkland is to judge a case sirnilar to his own affairs with Tyrrel. Upon confirming in his mind that Falkland is indeed the guilty murderer, Caleb rushes into the garden where he "plunge [s] [himself] into the deepest of its thickets" (a129). Here Caleb experiences an overwhelming rush of passions: 1 felt as if my animal system had undergone a total revolution. My blood boiled within me- I was conscious to a kind of rapture for which I could not account. 1 was solernn, yet full of rapid emotion, burning with indignation snd energy. In the very tempest and hurricane of the passions, 1 seemed to enjoy the most soul- ravishing calm. I cannot better express the then state of my mind, than by saying, I was never so perfectly alive as at that moment. (m 129-30) We should recall that this intensity of emotions and the exhilaration of being alive, described by Robert Kiely as "a climax of a curiously sensual sortt' (go), stem from Caleb's conviction that his beloved Falkland is a murderer. Such pleasure at the knowledge of another's man's violent side in one stroke raises and forecloses the potential for homoerotic union, for the rapture is elicited from a knowledge not of good but of evil. Hence, 1 argue that while Caleb's narrative inuulges in depicting male homoerotic moments, it does so to contain and yet stimulate their suggestive potential with prohibitive controls such as fear, punishment, and dread. If the earlier rivalry between Tyrrel and Falkland is over the praise of another individual (Emily and Clare), the struggle between Falkland and Caleb literalizes this conflict as one over visual prowess. For it is the act of spying on each other that both excites them and ties their fates together, In other words, the structure of their relationship implies that Caleb and Falkland desire to be seen by and to see each other. In fact, the crucial scene in which the erotics of Caleb's and Falkland's relation cornes to a climax includes an act of scopophilia. In the midst of a fire that threatens to burn Falkland's house, Caleb furtively steals an opportunity to check for himself the contents of a mysterious trunk in Falkland's private closet, a trunk that Caleb believes contains a textual confession of Falkland's rnxrder of Tyrrel. This is also tne trunk that Caleb had earlier witnessed Falkland looking at in the closet scene. Because one can argue tnat Falkland's "trunk" functions metonyrnically in Caleb's narrative--that Falkland's trunk is associated with his secret--Caleb's desire to peer into it signifies his craving to penetrate Falkland and see this man's private self. While CaleD's act of opening Falkland's "trunk" is symbolic of Caleb's need to probe psychologically Falkland's past, particularly his prior motivations and emotions, this action also has an erotic dimension. Indeed, Caleb's desire to know Falkland intimately is both an epistemological and a carnal desire.'' Desire for intimacy and knowledge unite in a moment of mutual recognition as Caleb summons "the energy of uncontrollable passion" (m 132) to unlock this trunk. In the act, he is seen by Falkland who arrives "wild, breathless, distraction in his looks!" (QJ 132). Caleb tells us that "at the moment of his appearance the lid dropt down from . . . [his] hand. [Falkland] . . . no sooner saw . . . [him], than his eyes emitted sparks of rage" (m 132). In a visual analogue of penetration and orgasmic release, this scene renders the act horrific. In what follows Falkland confesses that he is the murderer of Tyrrel and that he shall "always hate" Caleb until "death or worse" (LW 136) . Inverting the avowal of eternal love till death

" Pamela Clemit's edition of Caleb Williams notes that the trunk owned by Falkland is called a "chest" in the first version of Godwin's novel (301 11-64). However, according to the OED, in the 1790s both "chest" and "trunk" could also refer to the upper part of the human body. In other words, the change of tems does not alter the connotations of Godwin's portrayal of Caleb's activity. do us part, this parodic scene of conjugal consumation seals Caleb and Falkland in a deadly bond. Ultimately, what joins these two men is not so much Caleb's act of invading Falkland's private space, nor even Falkland's confession. Rather, they are united when Fàlkland unexpectedly returns Caleb's prying gaze, thereby catching him in the act of spying. For Falkland's visual acknowledgement of Caleb's transgressive act implicates Caleb in his secret before Falkland's verbal confirmation. If we recall that both sodomy and sedition trials are a part of the histoxical context of Godwin's Cdeb Williams, we can see how Falkland's gaze can be so terrifying for Caleb. The pillory, used to punish men accused of sodomitical acts, depends on eliciting emotions of shame in the accused and of disgust in the accuser or general public. The accused victim is thus transformed into a visual sign of transgression. That the public would attack the accused in the pillory by throwing objects at him, moreover, reifies the visual since the objects embody the violence of the gaze. Falkland's eyes emit "sparks of rage" (m 132) that cause Caleb to describe his act of spying as "monstrous" (m 133). Falkland's gaze has the desired effect of hurniliating Caieb not only at the moment of his detection but also later in Caleb's narrative act of making this incident public. Furtherrnore, Caleb's description of Falkland's accusatory gaze rhetorically suggests the physical violence of his master's intentions, just as the actions of those who would pelt the accused sodomite trapped in the pillory would enact their verbal hornophobic abuse. Both the historical incidents of supposed sodomitical relations between men and Godwin's fictional portraits of deadly relations among men rely on the concealment of homoerotic desire, a desire that may not even be conscious to the men (as, 1 argue, is the case in Caleb Williams). The secret in Caleb's narrative and the secrecy of some men in the 1790s are part of the same structure of self-surveillance or what we might cal1 "the panoptical mechanism of heterosexuai subjectivity." In Disci~lineand Punish: The Birth of the Prison, Foucault elaborates an entire scopic system of power based on Jeremy Bentham's invention of the Panopticon. This architectural prison structure constructs the individual simultaneously as the subject ad object of powex. The observer in the panopticon is never visible nor does the power of the gazing rest in one location, individual, or act, The panoptical mechanism alludes to this system of power in which individuais regulate their own activities for fear that they are being observed. I suggest that it is in this scopic field of power relations that the dynamics of homophobia take place. Homophobia is implicitly connected to the gaze in that it is the fear of the other's erotic gaze that constricts one's own actions. In other words, the individual views himself as if tnrough the gaze of a potentially erotic Other. Homosexuals, for example, not only are afraid of acknowledging their desires in public, but also are wary of acting on their desires lest they be mistaken in their estimation of the other man's intentions. We get a situation in which al1 men vigilantly observed (and still do) their own as well as others' actions both to maintain order and justice in society and to regalate their libidinal drives. The use of power over other men is, therefore, associated with the semiotics of the gaze both socially (who is more manly and therefore deserving of power: we might productively recall Godwin's views of goverment creating two classes of men) and symbolically ("how will it look that 1 am either subservient to or superior to another man"). This internal surveillance behaves as a control mechanisrn regulating the actions, thoughts, and emotions of the individual. What I cal1 "male homoerotic anxiety," then, becomes a constitutive element in constructing the identity of bath homosexuals and heterosexuals. In this way, desire "becomes an element in the social field, an active participant in social life, not just the element in the individual's psyche" (Weeks 31-2). My use of panopticism as established by Foucault underscores the internal surveillance aspect of a structural homophobia, but it also reintroduces the psychoanalytic concept of the gaze back into the discussion of homosociality." In discussing the homosocial and homoerotic dypamics of Falkland's and Caleb's acts of spying, 1 believe that a consideration of the "gaze" from a psychoanalytic perspective can be productively aligned with Foucault's

" I am using "gaze" in the Lacanian sense of that drive which constitutes the subject, like the phallus, in the scopic field. Lacan states that it is the "eye and the gaze--this is for us the split in which the drive is manifested at the level of the scopic field" (The Four Fundamental 73) . Lacan goes on to Say that we are beings who are looked at, in the spectacle of the world. That which makes us consciousness [sic] institutes us by the same token as speculum mundi. . . The spectacle of the world, in this sense, appears us as all-seeing. . . . The world is all-seeing, but is not exhibitionistic--it does not provoke our gaze. (The Four Fundamental 75) ... Furthermore, of al1 the objects in which the subject may recognize his dependence in the register of desire, the gaze is specified as unapprehensible. That is why it is, more than any other object, misunderstood (méconnu), and it is perhaps for this reason, too, that the subject manages, fortunately to symbolize his own vanishing and punctiform bar (trait) in the illusion of the consciousness of seeing oneself see oneself, in which the gaze is elided. (The Four Fundamental 83) elaboration of the self-surveillance structure of panopticism in order to explore the libidinal economy of - - ostensibly male heterosexual e~changes.~' Caleb's and Falkland's desire connects the novel's anxiety over male associations to the scopic economy and to the spectac.le that is Caleb's narrative. Because the master/servant union is predicated on suspicion, the powerless Caleb feels that he now "dared neither fly from the observation of Mr. Falkland, nor continue exposed to its operation" (a138) . In describing Falkland's "observationF' as an "operation" Caleb recognizes the power of his master's gaze both to determine and to restrict his activities. Within his own psyche, Caleb constructs Falkland as an invisible but omniscient and omnipotent observer. As Caleb remarks it was like what has been described of the eye of omniscience pursuing the guilty sinner, and darting a ray that awakens him to new sensibility, at the very moment that, otherwise, exhausted nature would lu11 him into a ternporary oblivion of the reproaches of his conscience. (m 305) In effect, Falkland's gaze operates as a panopticon in that it conscripts his frightened young servant into a powerful system of self-surveillance. This disciplinary scopic regime that is produced from the single moment of Caleb's introjection within Falkland's gaze creates in Caleb the very tension of separâtion between subject and object that is required both to produce and maintain his internalized

23 While Eve Sedgwick's theories have been instrumental in my understanding of homosociality and homophobia, 1 agree with Valerie Traub's assessment that Sedgwick's analysis simultaneously presents and denies homosexuality because homoerotic desire is always a figure associated with the traffic in women, who are also figures for a particular kind of patriarchal male bond (105). system of desire. Caleb's and Falkland's relationship may initially have a certain warmth and affection, but because of Caleb's visual transgression, the two men are forced to incorporate eâch man as the other, as the object of fear: Caleb of Falkland's wrath and Falkland of Caleb's exposure of his secret crime. In this way, each man within himself becomes a spiit subject that both dreaas and desires its other. Because Caleb's narrative tends to eroticize, or at least to privatize, the effects of power, we might read his clandestine emotions for Falkland in terms of his desires for power. It is not, however, from Caleb's account of his own desires but rather from his description of Falkland's response to a servant's curiosity that we might consider the class dynamics of their relationship. For Falkland's use of the available political and juridical structures to pursue his servant, while evidence of hi3 enormous power--granted to him by the state by virtue of his rank and position--is also a sign of his need to protect himself from what he fears in his association with Caleb. 1 suggest that Falkland's wielding of his power demonstrates his attempt not merely to control Caleb's activities but to curtail Caleb's insatiable desire to know him in a way that even an equal could not. In other words, Falkland uses his class power to prevent Caleb from transgressing the social hierarchy through erotic power, or desire. It is precisely Hawkins's refusa1 to respect the class boundaries in his interaction with Tyrrel in the first part of Caleb Williams that leads to the tenant's death. In a relationship described as that of "a fawn contending with a lion" (a 72), Hawkins's perceived defiance in response to Tyrrel's offer to make Hawkins's son Leonard a "gentleman's servant" (ÇW 71) is interpreted as a perilous class transgression. Hawkins replies to Tyrrel's threats with the retort that though he is a "plain working man," he is "a man still" and there should be "some law for poor folk, as well as for rich" (a71) . Indeed, Hawkins prophetically foreshadows what Caleb will come to understand and acknowledge gradually in his nurnerous encounters with the legal institution. One might argue, then, that Caleb Williams portrays the tyrannical aspects of repressive paternalistic state power as consequences of the conditions under which men assumed heterosexual subjectivity düring the 1790s, namely by default since there was no clear understanding as to what a non-heterosexual man might be. During the 1790s, women were encouraged still to marry men from similar class backgrounds, and men were discouraged from forming intimate friendships with men outside of their class; however, homosexual relationships often crossed class lines.?' While the exact nature of Caleb's and Falkland's servant/master relationship is not clear, the novel's portrayal of these two paranoid men and their surveiliance of each other significantly participates in the structures of homophobia as it was emerging during Godwin's time." Alex Gold has

'' See Alan Bray on the class codification of homosocial and homosexual relationships.

'5 '5 Several thinkers from Freud and Foucault to contemporary ones such as Eve Sedgwick and the recently recovered Guy Hocquenghem have theorized the social structures of homosociality and the anxiety it produces. While the theories of Freud and Hocquenghem are firmly based in psychoanalysis, Foucault's and Sedgwick's are more materialist. Arguably the most influential in recent discussions of mzle homosociality and homophobic anxiety, Sedgwick's theories privilege homophobia as a pervasive structural effect in constituting masculine identity, both homo- and heterosexual. Beginning with Alan Bray's important point that at the end of the eighteenth century in England a suggested that "the novel chronicles -the effects of love as tragedies of political life" (137). Godwin's novel, though, seems to indicate that the effects of poiitical life manifest themselves precisely as tragedies of love--a love that can only be expressed as anxiety and fear between men. My reading of Caleb's and Falkland's relationship thus opens up the repressed contents of the political closet of the late eighteenth century, exposing anxiety at the heart of governmental surveillance. Clearly both Falkland's secret crime of nurdering Barnabas Tyrrel and his relentless pursuit of Caleb Williams are overdetermined in light of the sexual background of the socio-historic moment in which Godwin publishes Caleb Williams. Although Godwin establishes Falkland's motives as belonging to an earlier feudal time, this synchronic displacement of the significance of Falkland's secret merely points to the possibility that wnat Falkland defends with such vehemence might be another crime, one which requires a more vigilant defence. Hence, Falkland's secret is associated with an excess that functions as desire or anxiety or both. Within the narrative's mechanisms, since Caleb vows to protect his master's secret after Falkland confesses that he is the true murderer of Tyrrel, Falkland's persecution of the lad is obsessive. Moreover, Caleb's promise to preserve Falkland's reputation exceeds the secularized homophobia emerged alongside a distinctly male homosexual culture, Sedgwick argues that this development affected al1 male bonds. Not only are self-identified male homosexuals affected by "male homosexual panic" (Sedgwick, "The Beast" 185) or homophobia, but so are al1 other males, such that one could argue (although Sedgwick does not) that homophobia operates like a panoptical mechanism that regulates al1 male homosocial relations, except that homophobia functions from within and below rather than from above. rationale that the servant obey the master's injunctions because the former fears the latter. Indeed, the novei's plot does not justify or explain Falkland's irrational hunt for and fears about Caleb. The first hearing at Falkland's house proves that no one is prepared to believe an employee accusing his master of a crime, especialiy when said

" * employee is being accused by the master of steali~g.~"The logical conclusion must be that there is more at stake for Falkland than the pleasure of persecuting Caleb. 1s he worried that Caleb will accuse him of some heinous criminâl act--an accusation thât neither Falkland's class, rank, nor good character can protect him from in the public eye12- 1 suggest that, ultimately, it is not a question of Falkland's fear of Caleb's disclosure of his secret but rather what his act of pursuing Caleb reveals about his own desires for Caleb. In other words, what Falkland is afraid of in his relationship with Caleb, which is already inscribed within and narratively prefigured by his relationship with Tyrrel, is that he might have erotic desires for Caleb. Paradoxically, Falkland's pursuit of Caleb to ensure that his secret is not revealed further stimulates Falkland's desire, thus disclosing the very secret he tries to hide, or indeed creating the secret whether or not it existed before. Indeed, as a tale told among men--Falkland confesses to Mr. Collins, who relates the tale to Caleb--Caleb Williams provides a structural mode1 for what 1 cal1 the circulation

26 Falkland's accusation that Caleb is a thief is foreshadowed in the novel by Tyrrel's arrest of Emily because of her arrears.

27 In Tyrrel's case, after the neighbours discover that his actions are the cause of Emily's death, neither his wealth nor his "hereditary elevation [could] operate as an apology" for his wickedness (m 92). of desire. While the supplement of our hermeneutic desire enables us to read for the homoerotic moments in the interstices of Caleb's narrative, the transmission of Caleb's tale, that is, the private retelling from one man to another, already circulates homoerotic desire within Caleb Williams. Caleb's story, as we know, Fs infused with those tales he has Reard from other men, such tnat the earlier part of his narrative is a written account based on Mr. Collins' spoken account of Falkland's history. Additionally, in relating the details of Falkland's defence at his murder trial, Caleb provides a transcription of this information given to hirn by Mr. Collins, who wrote down what he heard at the trial and kept the manuscript in a "private drawer in his escritoire" (C& 100). As Karl N. Simms indicates, Falkland's story of his innocence is therefore a written account of a spoken account of a written account [and, 1 would add, of another spoken account, namely Falkland1s] , taken from a secret place within a place of writing, and (eventually) comes to us as a text witnin a text within a text (354). Falkland's history and defence of his character are thus passed from his servant Collins to his secretary Caleb, who then relates the whoie to his readers. Significantly, Caleb's history of his own adventures and vindication of his character, though they are begun by him, are filled with the false narratives created by Falkland and his half-brother Mr. Forester that, in turn, are elaborated on and circulated by Falkland's aide Gines to become the infamous "wonderful and surprising history, and miraculous adventures of Caleb Williams" (a268), also known falsely as "Kit Wiliiams" (m 236). The cornpetition between Falkland's and Caleb's respective versions of self-justification and accusatory slander are circulated between and among the various private and public men in their lives. The end result is a fictional autobiography that endlessly defers the so-called 'truth' of either Falkland's or Caleb's life, for the secret enclosed in Falkland's trunk that Caleb believes will ultimately vindicate him is another text, a narrative that we never discover. In this way, desire is embedded within and circulated among the male characters, eventually drawing the reader into its spiralling coil. Caleb claims to write his memoirs in order to establish an originary cause for his current pain and suffering. Opening with the statement, "My life has for several years been a theatre of calamity" (a31, Caleb acts the director's part as he draws the curtain on the tale of his tragic life." It is through Caleb's words that we hear of Falkland's experiences of chivalry in Italy and his later conflict with and murder of Tyrrel, as well as Caleb's adventures of being pursued by Falkland's henchman Gines (who, as a textual double to Tyrrel's Grimes, also functions as an erotic extension of Falkland). More significantly, it is through Caleb's eyes that we view Falkland's attractiveness and ruthlessness. Caleb claims that his "story will at least appear to have that consistency, which is seldom attendant but upon truth" (a1); however, as we have seen, his tale is far from being a plain revelation of either his own history or Faikland's. In fact, it is the power of narrative to seduce with the appearance of titillating 'truth' claims while concealing the secret

2 8 In relating Emily's history, Caleb foregrounds both his role as director and the theatrical dimension of the tragic tales he records for posterity. Prior to Emily's death, Caleb writes, "1 lift the curtain, and bring forward the last act of the tragedy" (a79). After Emily's death, Caleb notes that "the scene was acted upon too public a stage not to be generally understood" (a89). 'txuth' which is at stake. Prior to being condemned to prison by Falkland, Forester advises Caleb to Make the best story you can for yourself; true, if truth, as 1 hope, will serve your purpose; bcrt, if not, the most plausible and ingenious you can invent. That is what self-defence requires from every man where, as it always happens to a man upon his trial, he has the whole world against him, ar?d has his own battle to fight against the world. fm 163) Caleb's record of his attempt to vindicate himself is the narrative that we have. Jacqueline T. Miller in "The Imperfect Tale: Articulation, Rhetoric, and Self in 'Caleb Williams1" argues that "control of language becomes synonymous with control of self and control of others; if that ability is lost or overcome, men become subjected to the authority of those who retain verbal prowess" (373). Indeed, in Caleb's praise of Clare's rhetorical abilities, Caleb manifests his admiration not for those with brute strength like Tyrrel, but for those who are skilful with words. As one hired by Falkland in the capacity of a librarian/ secretary, Caleb clearly appreciates the value of words. At one point, in his fugitive status, he even becomes a writer of tales of celebrated crirninals. However, Clare1s ski11 is limited since his "verbal prowess" does not Save hirn £rom the infectious poison of Falkland's and Tyrrel's battle over their reputations. Even Caleb describes his moments of weakness in terms of his inability to articulate satisfactorily his feelings. Near the end of the novel, Caleb expresses his indignation with "the unrelenting constancy with which Mr. Falkland incited . . . [his] tormentor to pursue" him by saying that " [n]o words can enable me to do justice to the sensations which this circumstance produced in me" (ÇW 305). Perhaps echoing what Clare or Falkland rnight have felt towards the uncouth Tyrrel, Caleb wonders why he should 8e "harassed by the pursuit of this Gines; why, man to man, may 1 not by the powers of my mind attain ascendancy over him?" (CJ 306). Though Caleb confesses that he is unable to exonerate his own character from the malicious lies spread by Falkland (as well as by Forester and Gines) it is Caleb's inability to recognize his own talent that leaas to this conclusion. For in the published ending, through his verbal acumen Caleb wins both the judge's and Faikland's acceptance in the last trial scene, something that Maria in Mary Wollstonecraft's unfinished novel The Wronas of Woman: or, Maria. A Fraament (1798) cannot do. After Maria's passionate but rational plea for divorcing an abusive husband, the judge exclaims against "the fallacy of letting wornen plead their feelings"

(The Wronas 181) . In Caleb's case, he clairns that " [el very one [sic] that heard me was melted into tears" (m 323-4). Falkland responds to Caleb's defence by throwing himself into his arms and then stating that he has been persuaded by Caleb's "artless and manly story" (m 324). In short, Caleb's narrative implies tnat his rhetorical ski11 enables the submerged affection becween Falkland and himself to surface once again. If we read the trial scene in Woilstonecraft's The Wronas of Wornan, written four years after Godwin's novel, as a supplement to this last scene in Caleb Williams, Wollstonecraft's portrait of a young wife's failure to vindicâte her actions and to escape from the vigilant pursuit of both her husband and the law can be seen as yet another corrective to the implausibly quick resolution in ..- Caleb Williams. -' Wollstonecraft's novel iilustrates that "things are very well as they are" (The Wronus 116; or rather that things seldom change so quickly. Godwin's title (and not subtitle of Caleb Williams) for his novel is Thinqs As Thev Are,irnplying that things might need to be modified but rnight not get changed. Yet Caleb is able miraculously to transform Falkland £rom a vindictive to a forgiving man. Caleb's erotic and yet deadly descriptions of the homosocial interactions in his world are not erased by his narration of the final reconciliation with Falkland. Nor does Caleb's justification for Falkland's behaviour account for Falkland's obsession with Caleb. At the narrative level, then, Caleb's story registers an excess of desire that is not satisfactorily explained by the resolution in the plot. Furthermve, the fact that both Godwin's original unpublished ending and his revised published one are provided in one volume in David McCrackenls 1970 edition of Caleb Williams radically undermines any sense of closure that Caleb may desire. Like Ernily in her final moments, Caleb feaxs that ne "shall be wholly deserted of . . . [his] reason" (a314) in the final chapter before the published Postscript. In the original manuscript ending of the novel, which begins in the rniddle of the published Postscript, we see Caleb in a state of madness, suffering £rom "strange dreams" (m 334), strongly suggesting that the entire narrative is a fantastical tale created out of Caleb's del us ion^.'^

29 Godwin's second published ending to Caleb Williams in which there is this rather utopian reconciliation between Caleb and Falkland, is already a corrective to his first ending, in which Caleb descends into madness.

30 David McCracken notes that the "action Degins with the final trial scene, immediately after Falkland enters the court- However, if Caleb is narratively prefigured by Erniiy, then Caleb's descent into madness in reaction to Falkland's tyranny is already foreshadowed by Emily's insanity and premature death caused by Tyrrel's vicFousness. Even Emily's description of Falkland in one of her final "fits of delirium'' prophetically echoes what Caleb's narrative hints at but does not enact in the original ending, narnely a harmonious reconciliation with Falkland: in her final moments, Ernily asks for "her Falkland, her lord, her life, her husband! " (CJJ 86) . In other words, Emiiy through her actions and her words curiously embodies the two narrative fates that befall Godwin's Caleb: madness because of Falkland, and desired intirnacy with Falkland. As 1 have already mentioned, in the ending that Godwin did publish, Caleb manages to convince the court of his innocence and move Falkland to a final act of repentance in which he throws himself into Caleb's arms and confesses his guilt (m 324). While Caleb's ability to construct a persuasive narrative fulfils his ardent desire for justice and for public acknowledgement of his innocence, it also significantly fclfils Emily's delirious desire to persuade Tyrrel of her innocence and to be with Falkland. As if in response to al1 tyrannical masters, including Emily's "Tyrrel", Caleb in his narrative includes the following irnagined response to Falkland's diabolical schemes: Didst thou imagine that 1 was altogether passive, a mere worm, organized to feel sensation of pain, but no emotion of resentment? Didst thou imagine that there was no danger in inflicting on me pains however great, miseries however dreadful? Didst thou believe me impotent, imbecil [sic] and idiot- like, with no understanding to contrive thy ruin, and no energy to perpetrate it? (m 314) room to face Caleb's accusations" (327). In Godwin's final version of the novel, Caleb does not cârry out his threats. While both versions question the reliability of Caleb as narrator, the published version magnifies Caleb's projected desire for Falkland in the narrationkreation of the embrace between the two men. Perhaps this is wny Caleb's victory in bringing Falkland to justice ultimately does not satisfy him. As Emily's madness infects Tyrrel insofar as he is unable to control his anger toward Falkland, her madness is also transmitted to Caleb. For, in a way, Caleb's failure to vindicate his own character is a direct result of his willingness to forgive and forget Falkland's cruelty towards him. And this may be read as a kind of madness akin to the "poison of chivalry" which led Falkland "into madness" as Caleb claims at the end of the published version (ÇW 326). Thus, in neglecting his own desires, Caleb is unable to attain a strong identity. In the words of Mr. Collins, Caleb Fs a "machine," "not constituted," and a product of "what circumstances irresistibly compelled . . . [him] to ber' (ÇW 310). The novel concludes with Caleb's remarks that he bas "now no character that . . . [he] wish[es] to vindicate" but that he will finish his story in order to vindicate Falkland's life so that the "world may at least not hear and repeat a half- told and mangled tale" (a326) . We might assume that since Caleb becomes the object of someone else's textual desire (insofar as Falkland's history appears prominently throughout and is what Caleb aesires to correct at the end), he realizes that he cannot author his own tale in cornpetition with that circulated by Falkland. Consequently, Caleb creates a fantasy of his own identity that will enable him to receive the love and understanding he desires from Falkland. In fact, 1 believe that the entire narrative demonstrates how Caleb comes to identify with that identity, imposed upon him by botn Falkland and Forester. Caleb enters into a circuit of male desires as ne gets trapped between Collins' and Falkland's narratives of Falkland's greatness, and Falkland's and Gines's narrative of Caleb's wickedness." Caleb begins to conceive of his crime as his own, failing to understand it as the product of the narratives/lies that Falkland and Forester dialectically provide for him. Thus, his tale becomes one of competing discourses, each vying for the reader's and Caleb's attention. After Mrs. Marney, who employs Caleb as a writer, Ls sent to Newgate prison, Caleb reflects on his fife thus far as one in which his "very touch were to be infectious, and every one that succoured . . . [him] was to be involved in the common ruin" (m 269). Caleb's frustration that his touch "were to be infectious" is thus inverted by his own narrative act. Although his conscious intention is to present the 'truth,' he unconsciously seduces himself in his own act of narration: he is "enthralled by the verbal representation of desire" (McClintock 110) . Since the final version of Caleb's tale is one that also appeases Falkland's fury, Caleb manages to elicit from Falkland a reciprocal response to his desires. In other words, through Caleb's verbal prowess in recounting his tragic life of living in fear of Falkland, he manages not only to seduce Falkland in the last court scene but also to produce the highly coveted affectionate bond that he so much desires to share with Falkland. Caleb's need to read and narrate his tale so that it is not his story, but Falkland's 'history,' is testimony

31 1 have found Ed Cohen's discussion of the gaze in the context of the libidinal structure of homoeroticism in Dorian Grav irnmensely useful for this section. to che irresistible power of his desires for his patron. While the unaccountable excess in the various male relationships gets refigured as anxiety within the narrative itself, it is simultaneously transformed into desire by the textualization of these negative bonds and the subsequent transmission of this account from man to man. Thus, as each male narrator in Caleb Williams retells the story of Falkland's secret to Caleb, who inserts his version of what each man tells hirn, the unaccountable excess in the plot Fs successively circulated as desire between men- Regardless of which ending a reader may choose, it is the fact of Godwin's own inability to decide (since he does actually write two different endings) that points to an excess that requires the supplementation of the reader's desire insofar as the reader must decide whether to accept Caleb's idealistic, as well as erotically cnarged, desire for reconciliation with his former master, or Caleb's failure and subsequent madness. In the end, it is as a statement of Godwin's own inner turmoil regarding the exercise of power in private and public spaces, as seen in certain sections of Political Justice and of his other writings, that his most overtly political novel Caleb Williams is also a reaction to and embodiment of the sexualization of politics and the politics of sexuality at the end of the eighteenth century in Britain. As with the later Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft, Caleb Williams irnplicates Godwin's future readers in the contested terrain of private and public transgressions and desires, especially as these transgressions and desires reflect on masculine subjectivity and authority. It is, of course, Mary Shelley who ultimately becomes Godwin's most incisive and critical future reader. toward female desire and its sexual expression foreshadows Victor Frankenstein's monstrous desires. Thus, far from reacting to the separate fiterary iegacies of William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley's first two works, Frankenstein and Mathilda, respond to Godwin's version of both legacies, that is, to his neglect and incorporation of female struggles and desires. In other words, Shelley inherits two Godwinian legacies. While the homosocial world of Caleb Williams with its rather utopian reconciliation between Falkland and Caleb is criticized in Shelley's Frankenstein, at the same time, the transmission, however disfigured, of Mary Wollstonecraft's life and ideals both through Memoirs and Fleetwood empowers Shelley to mount precisely this kind of critique of Godwin's Caleb Williams. Hence, Godwin's legacies are simultaneously enabling and disabling for Shelley. Through her reactive fictional critiques of her father's implicit and explicit excision of female desire, Shelley thus negotiates a space for the expression and circulation of fernale desires. Chapter Three "A rnummy again endued with animation": The (Re)production of Desire in Shelley's Frankenstein

The 1808 publication of Mounseer Nonatona~aw; or, The Discoveries of John Bull in a Trip to Paris is, in al1 likelihood, one of the first products of Mary Shelley's implicit apprenticeship at the feet of ner eminent father. This poetic parody, written by Mary at the age of ten and a half, was marketed by William and Mary Jane Godwin's publishing firm "with sales sufficient to bring out a fourth edition in 1812" (Bennett and Robinson, 6). ' Many critics, such as Anne Mellor and most recently Katherine C. Hill- Miller, have implied that the "psychological and literary influence of William Godwin" on Mary Shelley's "choice of profession and her subsequent literary career" began £rom

In the 1996 Keats-Shellev Journal, Emily W. Sunstein concludes that contrary to prior textual evidence, "Mary Godwin wrote the initial revised text for Nonatona~aw,but not the final version" (19). Sunstein's note includes the recently resurfaced William Godwin letter in which he both discusses Mounseer NonatonaDaW as "the production of my daughter in her eleventh year," and mentions "a young man of twenty" (19) whorn Sunstein daims may have edited and polished the young Mary's brief parody. While Mary's text revises the well-known parodic Song "Mounseer Nong Tong Paw" by Charles Dibdin, Sunstein suggests thac only "some of the new episodes in the published text, [and] perhaps a bit of the language" may be attributed to Mary Godwin (20, 22) . Dibdin's Song spoofs English/French stereotypes in portraying John Bull who misunderstands the French reply to his various questions, "Monsieur, Je vous n'entends pas," as being the name of a rich and powerful "Mounseer Nongtongpaw" (Sunstein 20) . In his letter, Godwin says that the "whole object [of the brief tale] is to keep up the joke of Nong Tong Paw being constantly taken for the greatest man in Francet1 (qtd. in Sunstein 20). As Sunstein indicates, this new information about Mary Shelley's juvenile production is "[mlost illuminating, [for] we see in Godwin's letter the ten-year-old girl entered upon her literary apprenticeship in the family work-shop" (22). the moment of her birth (iller 9. Clearly, from my discussion of Memoirs (1798) one can argue that Shelley was preconceived through her insertion into a specifically Godwinian textual history. If the young Mary Godwin's work was supported by the general intellectuâl climate of her father's house, the later Mary Shelley's fiction is undoubtedly indebted to the literary legacy of her father's writings.' However, as I note in the last chapter, what Shelley inherits is not one but two Godwinian legacies: the pre-Wollstonecraft Godwin of Caleb Williams (1794) with his masculinist inclinations, and the post-Wollstonecraft Godwin

See especially Mellor's Marv Sheliev: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters and Hill-Miller's "Mv Hideous Proaenv": Marv Shellev, William Godwin, and the Father-Dauahter Relationshi~. As their titles suggest, both works situate their discussion of Shelley and ber writings in her historical relationships to her famous family members. For example, Hill-Miller reads Frankenstein through the lens of the Freudian family romance, although, as Dianne F. Sadoff points out, she "never quotes Freud" (211). While 1 find Hill- Miller's study of four of Mary Shelley's texts (Frankenstein, Mathilda, Lodore, Falkner) highly suggestive of the various ways to read these works intertextually with Godwin's writings, ultimately 1 agree with Paul Youngquist's assessrnent that the book is "written as if before the fa11 of criticism into post-structuralism [and that] Hill-Miller ' s own feminism, like Mary Wollstonecraft ' s, is of the liberal variety" (Rev. of "Mv Hideous Proaenv" 345) . For example, while Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818, 1831) and The Last Man (1826) may be read for fictionally displaced autobiographical desires and moments, both novels also testify to the Godwinian aesthetics of "mix[ing] human feelings and passions with incredible situations" to "attain a sort of novelty that would conciliate the patience, at least, even of some of the severest judges" (Godwin, Advertisement vil. Frankensteinfs account of Victor's asexual creation, and The Last Man's portrayal of Lionel Verney's recollections of the catastrophic plague, which destroys al1 human civilization except himself in the year 2100, participate in a Godwinian mixture of "passions" and "incredible situations," not unlike Godwin's St. Jeon. Moreover, in a critical revisiting of Godwin's Caleb Williams and Fleetwoocj, Shelley's two novels suggest that man's hubris and his desire to control his natural surroundings are his greatest flaws. of Memoirs and Fleetwood (1805) with his conflicted "pro- feminist" views. Although Romantic scholarship has reevaluated the Godwinian nuances in Mary Shelley's works, particularly Frankenstein, criticism has gsnerally not distinquished between a pre- and post-Wollstonecraft Godwin, a distinction, 1 shall argue, that can enable us to reconcile both the Godwinian and the emerging ferninist tenets in Frankenstein. Critics of Shelley's novel often focus on the echoes in Frankenstein of eitner William Godwin's texts or Mary Wollstonecraft's feminism. For example, in "Caleb Williams and Frankenstein: First-Person Narratives and 'Things as They Are"' Gay Clifford "concentrate [sj on the forma1 rather than thematic aspects of Frankenstein, for it is here that the particular misgiving about the apotheosis of self in first-person narrative is most clearly shared with Caleb Williams" (615). Similarly, feminist scholars, rnost notably Anne Mellor, focus on the thematic continuity between Mary Wollstonecraft's and Mary Shelley's writings, while usually discussing only the biographical details of Godwin's and Shelley's relati~nship.~Although Shelley's Frankenstein

The critical reception of Mary Shelley's The Last Man is another significant example of this type of familial biographical reading. According to Anne Mellor, The Last Man is a "roman à clef. In the figures of Adrian, Earl of Windsor, and Lord Raymond, Mary Shelley projected and tried to come to terms with both Percy Shelley and Lord Byron" (Marv Shellev 148). Mary Shelley did, in fact, state in a letter written in Italian to Teresa Guiccioli dated August 20, 1827 that in The Last Man "You will find in Lord Raymond and Count Adrian faint portraits but 1 ho~e[sic] not displeasing to you of B. and S--but this is a secret" (The Letters 566). However, this authorial remark should not, by any means, be taken as the definitive statement on the possible interpretations of the novel. 1 would argue that Shelley's statement is as constructed as the fiction itself since both are rendered in discourse, and therefore, equally vulnerable to the vicissitudes of has been read from a variety of critical perspectives ranging from feminist, post- structuralist, and psychoanalytic to new historicist, queer and cultural studies, the novel seerns to be held hostage by a certain kind of theoretical enterprise that is perhaps, inadvertently, best summarized by the introduction to The Other Marv Shellev: Bevond Frankenstein. In their openirig remarks to this collection of essays on Shelley's other writings, the editors--Audrey Fisch, Anne Mellor and Esther Schor--suggest that partially because in the 1980s feminists of widely differing agendas csed Frankenstein to advance critiques of masculinist bias in literary theory . . . Frankenstein has become a sturdy pedagogical tool for deconstructing the transcendental Romantic imagination; in the crudest terms, Frankênstein, by the monstrosity of the creature's body, signals the suppression of gender in the ethos of Romantic egotism. (4) While 1 agree that one can effectively use Shelley's novel to deconstruct "the transcendental Romantic imagination," 1 believe that this is a harder interpretative task if one remembers the Godwinian presence in Frankenstein. In other desire. One might, for example, read The Last Man's portrayal of Lionel Verney's narrative of the final years of human existence as a companion piece to Frankenstein's depiction of Victor's recollections of his creation of a monstrous being that destroys his own family and friends. Whereas Shelley's exploration of male creativity in Frankenstein focuses on the damaging effects of one man's private ambitions, her analysis of nations led by men in The Last Man considers the destructive outcome of not considering or respecting the feminine realm. Moreover, if Victor rnaterializes his desires through the body of his hideous creation, Lionel can only express his through his imagination in discourse. As well, we should remember, as Betty T. Bennett reminds us in "Feminism and Editing Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley: The Editor And? / Or? the Text," that "however biographically resonant . . . Mary Shelley's novel The Last Man (is], the theme of the last man was a favorite topic in the fiction and poetry of the era'' (76). words, I suggest that those readings that begin with the premise that Shelley's text must be feminist because either she is a woman writer or her mother is Mary Wollstonecraft are not as persuasive as those which read for the moments of resistance in the text that may be 1abe:ied feminist.' Gayatri Spivak has interpreted Frankenstein as "a text of nascent feminisrn that remains cryptic . . . simply because it does not speak the language of feminist individualism which we have corne to hail as the language of

high feminism within English literature" ( "Three Women's Texts" 254). As I have suggested in rny discussion of Caleb Williams and Memoirs, the literary and familial figure of "William Godwin" was both an enabling and a disabling force in Mary Shelley's intellectual and literary life. Indeed, Shelley's first mature novel mixes Godwinian narratological

While ferninist readings of Frankenstein are varied and often contradictory, that is, there is no monolithic feminist interpretation, these approaches rarely consider the Godwinian textual resonances in Shelley's novel. For example, Anne Mellor, whose exhaustive work in Mary Shelley scholarship has contributed to revitalizing interest in Shelley's other writings, suggests that because Shelley was "doubtless inspired by her mother's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," Frankenstein is "Mary Shelley's feminist novel" ("Possessing Nature'' 226, 220) . Ellen Cronan Rose's discussion of feminist and nonfeminist readings of Frankenstein asserts that "literary criticism, no less than the texts it examines, reflects unfolding cultural and historical preoccupations and anxieties" (825). Through her analytical survey of the most influential interpretations of Shelley's novel, beginning with the early years of liberal feminism and moving through the post-structuralist 1980s to the curent decade of identity politics, Rose's article effectively demonstrates the culturally specific ideological bias in criticism on Frankenstein. As such, Rose's article is useful not only for its cataloguing of feminist approaches to Frankenstein, but also for implicitly suggesting that the attempt to consider both the male and female anxieties in the novel, what 1 see as the Godwinian and emerging feminist voices respectively, is only possible today aftcr the numerous feminist gains in academia. structures and ideological concerns with a tentative critique of these very Godwinian Influences. Thus, Spivak's description of Frankenstein as "a text of nascent feminism that remains cryptic" resonates with my premise that Shelley inherits two distinct, yet inextricably connected Godwinian legacies that are both inserted and reworked in cornplex ways in Frankenstein. If the post-Wollstonecraft, conflicted pro-feminist Godwin of Memoirs enables Mary Shelley's feminist concerns by creating a space for Wollstonecraftian liberal feminisrn, he does so only in an encrypted, emotionally-invested fusion of biographical tribute and aütobiographical mourning. In fact, Memoirs itself may be read as Godwin's cryptic feminist text. Similarly, if the pre-Wollstonecraft "masculinist" Godwin provides Shelley with fodder for a feminist critique of, among other things, the male Romantic ego, this particular Godwinian legacy also disables Frankenstein's potential feminism from emerging from the monstrous crypt of the homosocial text, since Shelley's novel remains doomed to resurrect the narrative pattern and characters of Caleb Williams. A reading of the circulation of desire in and between Frankenstein, Caleb Williams, and the post-Wollstonecraft Godwin's Fleetwood reveals, however, that through the characters of Safie and the Creature, Shelley's novel traces a path for an alternative account of desire, especially female desire. Through an intertextual analysis of the prefatory material, male characters, and female narratives in Frankenstein and Caleb Williams, this chapter will explore the "cryptic" nature of feminism in Shelley's novel in terms of the two ambivalent Godwinian legacies that her text both replays and resists. From her journals, we know that beginning around 1814 Mary Shelley, along with Percy, read and reread al1 of Godwin's early fiction and prose. Mary Wollstonecraft's corpus was also read several times during the years 1814- 1822.Vn fact, by the time Mary Shelley began to write Frankenstein; or. The Modern Prometheus (1818) in the summer of 1816, most of Godwin's novels were already published: the only notable exception for this study is Deloraine (1833). Indeed, in its thernatic and structural similarities to Godwin's Caleb Williams, Shelley's Frankenstein may be regarded as a textual response to the ambivalent Godwinian portrayal of "hurnan feelings and passions" (Godwin, Advertisement vi). If Godwin's Caleb Williams radically excises female voices and desires to examine their male counterparts, Shelley's corpus, especially Frankenstein, suggestively explores the ramifications of this erasure.' In Frankenstein the abjection of female desire is replaced with an excess of male desire that, we might Say, is embodied in Victor's monstrous creation.' Precisely because Shelley's knowledge of her mother's writings, life, and

"n their edition of The Journals of Marv Shelley: 1814-1844, Paula R. Feldman and Diana Scott-Kilvert include a record of the works read by Mary and Percy Shelley during the years 1814-22. Although the Shelleyst reading list is incomplete, it does provide additional insight into the connections between the reading and the composition of familial texts. ' See Chapter One note 19 about my choice to focus on the 1818 edition of Frankenstein. While 1 shall use the terms "male1' and "fernale" to describe both the fictional characters and attributes of one or the other biological sex, 1 shall reserve "masculine1' and "feminine" to discuss the narrative depiction of gendered social and cultural behavioural traits that are often mapped ont0 their biological equivalents. In The Last Man, too, the feminine abject returns with a vengeance: in this novel, the abjected feminine principle is the plague that destroys only humans. politics is mediated by Godwin's understanding of Wolistonecraft, in any discussion of the daughter's apparenr return to the mother's sexual politics, we inevitably confront her father's contradictory attitude towards his wife's feminism." 1 suggest that Shelley's revisiting of Wollstonecraft's works is instigated, in part, by her implicit disagreement with Godwin's rnediation, both in Memoirs and his later domestic novels, of the lessons and effects of his wife's texts. And it is this reconsideration of the post-Wollstonecraft Godwinian legacy that enables Frankenstein to portray the negative ideological and narratological ramifications of the pre-Wollstonecrait Godwinian Caleb Williams in terms of sexual and gender politics. If Memoirs inscribes the transitional moment from Godwin's pre- to post-Wollstonecraft fiction, Frankenstein and, as 1 shall suggest in the next chapter, Mathilda (1819) trace the process of Shelley's literary individuation from her parents' works, especially her father's. As such, 1 daim that Frankenstein and Mathilda occupy a transitional position in Shelley's corpus that is similar to the place Memoirs and St. Leon (1799) hold in Godwin's writings. Given its various intertextual connections to Godwin's early writings, it is possible, then, to read Frankenstein as a narrative of the male (Godwinian) libidinal economy confronting issues specific to female bodies and desires, Beginning with the prelirninary texts that frame the original publication of Frankenstein in 1818, one notices a curious reference to the Godwinian political and literary legacies. For this 1818 edition was published anonymously with only the following dedication to hint at the author's

'O 'O See my discussion of Godwin's Mernoirs in Chapter One. identity: "TO / WILLIAM GODWIN, / AUTHOR OF POLITICAL

JUSTICE, CALEB WILLIAMS, / & c. [sic] / THESE VOLUMES / Are

respectfully inscribed / BY / THE AUTHOR" (FR 46) , Godwin's St. Leon, Fleetwood and Mandeville: A Tale of the Seventeenth Century (1817) were pubiished by the time this dedication was written, yet only Godwin's overtly political pre-Wollstonecraft writings are explicitly mentioned, while his post-Wollstonecraft domestic novels are merely gestured to in "& c." Although the publication of Memoirs had tarnished, in sorne circles, both Godwin's and Wollstonecraft's respective repctations by affiliating them with the perceived evils of Jacobinism, the dedication's authorial inscription suggestively recalls the heady days of Godwinian radicalism, associated as it was with "political justice," or the emancipatory hopes of the French Revolution. Paul O'Flinn claims that this public address to Shelley's famous father, who by 1818 had become the infamous and "unpopular Godwin, " is a "brave dedication" (25). Additionally, Chris Baldick briefly remarks that Shelley's Frankenstein was dedicated to her father "less because she was a dutiful daughter (her elopement lost her that title) than because Godwin was in so many ways the novel's intellectual begetter" (29). 1 suggest, however, that in the anonymous 1818 version of Frankenstein it is precisely the deployment of the figure of a pre-Wollstonecraft Godwin, "AUTHOR OF POLITICAL JUSTICE, CALEB WILLIAMS" (FR 46), that both constructs Mary Shelley as the "dutiful daughter" who has not forgotten her father's earlier radical views, and makes this dedication a courageous act. Although by the time Godwin rejects Mary for eloping with Percy in 1814, the radical intellectual fervour associated with the 1790s has lost not only its followers but also its avowed leader, the dedication to the pre-Wollstonecraft Godwin that frames only the 1818 edition announces its allegiance to this earlier decade of print radicalism. And it is in this capacity that the dedication aiso inscribes the text of Frankenstein and its author as "dutiful" towards the figure of William Godwin. Significantly, the omission of this dedication in the 1831 edition of Shelley's novel effectively elides not only the presence of "William Godwin" but also the radical history associated with this name. That only the 1818 edition of Shelley's Frankenstein includes an epigraph from Milton's Paradise Lost, in whick Adam faments his fa11 from grace, further reflects on the textual construction of Mary Shelley vis-à-vis her well-known radical father. The epigraph reads as follows: "Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay / To mould me man? Did I solicit thee / From darkness to promote me?-- / PARADISE LOST" (345) . In Shelley's novel, the Creature not only compares his situation to that of Adam and Satan, but also, in his criticism of Victor Frankenstein's actions, rewrites this epigraph from Milton: "Cursed, cursed creator! Why did 1 live? Why, in that instant, did I not extinguish the ssark of existence which you had so wantonly bestowed?" (FR 163). Following the Creature's violent expulsion, "with supernâtural force" (FR 162), from the Edenic world of the De Laceys, this speech further reinforces the similarities between Adam's fa11 from innocence and tne Creature's turn to vengeance." While both the epigraph and the Creature's cornplaints evoke the figure of "Mary Shelley" as daughter/writer criticizing her father/"MakerW for

l1 Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar provide an excellent discussion in The Madwoman in the Attk (224-34) of the intertextuality of Shelley's epigraph and its Miltonic context. incorporating her in the patriarchal literary world, the novel's dedication, as we have seen, produces the other figure of the dutifully radical dâughter. Without explicitly naming tne novel's author, the framing texts of the 1818 edition of Frankenstein, nevertneless, locate the work in a conflicted Godwinian terrain that is simultaneously respected and criticized. A closer look at the Creature's Adamic cries in Frankenstein reveals a far more specific paternal reference, Godwin's Caleb Williams. In Godwin's novel, Fzlkland is both the dreaded enemy and the desired omnipotent master whom Caleb regards as having "qualities that partook of divine [sic]" (CW 321). Throughout his narrative Caleb accuses his master for being the agent of his destruction; however, at the end he sees himself as "the basest and most odious of mankind! " (Godwin, ÇW 323) . Similarly, after his nurnerous vindictive murders aimed at destroying Victor's happiness, the Creature forgives his master and identifies himself as "a wretch" (FR 245). Neither the Creature nor Caleb recognizes himself as a victim of the larger structure of patriarchal desires and tyranny. Instead, both the Creature and Caleb locate their oppression in one man, thereby enabling them to forgive him. That Caleb Williams reproduces this homosocial world despite Godwin's political convictions suggests that Shelley's epigraph, while referring to various situations in Frankenstein, may also function as a critical allusion to the patriarchal despotism that torments Godwin's narrator, Caleb Williams. While Shelley is constructed as a respectful daughter through the dedication to the pre-Wollstonecraft Godwin, the narrative of Frankenstein implies a criticism of him as well. The Godwinian overtones are also present in the anonymous Preface attached to the 1818 publication of Frankenstein. The Preface, which we know now to have been an expression of Percy's desires for Mary Shelley's novel,

professes to explain the "circumstance on which . , , [the] story rests" (FR 47): my chief concern [for the story] . . . nas been limited to the avoiding [sic] the enervating effects of the novels of tne present day, and to the exhibition of the amiableness of domestic affection, and the excellence of universal virtge. (FR 47-8) In his 1799 Preface to St. Leon, the post-Wollstonecraft Godwin regards "domestic and private affections" as "not incompatible with a profound and active sense of justice" (x). Though this 1818 Preface claims neither that "the excellence of universal virtue" is the result of "the amiableness of domestic affection" nor that both are the foundations of justice, any intimation of a causal connection between "domestic affection" and "universal virtuel' could be interpreted as a gesture towards the Godwin of Political Justice and St. Leon. The dedication to the anonyrnously published 1818 Frankenstein, then, may have confirmed what the 1818 Preface implied. Indeed, many of Mary Shelley's contemporaries assumed that this new work was written by Godwin's latest intellectual disciple, Percy Shelley. Clearly, Mary Shelley's displacement of her authorial stamp and her allusions to William Godwin situate the 1818 edition of Frankenstein in an intertextual context that prevents us from assigning a monolithic rneaning to the novel. In discussing the varied critical readings of Frankenstein, George E. Haggerty suggests that, the closer we approach the truth of this novel, the more subtly it recedes into unnarneability. The novel itself, in other words, is structured so as to encourage interpretation at the same time that it eludes it. (39) Moreover, Judith Halberstam's observation that the "chameleonic nature" of the monster itself is a "symbol of multiplicity" (29) and "excess" (31) implies that Shelley1s novel is fundamentally about interpretation: The very project of interpretation in this novel . . . is complex and unstable and it is this instability, in part, that generates the infinite interpretability of the monster. . . . The monster defies definition just as the whole novel itself seems to challenge neat generic categaries. (Halberstam 31)'' In fact, even the author Mary Sheliey, as if recognizing the "infinite interpretability of the monster," attempts to contain the hermeneutic challenge posed by her tale. Unlike the first publication of Frankenstein, the 1831 edition includes not only Shelley's name on the cover but also an introduction by her. In this 1831 Introduction to Frankenstein, Shelley purports to give a rational explanation "to the question, so very frequently asked me-- 'How 1, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?'" (FR 360). The answer, however, merely adds yet another piece to the multi-layered fabric of the novel because it explains neither the monster nor the tale, but rather locates the tale's origin in a nightmare that Shelley has after the start of the infarnous

l2 Indeed, Frankenstein is a hybrid of several literary genres. Like the fictional autobiographical narratives of Godwin's Caleh Williams and Fleetwood, Shelley's novel 1s a first-person retrospective account of thwarted male desires. Like Godwin's Memoirs, Frankenstein is also a "history" of a being from its birth, through various tragic incidents, to its presumed death. As well, the gothic elements in Frankenstein resemble Godwin's Caleb Williams, which deploys gothic imagery to heighten the psychological dimension of the novel. In addition, the f raming device of Shelley's text--a letter from Robert Walton to his sister, Margaret Saville--aligns Frankenstein with the epistolary tradition in fiction. ghost story contest, which included Lord Byron and Percy Shelley." Though Mary Shelley describes the nightmare in a gothic style, this autobiographical deferral merely replicates Victor's explanation of his Creature's conception that he addresses to Robert Walton. For Shelley's narrative of the novel's genesis does not approach the "truth" of her tale ony more than Victor's narrative of the Creature's origins. As George Haggerty correctly observes, It is no accident that critics have taken Frankenstein so personally: The [sic] author seems intent on personalizing the Gothic experience. She plays up the circumstance--her lover, their important friends, the romantic setting, the haunting itself, Percy's encouragement--not just because they are central to the nature of ner creativity, but also because such details lend an air of authenticity to the report and place her at the center of an intriguing taie. She uses a metaphor of motherhood to clinch this self- dramatization, not primarily on account of the horror that such a relationship implies, but because this sexualizes the experience and places her at the crux of the intirnate act of creativity. (Haggerty 4 1) That Shelley's Introduction is another frame narrative, like

l3 Fred V. Randel in "Frankenstein, Ferninism, and the Intertextuality of Mountains" says that the "Introduction tells of Mary Shelley's emergence from seeming inferiority to male predecessors and already publishing contemporaries; it is, among other things, a celebration of a female's success in achieving a voice" (529). Such an interpretation relies on reading Shelley's Introduction as history and not, as 1 shall suggest, fiction. One might argue that Shelley's very creation of a history of "Mary Shelley's ernergence from seerning inferiority to male predecessors" itself is "among other things, a celebration of a female's success in achieving a voice." What is important to note here is that unlike the Godwinian, perhaps pre-Romantic and political, 1818 Preface to Frankenstein, Shelley's 1831 Introduction, by referring to the younger generation of Romantic poets (Percy Shelley and Lord Byron), resituates the novel in a more aesthetic Romantic context. Waltonls, indicates that one of its functions in the 1831 edition is to produce hermeneutic desire. In other words, the Introduction is carefully situated to entice the reader's desires to search for meaning in the text. Furthermore, Shelley concludes her Introduction with a moment of personal reflection in which she describes the "affection" she has for her novel, an "offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart" (FR 365). Referring to the loss of Percy, Mary Shelley makes these comments but only to cut short her reverie by saying simply that 'this is for myself; readers have nothing to do with these associations" (FR 366). But these are the very "associations" that readers are so eager to discover. Shelley's finaï comrnents elicit desire by placing the persona1 under erasure, that is, by stating what is private only to claim that it will interest nobody. Shelley's introductory frame narrative, then, teases her readers with an illusion of the true meaning of her text by "personalizing" and sexualizing the circumstances around the novel's comp~sition.'~ Significantly, Godwin, too, appends bis own interpretation of Caleb Williams as a preface to his 1832 edition of Fleetwood. In writing their respective explanations for their most famous works, both Shelley and Godwin were responding to the requests of the publishers

'' Such mingling of private and public, personal and shared "fictions" is also reminiscent of Godwin's blurring of autobiography and biography in Memoirg. Of course, in publishing one's private ideas, these thoughts enter the dornain of public, shared fictions. Like the implied narrative of mourning in Memoirs, Mary Shelley's Introduction presents an account of her "mind in creation" (P. Shelley, Defence 504), an account that she then presents as the "real" origin of her fantastic tale of horror. (Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley) of the inexpensive "Standard Novels" series in which their second editions appeared (Macdonald and Scherf 360 n-1; Clemit, Introductory Note, 7 n-a). Pamela Clemit says in her Introductory Note to William Godwin's Fleetwood that the Standard Novels required an autobiographical preface: "it was a matter of conscious editorial policy to secure revised texts and new Prefaces in which the author's mature judgement was passed on his earlier work" (v). These prefaces are, essentially, "post-faces" that function both to preserve and produce the desires for these novels in the nineteenth-century reading public. Goawin, however, ~rovidedColburn and Bentley an account not of Fleetwood but of Caleb Williams in his Preface to the second edition of Fleetwood. Instead of passing his "mature judgement . . . on his earlier work" which, in this case, should have been the first edition of Fleetwood, Godwin discusses the emergence of his fame as signified by the popular acceptance of Caleb Williams. Godwin's Preface, in other words, becomes extratextual (and not metatextual) because it highlights not the specific novel to which it is appended but rather his illustrious career as "text . " Written a year after Shelley's 1831 Introduction to Frankenstein, Godwin's Preface is strikingly similar in tone to his daughter's. Godwin not only reveals that Caleb Williams is his "favourite work" (Preface, 1832, 7) but also confesses that prior to the success of Political Justice because "Every thing [sic] I wrote £el1 dead-born from the press[,] . . . I was disposed to quit the enterprise [of writing] in despair" (Preface, 1832, 8). Godwin's reference to his writings as "dead-born" significantly recalls Shelley's use of a childbirth metaphor to describe Frankenstein as an "offspringt' (m 365). Furthermore, Godwin extends his persona1 thoughts to his characters in a manner reminiscent of Shelley's discussion of her nightmare vision of the "pale student of unhallowed arts" (fB 364), which tries to explain the psychological motivations of her Victor Frankenstein. For it is in this Preface that Godwin fancies an erotic dimension in the relationship of Falkland and Caleb by comparing them to Bluebeard and his wife. As Shelley's 1831 Introduction aligns her with Victor's narrative, Godwin's 'object of building to myself [sic] . . . a name" associates him with Falkland and Caleb, two characters obsessed with protecting their honour and tneir names (Preface, 1832, 8). Godwin concludes his Preface with a description of his hopes for Caleb Williams that pernaps fleshes out Shelley's concise performative statement about Frankenstein: "And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper" (FR 365). Godwin considers whether he has "written a book to amuse boys and girls in their vacant hours, a story to be hastily gobbled up by them, swallowed in a pusillanimous and unanimated mood, without chewing and digestion" (Preface, 1832, 12). Because of his friend's positive response to Caleb Williams, Godwin confesses, in a rather Frankensteinian tone, that his "twelve months' labour, ceaseless heart-aches and industry, now sinking in despair, and now roused and sustained in unusual energy" has

been well-spent (Preface, 1832, 12) .lS Reading the two

'' One should note that in addition to his self-fashioning of his famous career and the sexualizing of this narrative, Godwin's 1832 Preface also refers to his use of the first-person point of view in Caleb Williams and his subsequent novels as infinitely the best adapted . . . to my vein of delineation, where the thing in which my imagination revelled the most freely, was the analysis of the private and interna1 operations of the mind, employing my metaphysical dissecting knife in tracing and laying bare the involutions of motive. (10) framing texts together (Shelley's 1831 Introàuction to Frankenstein and Godwin's 1832 Preface to Fleetwood which, however, discusses his Caleb Williams) one, thus, discovers a far more fluid circuit of literary "desires" that flow not only from father to daughter but also from daughter to father. That both Shelley and Godwin in their respective Introduction and Preface provide less a "mature j udgement" on their famous novels than autobiographlcal anecdotes, which sexualize their composition experiences, suggests that neither of their frame texts presents a "real" portrait of the author. On the contrary, their Introduction and Preface produce a textual rendition of "the author' that allows us to read for his or her desires in the work- These apparently objective but fictional moments of authorial intervention--the Introduction and Preface--further proliferate the possible meanings around specific texts. Indeed, Like the various embedded narratives in Frankenstein--al1 designed to increase the reader's desires --the publication history of Godwin's early works also enacts a hermeneutic deferral. For the several editions of Political Justice produce a continuing debate about the relative merits of political action and private passion, the two endings of Caleb Williams create a textual excess, and the two editions of the intensely persona1 Memoirs generate several contemporary "responses." It is in the spaces between these repeated attempts to communicate some meaning

Significantly, Godwin implies that both Caleb Williams and Fleetwood function as psychoanalytic critiques of their protagonists insofar as he uses the "metaphysical dissecting knife" to explores these characters' various desires. In this sense, Godwin's 1832 Preface also serves to highlight his own self- reflexive understanding of the role and position of the "author." --whether it is through a preface, an introduction or a revised edition--that these texts enable a future sympathetic reader to attempt to close the hermeneutic gap. In the Godwin/Sheliey literary circle, tho~gh,it is often a farnily rnember who perforrns the task of the projected future reader by supplementinq these interstitial moments with a new text. Familial writings occupy crucial positions in Godwin's and Shelley's literary compositions because these texts not only inspire new works, but also potentially elucidate another familial novel' s cornplex, of ten conflicted, portrayal of the world, and, perhaps, produce some renewed understandinq of that work's meaning. The various literary devices that £rame Shelley's Frankenstein, from the 1818 dedication and epigraph to the 1818 Preface and 1831 Introduction, construct this novef as, among other things, a textual response to Godwin's writings. If we, then, consider the depiction of the male characters in Frankenstein, Shelley's novel appears to be not so much a response as a return to the Godwinian territory of homosocial obsession and desire. Shelley's three narrators--Captain Robert Walton, Dr. Victor Frankenstein, and the unnamed Creature--share similar desires for glory, fame, and sympathy with Godwin's Ferdinand0 Falkland, Caleb Williams, and Casimir Fleetwood. Indeed, Victor's egotistical indulgence in his own scientific project rewrites Fleetwood's maniacal obsession with his own fantasies. Moreover, both Godwin's and Shelley's male characters imply that some form of "curiosity" or a "desire to know" is the predominant emotion that stimulates their later unrelenting, singular pursuits, whether it is Walton's wish to reach the North Pole, Victor's goal of creating life, the Creature's wish to have a mate, Caleb's longing to know Falkland's secret, or Falkland's and Fleetwood's needs to protect their honourable reputations. In telling his siscer about his voyage, Walton writes that "1 shall satiate my ardent curiosity witn the sight of a part of the world never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by the foot of man" (m 50). Whereas Caleb explains to his readers that the "spring of action which, perhaps more than any other characterised the whole train of my life, was curiosity'' (ÇW 41, Fleetwood persuades his listeners that "[tlhat curiosity, which had been one of my first seducers into vice, often assumed an ingenuous form" (FJ 47) . One might argue that this curiosity is also the underlying passion in Victor and Falkland since both characters chase their created counterparts (the Creature and Caleb) out of a desire to know what the other man knows in order to control this unruly other, The Creature's need to search out his master and demand of him a female mate also originates from a burning desire not only to "know" but also to experience love and affection. Nevertheless, despite these apparent similarities in tne portrayal of Godwinian and Shelleyan male characters, Frankenstein registers a tension between the pre- and post-Wollstonecraft Godwinian male characters. While Godwin's pre-Wollstonecraft Caleb and Falkland recognize that they are isolated and lonely, they are unable to express their desires for male companionship in any way except through their actions of pursuing each other. On the other hand, while Shelley's Victor and the Creaturê also engage in a mutually vindictive pursuit of each other, in Frankenstein there is a third male character--Walton--whose erotically-charged wish for "the Company of a man who could sympathize with . . [him]; whose eyes would reply to . . [his]'' (m 53) not only implicitly comments on the primary male couple's relationship (that of Victor and his creation) but also recalls the desire that inspires Caleb to forgive Falkland in the pubiished ending of Godwin's novei. In so doing, Walton's words provide a gloss on the uynamics of pre-Wollstonecraft Godwinian homosocial male relations* His words point to the homoerotic elements in Caleb Williams that encrypt a homosocial desire with more positive potential. Although the relationship of Shelley's Victor and his creation is comparable to Falkland's and Caleb's association, there is a differenze in the way the men's desires are expressed in the narrative. Furthermore, while the rhetoric of Caleb's and Falkland's various desires may be erotically charged, it is the post-Wollstonecraft Godwinian character of Fleetwood who can bluntly articulate his desire for friendship, and who therefore prefigures the Creature's and Walton's staternents in Frankenstein. For like tne Creature who recognizes that he is "alone, [sic] and miserabie, " and, therefore, wants a "companion . . . of the same species, [with] . . . the same defects" (FR 171), Fleetwood acknowledges that "1 felt what 1 was, and pined for the society of my like. It was with inexpressible sorrow that I believed 1 was aione in the world" (& 64). Aqain, like the Creature, Fleetwood says "1 saw that 1 was alone, and 1 desired to have a friend" (fi 148). As well, like Shelley's Walton, Fleetwood is described as having "sa impatient a thirst for friendship" (a150) that he avows a rnisanthropic life. However, although the Creature exhibits Fleetwoodian self-awareriess, like Shelley's other male characters, he is not able to fulfill his desires. Indeed, Shelley's three male narrators al1 suffer frorn this libidinal failure. Whereas Caleb's need for compassionate understanding is partially satisfied by Falkland's final words and ernbrace, Walton's, Victor's and the Creature's desires for sympathy are left unsatisfieà because of loss. The Creature's feelings of filial affection are uttered over the dead body of his Maker, while Walton's hope for a lasting friendship with Victor vanishes with the premature death of Victor, who spends his last moments disturbed that his creation still "live[s] to be an instrument of mischief" (m241). Thus, although Victor's and the Creature's relationship returns us to the earlier homosocial world of Caleb Williams, it does so by foregrounding the ultimately negative side of these male relations. If Frankenstein intimates that despite a post- Wollstonecraft Godwinian sensibility (marked by an investment in and recognition of private passions), Shelley's characters still struggle with their libidinal desires, this is a result of the novel's adoption of a pre- Wollstonecraft Godwinian homosocial narrative. While Frankenstein may highlight and criticize the failures of pre-Wollstonecraft Godwinian male relations, Shelley's narrative also finds itself trapped within the structure of those failures. Consequently, Frankenstein inevitably inhabits the very structures it tries to expose, to use Tilottama Rajan's terms, through its "disfigured" or "negatively troped" rendition of the implicit results of Calebls and Falkland's homosocial world ("Mary Shelley's" 50). For despite their Fleetwoodian self-awareness of their own desires, Shelley's characters remain haunted by a pre- Wollstonecraft Godwinian homosocial world where male relations are doomed and can only be saved by the sornewhat utopian (and homoerotic) ending of forgiveness and reconciliation that Godwin provides in the published ending of Caleb Williams. I argue, then, that while Frankenstein is enabled both by a post-Wollstonecraft Godwinian sensibility toward bodies and desires (as it ernerges in Fleetwood and Memoirs), and by the suggestion of a positive homoeroticism in the pxblished ending of Caleb Williams, in trying to rework certain Godwinian portrayals of male characters and homosocial interactions, Shelley's novel suffers from a narratological repetition compulsion that the post-Wollstonecraft Godwin also enacted in flis repeated depictions of emotionally troubled husbands in novels such , - as Fleetwood. 'O The narrative similarities between the male characters in Godwin's and Shelley's respective novels also extend to relatively minor characters, such as Victor's father, Alphonse Frankenstein. Sharing the initials of Godwin's Ambrose Fleetwood, Alphonse Frankensteints apparent devotion to his young son is perhaps criticized through an implicit cornparison to the portrayal of fatnerly love in Ambrose's constant affection for the adopted William Ruffigny in Fleetwood. '' Though William Ruf f igny, like Caleb Williams and Victor Frankenstein, has a "secret that must never be uttered" (fi 92), Ruffigny can share this secret with his benefactor (Ambrose Fleetwood) because of the latter's "unaltered kindnesses" (fi 1203. This shared secret between father and son is not possible in Victor's world. Kate Ferguson Ellis in The Contested Castle argues that because Alphonse Frankenstein is thoroughly domestic, especially in the 1831 edition, he is "an absent father for Victor . . . [and] does not talk to Victor about his interest in science"

See my discussion of Memoirs in Chapter One for a more thorough discussion of Godwin's later domestic novels and his deployrnent of husband figures who resernble each other.

l7 In another study, more could be made of the various uses of the names "William" and "Mary" in both Godwin's and Shelley's works. (201). Consequently, according to Ellis, Alphonse provides Victor with "no role model for male Dehavior outside the home" (202). However, one might argue that it is precisely Alphonse's role as domesticated father that functions as a "model for male behavior outside the home." 1 suggest that the original 1818 text implies that Victor's desire to create asexually a man is the logical result of Alphonse's decision to rnarry late in life with the intention of "bestowing on the state sons who might carry his virtues and his name down to posterity" (FR 63), a line that is ornitted in the 1831 edition. Alphonse's view that sons are both something to bestow on the state and the primary reason for marriage thus connects him closely with Victor's creation of a new species for the advancement of science. Shelley's narrative even describes Victor's act in the same language as Alphonse's desires: Victor strives to "bestow animation on lifeless matter" (FR 83) (emphasis added) . If at the level of male characters, Frankenstein appears to resemble overwhelmingly Godwin's Caleb Williams, Shelley's narrative implicitly recalls another familial text as well. If we briefly juxtapose the male characters in Percy Shelley's Zastrozzi, A Romance (1810) and St. Irvvne; Or, The Rosicrucian: A Romance (1811) with those in Shelley's Frankenstein, we notice another type of intertextuality. For one can argue that Zastrozzi, the eponymous villain of Percy Shelley's gothic tale, in his ruthless pursuit and periodic torture of the seemingly innocent Verezzi, foreshadows Victor's final harrowing pursuit of the Creature. It is only at the end of the novel that we discover that Zastrozzi's mother, seduced by Verezzi's father, commanded her son before she died to "revenge . . . [her] wrongs--revenge them on the perjured Verezzi--revenge them on his progeny for ever [sic]!" (P. Shelley, Zastrozzi 102). Zastrozzi's revenge exactea against a father in the name of his rnother's honour prefigures somewhat the Creature's vengeance brought against his maker, Victor, who has become his destroyer. Mary Shelley's elimination of the mother from the father-son pair intensifies the homosocial dynamic between these two men that is implicit in Percy's portrayal of Zastrozzi and Vereïzi. In Percy Shelley1s St. Irvvne (l8ll), Wolfstein, Ginotti and Nempere together prefigure not only Fleetwood's ambivalent attitude towards his wife but also, significantly, Victor's neglect of Elizabeth on their wedding night. For Ginotti's statement that "1 hîd not a friend in the world; --1 cared for nothing but self1' (P. Shelley, St. Irvvne 181) also describes both Fleetwood and Victor. As well, Victor's confession that he "dedicated" himself to pursuing "nature to her hiding places" (m 83) in order to "search" for the "elixir of life" (FR 69) is a remarkable echo of Ginotti's description of his desires in Percy Shelley's St. Irvvne: "From my earliest youth, before it was quenched by complete satiation, curiosity, and a desire of unveiling the latent mysteries of nature, was the passion by which al1 other emotions of my mina were intellectually organized" ( 180) . Furtherrnore, Wolfstein' s connection with the phanstasmatic Ginotti, who in the novel's subplot becomes the evil Nempere, is suggestively homoerotic and merely displaced ont0 Wolfstein's problernatic relationship with Megalena. And it is this triangulation between Wolfsteinls heterosexual desires and his unconscious homoerotic desires, as signified by Ginotti who remains a shadowy absence in the novel, that foreshadows not only Fleetwood's relationship with his wife as mediated by his intimate association with the dark Gifford figure, but also Victor's relationship with Elizabeth which is circumscribed by .his homoerotic connection to his Creature. That Ginotti in Percy Shelley's St. Irvvne remains as elusive as the Creature in Frankenstein, and, to a certain extent, Gifford in Fleetwood, suggests that in al1 three novels, although homosocial aesires appear to lurk behind and, perhaps, motivate the heterosexual plots, homoeroticism functions as a signifier of something else that is never made explicit. Indeed, even these few intertextual moments suggest that one could trace a particular genealogy of gothic male charâcters in the writings of Godwin, Mary and Percy Shelley. Beginning with Percy Shelley's powerful and omnipotent Zastrozzi and Ginotti (also known as Nempere); through Godwin's Falkland, who embodies both the need to protect one's honour (found in Zastrozzi) and the ability to exercise supreme power oves others (like Ginotti) ; to Godwin's Fleetwood, whose maniacal misanthropy extends the sentiments of Ginotti; and finally to Shelley's Victor who combines omnipotence with obsessive desire, there is a fictional continuum of cornplex, powerful male characters whose actions and motivations, while conflicted, may supplernent and illuminate one another. For example, the portrayal of Victor's asexual procreation may be the extreme manifestation of the uncontrollable desires of Zastrozzi, Ginotti (alias Nempere) , Falkland, and Fleetwood in their respective pursuits of Verezzi, Wolfstein, Caleb, and Kenrick: al1 men who, to borrow Eve Sedgwick's terms, "not only . . . [are] persecuted by, but . . . [consider themselves] transparent to and often under the compulsion of, another male" (Between Men 91). Mary Shelley makes explicit these implicit homosocial feelings of anxiety and desire both in Percy's gothic fiction and Godwin's novels by creating a character (Victor) who abjects his desires ont0 a pastiche of various "beautiful" male body parts (FR 86). Peter Brooks in Bodv Work: Objects of Desire in Modern Narrative explains that narratives about the "body's story . . . lits! trial of desire" produce "what we might cal1 a narrative aesthetics of ernbodiment, where meaning and truth are made carnal" (21). We might argue that Frankenstein materializes Victor's quest for prominence through the body of the Creature, making Victor's desire for "meaning and truth . . . carnal." Moreover, this desire is also incarnated through the telling of tales. Victor, for example, is so seduced by the Creature's eloquent narrative that he warns Walton that "once . . . [the Creature's] words had even power over my heart' (B233). In the process of articulating his warning to Walton, the latter is also captivated by Victor's impassioned story. Ultimately, Victor's transmission of his story of givino birth to a man evokes the latent homoerotic desires in the various verbal exchanges between men in Frankenstein. Curiously, both Caleb Williams and Frankenstein trace the possibility of a pleasurable homosocial relationship through a similar character. Whether named Clare (as in Godwin's novel) or Clerval (as in Shelley's work) the general similarity in name and role intimate that both male characters function in a comparable way in relation to their male companions, Falkland and Victor respectively. Upon escaping from his apartment following the dream of Elizabeth and his mother, Victor accidentally meets his friend and claims that "nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clerval" (FR 88). Shortly afterwards, Victor contracts a "nervous fever" during which time Clerval becomes his "kind and attentive nurse" (Fe 90), an incident reminiscent of the fever that Clare contracts in Godwin's Caleb Williams. Mary Jacobus has rightly argued that in his determination to create life, Victor exchanges a "woman for a monster" (131). However, what is significant is the implication of this exchange. Clerval's fortüitous arriva1 precisely at the point of Victor's disillusionment with his creation, and Clerval's subsequent "mothering" of Victor strongly süggest that what Victor is seeking is the intimacy with another mon that Walton also desires. Victor's inability to accept that wnat he desires is an intimate relationship with his "beloved Clerval" (FR 210) translates into his fear that this is, in . . fact, what he desires:' Indeed, Victor recognizes his hideous creation as a spectral mirror image, "nearly in the light of . . . [his] own vampire, . . . [his] own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced to destroy al1 that . . . [is] dear to" him (FR 105). The Creature's murder of Clerval, then, may represent Victor's disgust with male homosocial bonds, this disgust being literalized in the materiality and presence of the monster itself. That the Creature systematically kills Victor's close friends and family members, especially Elizabeth and Justine, further demonstrates the extent to which Victor's aversion to homosocial relations contributes to a transformation of al1 relationships into only potentially physical ones. In effect, Victor's abjection of, among other things, his homosocial desires onto the living Creature, a repulsive collection of other men's dead bodies, enables him to channel his fetishized cornmodification of procreation in a more acceptable manner, that is in a scientific experiment

'"ignificantly, as if aware of the homoerotic implications, the recent 1994 Kenneth Branagh film of Shelley's Frankenstein transposes Clerval's role of nursing Victor ont0 Elizabeth. rather than through a homoerotic attachment. Victor's abjection of the Creature also amplifies the implications of the libidinally-charged acts and rhetoric of Godwin's Falkland, Tyrrel, and Caleb. For the Creature is inscribed through an act of intimacy (that is, of being brought to life) with Victor's disgust and hàtred in the same way that Falkland, Tyrrel, and Caleb mark each other with their hatred through moments, howover violent, of eitner physical or verbal intimacy. The depiction of Victor's abjection of his negative desires ont0 the body of the Creature also recalls Fleetwood's abjection of his envious hatred ont0 the wax dolls of his wife and her suspected lover Kenrick. From the perspective of Shelley's Frankenstein, that Victor's asexual reproduction resembles Fleetwood's wax production potentially collapses the differences between the pre- and post-Wollstonecraft Godwinian understanding of male desire. Not only does Fleetwood's construction of a male and femaie couple prefigure Victor's creation of the male and female monsters, but the male creation's criticism of the savage destruction of his "hopes" (m 194) for a female mate in Frankenstein also irnplicitly criticizes Fleetwood's brutal "raping" of the cloth and wax nodel of his wife. Unlike Fleetwood who "[tears] . . . with . . . [his] teeth" (fi 265) the figure of his wife "to pieces" (a265) in the presence of her wax male mate, Victor in "trembling with passion, . . . [tears] to pieces the thing on which . . . [he] was engaged" (m 193) under the watchful eyes of his male creation. It is the Creature's vigilant gaze that stirs a "sensation of madness" in Victor (FR 193). Frankenstein's depiction of Victor's "rnurder" of the female monster as being prompted and scrutinized by the male Creature rewrites Fleetwood's masochistic fantasy as Victor's sadistic act. This shift from private obsession to public crime highlights the responsibility of the Maker/Creator/Dreamer for his creations. Hence, Victor later remarks that he 'almost felt as if . . . [nej had mangled the living flesh of a human being" (f- 197). Fleetwood's fantasy of hearing his female dummy respond to his desires is thus fulfilled, albeit in a displaced way, in Frankenstein. In giving voice to the male and not female creature, Shelley's text exposes not only Victor's but also Fleetwood's narcissistic and egocentric desires. For Victor's wish to "attempt a being like . . . [himself]" (m 82) parodies Fleetwood's need not only to construct a mode1 of his wife but also to project his voice and desires ont0 her. While Fleetwoodfs bizarre ventriloquist fantasy confirms his wife's culpability, Victor's own sophistry convinces him of "the wickedness of . . . [his] promise" to create a female creature (FR 192). For Victor daims that he fears chat this female monster "might become ten thousand times more malignant than her mate, and delight, for its own sake, in murder and wretchedness" (m 192). By suggestively replaying the scene of Fleetwood with his wax dummies, Frankenstein's portrayal of Victor and his "half-finished [female] creature" (ER 196) magnifies the anxieties about female sexuality inherent in Fleetwood ' s masochistic literalization of his fantasy, and, in so doing, reconfirms what Godwin's narrative has already shown, that Fleetwood's misanthropy hideç his misogyny. If in Fleetwood Godwin moves in the direction of fleshing out the simultaneous homosocial attraction and repulsion of male encounters through the portrayals not only of Fleetwood's relationships with Mr. Macneil and GiffordfL?but also of Fleetwood's constrcction of the wax effigies, Shelley's Frankenstein foregrounds the violent side of a male sexuality that cannot recognize or accept its own desires by giving these very desires a "life of their own" in the body of the Creature. Moreover, Victor's detachment or excretion of his abhorrence with the "physical" in the shape of a gigantic Creature does not prevent Victor from indulging in his fantasies of shared intimacy with other men. Rather, 1 suggest that Victor's abjection of his carnal desires stimulates an aestheticized homoeroticism, cleansed of bodily pleasures. For the final homosocial bond that he attempts to forge is a verbal one- Victor narrates his experiences--his dreams and desires--to Walton, and, in the process, erotically infuses hirn with a renewed sense of life. In a creative act akin to moulding, shaping, and penetrating with life the corpses of others to produce a new creature, Victor manages to seduce Walton through his narrative act of selecting those details most likely to produce the desired effect. Walton not only syrnpathizes with Victor's cause but also finds him "attractive and amiable" (m 60). As Bette London in "Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, and the Spectacle of Masculinity" argues, the "tale of misery and terrort' Frankenstein promises to confide to Elizabeth "the day after [their] [sic] marriage shall take place" passes instead to Walton's pen in an act that stands as the thrilling consummation of confidential vows between men. (263) Since Elizabeth is a symbolic gift for Victor from his mother, and the Creature is denied his female mate, the

l9 We should recall Fleetwood's statement about his nephew: "Gifford is to me father, brother, wife, and children, al1 in one!" (Eh 271) - death of Caroline Beaufort, tne only significant mother- figure in the novel, clears the path for male bonds to form." Though the entire novel is addressed to Walton's sister, Margaret Saville, she is not given a voice. Indeed, Margaret is more of a site for Walton's emotional transformations than a proper receiver of his messages. Given Frankenstein's homosocial narrative strïcture and the relatively minor role of female characters, such as the silent Margaret Saville, the major critical readings of Shelley's novel have interpreted the particülar constellation of images of creation as metaphors for femaie reproduction, and have, thus, implieci that Victor

'O In a suggestive foreshadowing of Victor's contradictory feelings for Elizabeth and his mother, Godwin's Fleetwood reflects that while he "had argued . . . [himself] into a contempt of their character; and opinion that to be a woman, was the same thing as to be heartless, artif icial, and perf idious," he is simultaneously seduced by women "into the mire of sensuality" (u130). Like Victor's view of Elizabeth as a gift, Fleetwood considers his mistress a "delightful plaything" (fi 130) . Moreover, when Fleetwood later daims to be "[dleeply in love" with his new young wife, Mary, he still cannot avoid sometimes viewing her under the notion of a beautiful toy, a plume of costly feathers, or a copious train of thinnest gauze, which nods gracefully, or floats in a thousand pleasing folds, but which is destitute of substance, firmness, or utility. (fi 219) This view also reappears in Victor's vision of Elizabeth as a corpse of his mother that is envelopea by folds of flannel "but which is destitute of substance, firrnness, or utility." The 1831 version of Frankensteiq also returns to Fleetwoodian obsession and rage in characterizing Victor as one who cherishes '[al11 praises bestowed" on Elizabeth since he views her as "a possession of . . . [his] own" (fE 324) . Because Victor's need to partake singularly in the procreative act manifests his desire not only to replace but also to be the mother, Shelley's novel foregrounds the implicit assumptions of Fleetwood's attitude to women, namely that they are superfluous, or at best only for entertainment. In other words, Frankenstein presents the logical results of the Fleetwoodian libertinels.use and abuse of women: the complete elimination of women even from the arena of reproduction. Frankenstein appropriates the generative function of women. ElLen Moers was one of the first critics to discuss Shelley 's Fran kenstein as a "birth myth" (92), while Marc Rubenstein was one of the first to associate the novel's procreative imagery with motherhood: " Frankenstein, for al1 its exclusion of womer!., is--arnong other things--a parable of motherhood" (165). Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar also established the framework for future feminist readings of Frankenstein by arguing that although "it has been disguised, buried, or miniaturized, femaleness--the gender definition of mothers and daughters, orphans and beggars, monsters and false creators--is at the heart of this apparently masculine book1' (232). More recent interpretations qualify this critical tendency to read Frankenstein as a tale of motherhood by pointing to some possible reasons for Shelley's use of a male figure in the materna1 position.21 Alan Bewell has suggested that [ulsing sexual reproduction as a mode1 for al1 modes of creation, she [Mary Shelley] made obstetrics the master-code of her aesthetics and applied its concrete arguments, about the creative power of a mother's psyche upon the fetus and the proper environment for human reproduction, to criticize and to curb the excesses of male Romantic imagination, particularly her husbandls. (107) Bewell's insight that Shelley makes "obstetrics the master- code of her aesthetics . . . to criticize and to curb the excesses of male Romantic imagination" certainly applies to

'' Margaret Homans has argued that the novel may be about the horror associated with motherhood, yet this reading seems unduly influenced by the superimpositions of the introduction, and furthermore it ignores the novel's most prominent feature, that the demon is not a child born of woman but the creation of a man. (113) a reading of Frankenstein with Percy Shelley's Alastor (1816).'"ut how does a reading such as Bewell's relate to the Godwinian literary legacies of politicai justice ana male anxieties as they are explored in Caleb Williams and Fleetwood? While other critics, such as Susan Winnett, recoqnize that Shelley's novei is about male mothernood, there is still a general unwillingness to consider Victor's creative desires outside the category of parenting. William Veeder, for example, acknowledges that Victor's "philanthropie rationale for monster-rnaking" is a "convenient pretext" that "screens Frankenstein's deeper desire" ("The Negative" 379) . According to Veeder, however, this "deeper desire" is associated only with Victor's wish "to resuscitate his dead

mother" ("The Negative" 379) .23 Similarly, Mary Poovey's assertion that Victor "explicitly objectifies desire" in his grotesque offspring is not discussed for its libidinal charges ("My Hideous Progeny" 335) : she recontextualizes this desire within the domain of Romantic pursuits of subjectivity. If Fxankenstein criticizes the male Romantic egotistical sublime, yet resembles Caleb Williams on various narrative levels, what purpose is served by Shelley's

'' One can read the destructive effects of Victor's solipsistic activity of rnanufacturing a living being as a comment on the Paet's pursuit of the veiled maid, who appears in a dream vision in Alastor. Like the Narrator, who essentially conjures up the dead Poet in Alastor, and like the Poet himself, whose desires for the elusive veiled maid lead eventually to his own death, Victor's resuscitation of dead body parts in the hopes that the new being will ernbody his desires is a false illusion that leads to the death of his loved ones and himself.

23 The recent 1994 film version of Shelley's Frankenstein, directed by Kenneth Branagh, clearly locates Victor's desire for generating life from death in the premature demise of his mother who, like Mary Wollstonecraft, dies in childbirth. procreative imagery? In other words, how car!.one reconcile Frankenstein's narrative content, a tale of rnonstrous male conception, with its narrative structure, a tale circulated among three male narrators? To account for the procreative and homoerotic dimensions in Frankenstein, we need to reconsider tne act of reading. Marie-Hélène Huet in Monstrous Imaaination argues that although Victor's "conception dispenses with the materna1 body, the novel, Mary Shelley, and her readers al1 have worked to erase the paternal image, to dispel the disquieting presence of a silont father" 2.Both Shelley's own reading of Frankenstein in her 1831 Introduction as her "hideous progeny" which she "bid[s] . . . go forth and prosper" (FR 365), and critical readings that consider Frankenstein a thinly-veiled autobiography of Shelley's experiences of motherhood overlook the specificity of Victor's distorted desires. For Huet, Frankenstein "continues to be interpreted almost exactly the way rnonstrous progeny thernselves were evaluated at the time of the Renaissance, that is, as the uncanny procreation of a monstrous mother" (160). Huet draws this conclusion from

24 In his discussion of Frankenstein, William Veeder, too, has claimed that "Feminist readings can, however, go too far in this direction. Mother can achieve such prominence that father is cast into shadow" ("The Negative Oedipus 365). Although I do not agree that feminist readings per se have eclipsed the significance of the "father," those interpretations, like Gilbert ' s and Gubar ' s, that regard the novel's portrayal of homosocial desire as a displacement of the buried female desires, miss the opportunity to analyze the implications of such a gendered displacement. As Pamela Clemit has noted, feminist accounts of Frankenstein are "selective" because the novel is read "as a displaced enactment of specifically female experience, which depict Mary Shelley as the beleaguered heroine of her 1831 Introduction, and the tales as a nightmare of male aggression in the sexual, aesthetic, or political sphere" (The Çodwinian Novel 141). the history of monstrous births: a remarkably persistent line of thought argued that monstrous progeny resulted £rom the disorder of the maternal imagination. Instead of reproducing the father ' s image, as nature commands, the monstrous child bore witness to tne violent desires that moved the mother at the tirne of conception during preqnancy. . . . The rnonster thus erased paternity and proclaimed the dangerous power of fernale imagination. (1) It is the overwhelming power of the mother's desires that are inscribed in the distorted body of her children. In various readings of Frankenstein, it is often the figure of Mary Shelley that overshadows the monstrosity of Victor's actions. We should recall that Victor says that the "world was to . . . [him] a secret, which . . . [he] desired to discover; to her [Elizabeth] it was a vacancy, which she sought to people with imaginations [sic] of her own" (FR 66) . It is Victor's obsessive curiosity, however, that functions like the excessive maternal imagination in the theory of monstrous progeny in that his dssires produce the Creature. Significantly, Fleetwood, too, in a fusion of Victor's and Elizabeth's desires, says that "1 was engaged in imaginary scenes, constructed visionary plans, and found al1 nature subservient to my command" (FR 19). Huet notes that the "idea that imagination could give life and form to passive matter became a central theme of Romantic aesthetics, and to this day popular beliefs still attribute birthmarks to maternal desires during pregnancy" (7). 1 suggest that Shelley's Frankenstein literalizes this notion of imagination giving birth to passive rnatter, but only to criticize it . Unlike Godwin's Fleetwood, in Frankenstein Victor's Promethean desires for offspring in his own image are physically manifested in the grotesque and gigantic figure of his creature. The enormous size of Victor's Creature ernbodies the intensity and ambitious nature of his desires. In Godwin's novel, Fleetwood's son is described by Mary's servant Martha in the following way: "1 will take my death, that he is as like you, as if you had spit him out of your mouth" (286). While Martha's analogy displaces the woman's role in parturition, the son, in shape or size, does not mirror the father's implied arrogance in assuming that his baby boy will look like him. Moreover, if Godwin's narrative focuses on the psychological effects of Fleetwood's egotism insofar as his jealousy and insane fantasies prevent him from being with his wife at the birth of their child, Shelley's Frankenstein externalizes in the physical realm the implications of such male anxieties and desires. Thus, Victor's production of his ghastly "son" supplants the function of the mother in a literal rendition of Martha's statement of the father spitting out his exact likeness in miniature. If, as 1 have suggested, Victor's parturient role in Frankenstein is a complex pretext for abjecting homoerotic feelings, a closer reading of Victor's narration of his libidinally-charçed actions exposes another type of desire. For it is significant that in his quest for powêr and knowledge, Victor arrogantly states that his scientific experiment will bring forth a "new species [that] would bless . . . [him] as its creator and source" producing "many happy and excellent natures [who] would owe their being" to him (FR 82). Furthermore, he prophesies that " En] O father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as . . . [he] should deserve theirs" (FR 82) . Victor's hubris in wishing to be the sole progenitor of this new race marks his desires for procreative ability as a displacement of materna1 pleasure, since his future satisfaction depends not on the joys of parenting but on the glory of leadership. That Godwin's rnisanthropic Fleetwood makes a similar daim suggestively reveals the aspect of public grandeur and not private pleasure in Victor's words: "In me the race of the Fleetwoods shall survive; 1 will becorne the heir to the integrity and personal honour of the virtuous Ruffigny" (a 137). In viewing this statement intertextually with Victor's utterances, it is possible to read for an implicit criticism of the masculine desire for fame in tne propagation or survival of the "race" or "species" in Frankenstein. Moreover, because of the social context of British imperialism that is hinted at in Walton's exploits, Victor's longing to comrnand a "new species" aligns his ambitions with the imperialistic desires of Lord Raymond in Shelley's third published novel, the apocalyptic The Last Man (1826). Lord Raymond not only seeks to "unite with the Greeks, take Constantinople, and subdue al1 Asia" (40) , but also intend [s] to be a warrior, a conqueror; Napoleon ' s narne shall vail to mine; and enthusiasts, instead of visiting his rocky grave, and exalting the rnerits of the fallen, shall adore my majesty, and magnify my illustrious achievements. (m 40)"

'' In "The Deceptive Other" Joseph Lew refers to A. D. Harvey's comment that "it appears that [Waltonj [sic] is trying not merely to reach the North Pole . . . [sic] but to reach the Pacific via the North Pole" (qtd. in Lew 257). Lew concludes that lt[d]espite this, it has been and continues to be a critical cliche that Walton's goal is the North Pole" (257). Lew's point is that Walton, like Percy Shelley's "Alastor" Poet, "wishes to reach India; he merely hopes to reach the east a different way" (260). Lew cites Walton's remarks to his sister, "Shall 1 meet you again, after having traversed immense seas, and returned by the most southern cape of Africa or Arnerica?" (m 55) to claim that Walton's "return journey will not retrace his steps: he hopes to circumnavigate the globe, or at least the African-Eurasian lancimass" (260). My point is that Walton's explorations, Victor's desires, and Raymond's plans al1 participate in the imperialistic In Percy Shelley's lyrical drama, Prometheus Unbound (18201, the signifier for Prometheus's highly desired lost feminine soul, whom he seeks to reincorporate within hirnself, is also, significantly, "Asia." Given the intertextual literary framework of Mary Shelley's novel, Victor Frankenstein's aspirations exceed the appropriation of the maternal role, and implicate his desires in British imperialism (as Fa1klandF s pursuit of Caleb exceeds tne fidelity to pclitical justice, and implicates his desires within a homosocial li~idinaleconomy). Conquest of bodies, whether female or "other," appears to be Victor's ultimate desire. Considering the ambitious nature of Victor's pursuit of a distinguished reputation in the scientific community, it is striking that critics sucn as William Veeder in Marv Shellev and Frankenstein: The Fate of Androavnv daim that "Frankenstein's presumption is not in his attempt to usurp the power of the gods . . . but in his atternpt to usurp the power of women" (164) . Indeed, unlike the two versions of the original Promethean myth, the first in which Prometheus creates humans in his image out of clay by breathing life into them, and the second in which he steals fire from the gods and gives it to humans, Mary Shelley recreates the Promethean desire in a materna1 contoxt. But, insofar as this maternal context is a gross masculine parody of the joys and pains of pregnancy and parturition, Victor's "presumption" is not so much to "usurp the power of women" as to appropriate the language of female procreative abilities for his own ends. After all, in his search for omnipotence Victor is seeking the power of the "victor" in a ethos of invading, conquering or otherwise ruling foreign territories or beings. type of conquest that is simultaneously scientific, masculine, and imperial. While Victor appears to perform the traditionally female generative role, because his actions are narrated and recorded for himself and to Walton, Victor's narrative implies that he is appropriating not only materna1 powers but "materna1 metaphors."'" This is an important distinction that needs to be made since Shelley's novel foregrounds the act of narration and interpretation. Eve Sedgwick in The Coherence of Gothic Conventions has stated that [il n a text like Frankenstein, as arguably in most Gothic novels, the male paranoid plot is not separate from the maternal or monstrous plot; instead there is articulated within the text a male paranoid reading of maternity, a reading that persistently renders uncanny, renders as violence of a particular kind, the coming-to-body of the (male) individual subject . (ix) Although I agree with Sedgwick that Frankenstein represents a "reading of rnaternity . . . tnat persistently renders . . . as violence of a particular kind, the coming-to-body of the (male) individual subject," 1 suggest that this reading is not so much "male paranoid" as male appropriative. That Victor is portrayed as not merely incorporating the female voice--as does Godwin in Memoirs, Coleb, and Fleetwood--but mimicking it in his description of his grotesque project intimates that the text of Frankenstein may be a far more

26 In Fleetwood's narrative, these "maternal metaphors" surface predominantly in the stories of men. Whether describing public failures or domestic relationships, the language of female reproductive sexuality is deployed. For example, in describing his benefactor's business, Ruffigny tells Fleetwood that Ambrose Fleetwood "had experienced two or three severe miscarriages in his commercial concerns" (a125) . On another occasion, in recounting the a£fectionate nature of Fleetwood's grandfather, Ruff igny recalls "How patiently did he wean me £rom the wild plan upon which my heart was bent!" (F7; 119) . elaborate critique of Romanticism's (and Godwin's) deplopent of female desires, voices ana language than is evident from an interpretation that regards Victor as occupying the mother's role. 1 argue, then, that Shelley's Frankenstein uses the language of pregnancy and parturition as an aesthetic technique to define the libidinal dynamics of Victor's obsession, as Godwin's Caleb Williams deploys the language of homoeroticism to elicit the reader's anxiety about political tyranny. In otner words, Victor's scientific experiment is described in the language of a specific gendered discourse that is implicated in both patriarchal domination and imperial conquest. Frankenstein's ambivalence about motherhood, its portrayal of Victor's appropriation of materna1 function and discourse, however, may also register a criticism of Godwin's portrayal in Memoirs of Wollstonecraft's experiences of pregnancy and childbirth. Considering the prima1 force of Memoirs in providing an identity for Wollstonecraft's daughter, it is not surprising that Frankenstein centres on birth as a potentially destructive force, and that Shelley scholars read it as such. Nevertheless, one need not resort to biographical interpretations in order to discuss the effects of Wollstonecraft 's death on Mary Shelley. For Shelley's vivid depiction of Victor "infusing life into an inanimate body" (FR 86) transposes in fiction Godwin's narrative in Memoirs detailing the doctor's attempts to Save the dying Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein's description of the male appropriation of female reproduction as resulting in the excretion of an already dead body that needs to be revived with "the collected instruments of life" (m85) recalls suggestively the biographer Godwin's remarks in the Preface to Mernoir%. The Preface implies that "the materials thus collected" (Memoirs 204) will reconstruct the life and death of Mary Wollstonecraft. Furthermore, while Memoirs presents the radical sexual politics of Wollstonecraft, her feminism is still mediated through a history of the trials and tribulations of her body. Because Godwin's biography concludes with a graphic and detailed gynaecological description of Mary Shelley's birth and Wollstonecraft's death, the text intimates that for women an escape from the body is impossible. In other words, Godwin's reintroduction of the inextricable bond between rnind and body constructs "Mary Wollstonecraft" in a way that might satisfy radical feminists (who insist on the significance of the body and its desires) but contradicts the liberal feminism of Wollstonecraft herself. In presenting an after-life for the dead body, then, Shelley's portrayal of Victor's experiment and its horrific ramifications exposes the negative implications (and, also, results) of Godwin's textual rendition of Wollstonecraft's fleshly body. In this sense, Shelley's description of Victor's monstrous act of creatiori reproduces not only her possible disgust with Godwin's public exposure of Wollstonecraft's suffering and, ultimately, dead body, but also Shelley's reworking of the implications of portraying a mother's deatn that closely follows a daughter's birth. Although often described in criticism as womb-like, Victor's laboratory is also suggestively symbolic of an inverted anus: "In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, and separated from al1 the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, I kept my workshop of filthy creation" (FR 83). The scatological account of Victor's "labours" is usually interpreted as reflecting both his disgust and Shelley's horrifying experiences with the maternal body? Recalling the Godwinian intertexts in Frankenstein, this "filthy workshop" may just as easily represent Victor's revulsion with physical interactions. For like Caleb who aesires but also fears Falkland, and Fleetwood who needs to confront his envy of and contempt for his wife's suspected adulterous passion but can only do so in a displaced fashion with the aid of Gifford, Victor reenacts through the construction of his monstrous child both his homosocial longing for mâle companionship and his abhorrence of tne physical side of al1 relationsnips. Thus, the description of the Creature's genesis using terms specific to pregnancy and parturition is ironic since Victor does not give birth to life but ratner impregnates death with life. If we look at "Chapter Ten" of Memoirs in which Godwin presents the detailed gynaecological portrait of his wife ' s death, a more revealing aspect of Shelley's description of Victor's labours emerges. To begin with, in a stark statement at the beginning of this chapter, Wollstonecraft is described as going "up to her chamber, never more to descend" (Memoirs 265) . Read in conjunction with Frankenstein, a "chamber" at the top of a house, Victor's "workshop of filthy creation" (m 83), becomes symbolic of death. Furthermore, the tone of the depiction of Wollstonecraft's onset of disease--her 'shivering fit[s],"

with " [el very muscle of the body trernb [ling], the teeth chatterLing], and the bed . . . [shaking] under her" (Memoirs 267)--is curiously revisited in Shelley's

2' 2' In the early eighties, Paul Sherwin, among others, recognized this element of Shelley's novel: "at once feces and phallus, the filth [that is born] is also the maternal presence . [Victor] is assernbling from the phantasmal body parts and buried wishes" (885). description of the Creature awakening to life: "1 saw the du11 yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its lirnbs . . His jaws opened, and he muttered some inarticulate sounds" (FJ 85, 87). Viewed intertextually, these two scenes demonstrate the extent to which Shelley remains trapped by Godwin's narrative of her mother's demise since Shelley's portrayal of the Creature's birth, however much it uses the language of parturition, is more remarkable for vaguely echoing Godwin's narrative of Wollstonecraft's slow and painful death. Not surprisingly, then, we read in Frankenstein that Victor's horror of bringing his hideous progeny to life prompts him to describe his creation as not so much a new being as a "mummy again endued with animation" (FR 87). Because the word "mummy" is overdetermined in this context, referring both to the ernbalmed human body and the young child's epithet for his mocher, 1 argue that there are two ways to read this scene. First, within the context of Shelley's novel, we must recognize that Victor's creature is formed from remains both human and of Victor's abjected desires. In other words, Victor's hideous invention is both a return to and an abjection of the "physical" as represented by the first such relationship with the mother's body. Second, within the libidinal textual economy of Godwin's and Shelley's writings, that Shelley chooses to use the word "rnurnrny" to make a pun on motherhood in a scene whose tone is reminiscent of Memoirs strongly implies a disfigurement of the perceived portrait of mothers in Godwin's text, If Shelley's Frankenstein is haunted, and thereby disabled, by Godwin's textual and other "mummies," the awareness of this burden cornes from Godwin's rendition of tne maternai body in Memoirs. In other words, while Godwin's sympathetic portrayal of Wollstonecraft's parturition--his refusal to aestheticize her pain and his presentation of her fleshly, bloody, al: too "real" sufferings--enables Shelley to recognize the flaws of Godwinrs earlier and later male characters (Caleb, Fâlkland, and Tyrrel on the one hand, and Fleetwood on the other) who cannot satisfactorily confront their bodily needs and carnâl desires, the narratives of these male characters overshadow Shelley's attempt to construct a different story of the "mummyl"s body. Shelley's adoption of a pre-Wollstonecraft Godwinian homosocial narrative structure in Frankenstein empowers her neither to fashion female characters such as the feisty Mary Macneil Fleetwood who is aware of and demands the fulfilment of her own desires, nor to redress from the daughter's perspective the rendition of the mother's body in Mernoir~.~' As we shall see in the next section of this chapter, which focuses on Frankenstein's male and female stories, both their content and their narrative transmission, Shelley's attempt to mount a critique of the world of Caleb Williams through the perspective offered by Mernoirs (and even Fleetwood insofar as Fleetwood's self-reflexive awareness of his weaknesses makes him different from the earlier Godwinian male characters) inevitably entangles Shelley's novel in the pre-

'@While the post-Wollstonecraft Godwin can depict a character such as Mary Macneil Fleetwood who partially enjoys her own independent idtntity, his inclusion of a misogynist fiusband for Mary does not undermine her desires because the husband's actions are criticized in the narrative both by himself in his retrospective account and by other characters. Shelley, on the other hand, cannot present a liberated Elizabeth except by negation, that is, the novel's critique of Victor's behaviour towards Elizabeth implies that she deserves more than she is allowed. Wollstonecraft Godwinian narrative. If the male characters in Frankenstein appear as heightened versions of earlier fictional depictions in Godwin's and Percy Shelley's works, it is the narration of the desires of these characters that foregrounds the intertextuality of Mary Shelley's novel not so much with Percy's gothic texts as with Godwin's Caleb Williams. For at the structural level, the transmission of the Creaturets story from Victor to Walton repeats the circulation of Falkland's story from his servant Collins to Caleb. As well, both novels also include other stories interspersed with the dominant ones. Significantly, in each novel these are the often tragic stories of the female characters. Although my reading of the homoerotics of Frankenstein and Caleb Williams may seem to suggest that Frankenstein does nothing more than revisit and concretize the fantasies of various Godwinian male characters, Shelley's novel differs in another important aspect. In addition to exposing Godwinian homosocial male desires and aversions through the body of a hideous creature, Frarikenstein's depiction of what we might cal1 the "female narratives" embedded in the male narrators' tales magnifies, and in so doing, criticizes the process by which female desire is eliminated to make room for the exploration of male desires in Caleb Williams. In Godwin's Caleb Williams, Emily is the only female character whose story is narrated in any detail by Caleb. On the other hand, in Shelley's Frankenstein, Walton' s narrative includes his own reflections on an unnamed Russian woman, as well as Victor's incomplete accounts of Caroline's history, Elizabeth's experiences, Justinets tragedy, and Agatha's and Safie's stories as retold by the Creature. That the "historiesw of these female characters both in Frankenstein and Caleb Williams are almost indistinguishable insofar as they portray some form of patriarchal despotism might signify a passive acceptance in the former text of Godwin's characterization of female desires and experiences. Instead of Godwin's two male narrators and one prominent female character, however, Frankenstein offers three male narrators and at least four important female characters. Although Shelley's and Godwin's respective novels oniy include female characters at the periphery of the central tale, 1 suggest that through the cumulative effect of a repeated narrative marginalization of characters who not only resemble each other but also recali characters from Caleb Williams, Frankenstein becomes an xltimately ironic revisiting of Godwin's text insofar as the effect of mimicry can be interpreted as ironic. A cursory glance at the various female characters in Frankenstein shows that the women in Victor's world resemble one another in more ways than in their position as "outsider" to the men in their lives. To begin with, through the portrayal of their likeness to Caroline Beaufort, Elizabeth Lavenza and Justine Moritz enact what Nancy Chodorow has called a "reproduction of mothering."" After the death of Caroline, Elizabeth obeys her aunt's (and

'' In The Reoroduction of Motherina: Psvchoanalvsis and the Socioloav of Gender, Nancy Chodorow analyzes how women's role as mother is reproduced across generations (3). Chodorow's notion of the "reproduction of mothering" attempts to explain how " [w]omen's mothering . produces psychological self-definition and capacities appropriate to mothering in women, and curtails and inhibits these capacities and this self-definition in men" (208). The social expectations of mothers, then, get mapped ont0 wornen in general such that the "reproduction of women' s mothering is the basis for the reproduction of women's location and responsibilities in the domestic sphere" (208). In Shelley's Fran kenstein a similar forrn of "reproduction" of materna1 qualities occurs: among the female characters, what is passed on are the capacities to nurture and mother in various ways. adopted mother's) last wishes and becomes a surrogate mother to her younger cousins, William and Ernest. Justine, on the other hand, endeavours to imitate Caroline's "phraseoiogy and manners" (FR 94). Moreover, as the text of Memoirs captures Mary Wollstonecraft's agonies, the painting Alphonse hangs over his "mantle-piece" (m 106) preserves Caroline as a grieving figure and figure of grief. Victor tells us that Alphonse's portrait of Caroline, "painted at

my father's desire . , . represented Caroline Beaufort in an agony of despair, kneeling by the coffin of her dead father" (Fe 106). As with the circulaticn of "Mary Wollstonecraft" facilitated by Godwin's Memoirs, Caroline's image, whether in the miniature that little William wears or in the painting that Alphonse keeps, circulates among the survivors of her family, which include her monstrous grandson (Victor's Creature). Because Caroline is transformed i~toa visual construction--that is, a painting Alphonse commissions--the potential expression of her desires is circumscribed after her death by the operation of Alphonse's desires, desires that perpetuate her traditional, feminine qualities of passive resignation. Caroline is, as it were, replicated by the surviving family rnembers. If Caroline's materna1 functions are carried out by Elizabeth, and her mannerisms and linguistic particularities are rekindled by Justine, Alphonse's painting ensures that her image will produce "an air of dignity and beauty, that hardly permitted the sentiments of pity" (B106) ." Like

'O 'O In a compelling argument that reads Shelley's novel in the context of various historicâl events concerning the use of the hurnan body by medical surgeons, dissectors, anatomists, grâve- robbers and hired murderers, Tim Marshall in Murderina to Dissect: Çrave-robb ina, Frankenstein and the Anatomv Literature suggests that Caroline Beaufort's and Elizabeth Lavenza's deaths may be explained partly by their ''relationship to extreme poverty in their the triangulation of male narrators, there is a triangulation of materna1 figures in Frankenstein, the mode1 for whom is the virtuous and affectionate image of Caroline Beaufort." Significantly, Caroiine is the only femaie character allowed to have a bioloçical child, a fact that is parodied in Victor's hideous Creature- Hence, her abiiities to nurture--even as they are symbolically ernbodied in Elizabeth and Justine, and in Alphonse's portrait of her-- can have only negative effects. For example, it is the miniature of Caroline that the Creature gazes upon which produces his feelings of revenge and hatred because he realizes that he is "for ever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures coula bestow" (FR 170). And it is this miniature that ultimately condemns Justine. Thus, the recurrence of a constructed figure of "Caroline Beaufort" transforms the character into a signifier for female misery and suffering in the world of Frankenstein, In her unfinished "Author's Preface" to The Wronas of Woman: or, Maria. A Fraament (l798), Mary Wollstonecraft discusses the universal aspect of female oppression in patriarchal societies: she insists that her novel should be "considered" a "history . . . of woman, [rather] than of an individual" (The Wronas 83). Because she regards gender as persona1 histories" (14). Furthermore, Marshall daims that as adopted women in the Frankenstein household who seek "to rise from poverty to middle-class status," both Justine and Elizabeth are, through the Creature's intervention, "realigned with criminality and poverty: Justine is executed, and Elizabeth is denied a consolidation of respectability. In death they are reclassified as lower-class, lower-order people" (89) . Thus, the threatening potential to return to a lower-class status connects al1 three women.

" It is important to rernember that Alphonse's portrait of Caroline preserves her as a grieving daughter who weeps for her father, not as a rnother. the crucial structare that causes different women to s~ffer similar fates, Wollstonecraft emphasizes the gendered (as opposed to the individual or familial) experiences of women in patriarchy. That the female characters in Shelley's Frankenstein not only generally resemble one another but also often experience the same tragic oatcomes indicates that the novel nas more to say about the ge~deredstructure of patriarchal oppression than about the lives of indiviuual womefi. In fact, Shelley's portrayzl of various forms of female victimizatio-.iis prefigured both thematically anci structurally by Wollstonecraft's The Wronas of Woman (1798) In this sense, Frankenstein's repetitive portrayals of apparently insipid and passive female characters may, itself, be a structural criticism of the predominantly homosocial world of Godwin's Caleb Williams. For Godwin's novel does not even recognize those marginal female characters, such as Emily, that are sacrificed so that the central male characters can indulge in their desires. Mary Wollstonecraft's The Wronas of Wornan, like the stories of female suffering in Frankenstein, is a fictional fragment (because Wollstonecraft died in childbirth before completing her novel). Godwin's collection and posthurnous publication of these fragments, with the addition of his own

32 David Marshall remarks that if we recognize Frankenstein as an allegory about the status of women as creatures of a different species, we must also recognize how Mary Shelley inscribes herself in a literary and philosophical dialogue with her mother about the possibility of fellow feeling. (200) While Marshall explores the "vocabulary for thinking about sympathy" (201) through a discussion of the parallels between individual characters in Wollstonecraft's and Shelley's novels, 1 point to a structural similarity between the mother's and daughter ' s narratives of female oppression. explanatory Preface, replicate the fate of women's stories in Frankenstein since they are always incomplete and mediated through male narration. We see a similar incorporation of female suffering for male gain in Caleb's retelling of Emily's story. Caleb narrates Emily's short history not from a genuine interest in her cause but as a way to expiain the hostility between Tyrrel and Falkland, an animosity used to justify the latter's crime of murder. If Wollstonecraft's aim in The Wronas of Wornan is to exhibit "the misery and oppression, peculiar to women, that arise out of the partial laws and customs of society" (The Wrongs 83), 1 argue that Shelley's Frankenstein demonstrates this partiality at the level of narrative. Not only are the stories of Caroline, Elizabeth, Justine, Agatha, and Safie exemplary of the lamentable fate of many women in traditional, patriarchal, early nineteenth-century fiction, their embedded positions in the narratives of the (male) Creature, Victor and Walton foreground the destiny of women's desires: subsumed in and displaced by male desires. If Frankenstein's repetitive narratives of female suffering negatively allude to the omission of these tales in Caleb Williams, Frankenstein's portrayal of men narrating these stories also criticizes the actions of the male narrators in Godwin's novel. For example, Caleb Williams relates Emily's story and only mentions other wornen, such as Lady Lucretia Pisani or Laura Denison, to highlight some feature of the male character narrating the tale. On the other hand, Frankenstein's repetitious portrayal of Godwinian male characters in the very act of narrating only fragments of stories about female suffering functions as an ironic comment on Caleb's occasional and selective inclusion of moments of female victimization. By reading the various moments of narration in Frankenstein as a transposition of "acts" of narrating in Caleb Williams, we can see the mechanisms by which stories of female desire are elided by male narrators. Put simply, if the male characters in Caleb Williams (and by extension the author-function of "William Godwin") ignore completely the possibility of depicting female desire, the male characters in Frankenstein also effectively ignore female desire because they are unable to reconcile their actions with the tales of female suffering that they, nevertheiess, do partly narrate. Whereas Godwin's pre-Wollstonecraft male narrators do not recognize what is missing from their homosocial world, Shelley's male narrators can neither eliminate nor understand the presence of female desire in their world. Indeed, even if Fleetwood's failure to recognize female desires prefigures a comparable inability in Shelley's male characters, we need to remember that the post-Wollstonecraft Godwin of Fleetwood does acknowledge and explore the arena of female desires through the spirited character of Mary Macneil. In fact, Godwin portrays Mary Macneil mourning for the tragic ioss of her sisters, mother and father for "a sufficient period" until she felt that "she belonged in some measure to the world" before she accepts Fleetwood's proposa1 of marriage (a187). As well, Mary's statement to Fleetwood that in her he "will have a wife, and not a passive machine" (a187) clearly distinguishes this post- Wollstonecraft Godwinian portrayal of fernale desire from the pre-Wollstonecraft Godwin's depiction of Emily's tragic love for Falkland in Caleb Williams. In other words, if through their fragmentary form and embedded positions in the narratives of Walton, Victor and the Creature, the various "female" narratives unmask the tyrannical sides of the apparently benevolent men in Frankenstein, and implicitly in Caleb Williams and Fleetwood, these narratives also nighlight the distinction between Godwin and his fictional cnaracters in the post-Wollstonecraft domestic novels. If we begin with the brief tale that Walton includes in his second letter to his sister at the beginning of Frankenstein, we find a curious mirroring of Walton's own situation with that of the male character in his story. In describing the rnaster of his crew as "heroically qenerous," Walton recalls how the master, "having amassed a considerable sum in prize-money," loved a "young Russian lady, of moderate fortune," whose father "consented to the match" (FR 54). After discovering that the young lady loved another man, whose poverty prevented her father from consenting to their union, the master relinquished his pursuit. According to Walton, the master not only nobly bestowed on his rival his £am, "together with the remains of his prize-money to purchase stock," but also "himself solicited the young woman's father to consent to her marriage with her lover" (FR 54). Furthermore, the master then "quitted his country, nor returned until he heard that his former mistress was married according to her inclinations" (FR 54). While this minor tale rewrites Emily's tragedy in Caleb Williams by allowing the Russian woman to marry whom she wants, the woman is still a commodified object to be bartered for between men. Like the farm and the prize-money, the young woman is given by the master to the rival with the permission of the father. Significantly, Walton's narrative focuses on the virtuous actions of men who can put aside their differences without hostility, not on the courage of a young woman who can defy with impunity both her father and her prearranged husband. James P. Davis in "Frankenstein and the Subversion of the Masculine Voice" observes that if we read Walton's story of the Russian woman as the story of the master, then "the story encourages perpetual bachelorhood by showing the dire financial and psychological consequences to men of courtship" (315). fndeed, precisely if we do not read Walton's narrative from the perspective of the young woman, the tale of the master and his beloved becomes a rnirror reflection of Walton's implicit fear that an entanglement with women's erotic desires will prevent him from fulfilling his ambitions for honour and glory. As Davis suggests, the story may encourage "perpetual bachelorhood." However, because Walton's meta-narrative commentary evaluates the responses of tne master and not the young wornan, Shelley's narrative exposes Walton's inability to consider women beyond their intermediary status between men. For Walton's admiration for the master arises not so much from the master's escape £rom the anticipated horror of marriage, as from the master's forsaking of what ordinary men want. In Walton's narration, the master's sacrifice makes hirn extraordinary. For Walton, the Arctic explûrer, who prefers "glory to every enticement that wealth placed in . . . [his] path" and abandons a life of "ease and luxury" with his sister, the master's seeming generosity becomes a sign of his heroism (m 51). That Walton regards as heroic both the master's refusal to force a woman to marry hirn against her wishes and his subsequent amicable resolution betrays Walton's own need to glorify male abandonment of the domestic realm. The master's story, as recalled by Walton, conveniently transforms Walton's pursuit of his own anti- social aspirations into a heroic sacrifice. Clearly, Walton's story of the master's generosity shows how the act of sacrifice can bolster one's persona1 desires for respect and praise. The inclusion of Walton's short narrated tale in Frankenstein serves to reveal the discursive operation of male desire, a desire that can recast otherwise normal male responses to particular situations as heroic, while tacitly undermining the heroism of female characters. One episode in Caleb Williams tnat structurally resembles Walton's story of the Russian woman is Caleb's retelling of the story of Malvesi's and Falkland's rivalry turned into friendship, a tale at the beginning of Godwin's novel. Caleb presents Lady Lucretia's "haughtiness" as the cause of the men's antagonism (CbJ 14). Lady Lucretia's refusal to submit to Malvesi's impertinent inquiries about the nature of her association with Falkland is not regarded as a courageous and transgressive act by Caleb, despite the rigid gender roles of his society. Similarly, in Shelley's Frankenstein, Walton does not make any cornments about the Young Russian woman's actions, which he nevertheless describes. It is Frankenstein's depiction of a male character (Walton) who cannot comment on the courage of a woman's resistance to patriarchal structures of bonding that functions irnplicitly as a criticism both of the lack of substantial female characters in Caleb Williams, and of Caleb's inability to describe a woman's socially transgressive act as anything other than a sign of the woman's flawed character (Lady Lucretia). By foregrounding male characters with narratological counterparts in Caleb Williams, who simultaneously include and ignore stories of female courage, Shelley's Frankenstein dramatizes the process that results in the omission of stories of female desire in Caleb Williams. Through the character of Safie, however, Frankenstein provides a glimpse of an alternative portrayal of female desire. Both through the content of Safie's story (the details that are revealed) and the narrative transmission of her tale, the character and signifier "Safie" bec~rnepotential sites for a different account of female desire in Frankenstein. After all, once the Creature describes his process of self-instruction aided 5y the De Lacey family's education of Saf ie, the Creature recounts Saf ie ' s history, as gleaned from her letters. The Creature says that he has made "copies of these letters; for I found means, during my residence in the hovei, to procure the implements of writing; and the letters were often in the hands of Felix or Agatha" (FR 151). The Creature only "repeats the substance of them" to Victor (FR 151). Although the text implies that these letters are love letters from Safie to Felix, the letters also contain details about Safie's parents. Like Wollstonecraft's Mary in Marv. A Fiction (1788), who learns how to write "with tolerable correctness" by "copying her friendls letters, whose hand she admired" (13), the Creature learns about friendsnip, affection and, presumably, the grammar and syntax of linguistic communication by copying Safie's love letters to Felix. These letters are, however, written translations of Safie's spoken desires, that is, copies with r,o textual origin. For Safie ênlists the "aid of an old man, a servant of her father's, who understooa French" to write letters to Felix in his own language (FR 151). Safie's letters, then, are circulated £rom "an old man" to a young man (Felix) to a creation of man (Creature). The Creature's act of transcribing Safie's words, in his own hand, exposes the absence of the possible signified for "Safie" and produces the desire to render her presence in discourse. Although, both in reading the same works Safie reads and in copying letters like the character of Mary in Wollstonecraft's novel, the Creature is aligned with female education, the Creature is also symbolically associated with the "old man" who, like the Creature, translates and transmits Safie's desires in letters. WhiLe the old man sends Safie's letters to Felix, the Creature copies Safie's letters and gives them to Victor- The lower-class status of the old man and the Creature's realization that he hirnseif "possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property" (FR 148) further links these two unnamed male figures in Shelley's novel. Significantly, the old man is a servant of Safie's father who, in his shifting position from being persecuted for his (religious) beliefs to persecuting nis daughter for her decision to accept Felix as her lover, replays the transformation of Victor's relationship to his Creature. For Victor init5ally is ridiculed at the university in Ingolstadt for his scientific biases but later is vindictive towards the product of his scientific enterprise, the Creature. The Creature's narrative, thus, potentially constructs two figures of Safie: one is circulated through copies of letters, the other is marked by the gap produced by this circulation of letters about desire. In giving Victor these co~iesof copied letters inscribed with the name of "Safie," the Creature says that "they will prove the truth of [his] . . . tale" (FR 151). This "evidentiary technique" (Gilbert and Gubar 224) of circulating "truth" is imbued with the desire of the writer, speaker or sender to solicit sympathetic understanding £rom the reader, listener or receiver. Thus, once in his possession, Victor gives the letters to Walton, who includes them in his packet of letters addressed to Margaret to persuade her of the "truth" of the events he has witnessed. In each instance of transmission, Safie's letters are used as both proof and a way to elicit the sympathetic understanding of the receiver, that is, to imbue the receiver with the desires of the sender. Moreover, since the words of "Safie" are translated and conveyed through the form of the letter, the letters themselves become a cr~ciai medium fox the circulation of desire in the novel. Because Frankenstein never discloses the contents of these letters (the text does not provide copies), Shelley's novel suggests that what circulates among the various male characters is not so much the physical artifact of the ietter as the desire to invest these copied ietters witn meaning. Like Collins' written version of Falkland's tale, and the supposedly missing version of this tale written by Collins that we never see in Godwin's novel, the core of Shelley's novel is epistolary evidence that we never see but that nevertheless circulates in and between the narratives that the Creature, Victor and Walton constract. Moreover, the gendered, racial, and class transposition of this structure of circulating desire, from an emphasis on the powerful Falkland and his horrible secret to the oppressed Safie and her private letters, transforms the status of secrecy itself. For, in a sense, Safie's secret is not secret because it is subject to the Western, patriarchal intrusive and voyeuristic gaze of the Creature, Victor, and Walton. Mary Favret notes that there is yet another secret that forms Victor's narrative, narnely the "cause of generation and life" (FR 81) that is never revealed (Romantiç 183) . Frankenstein ' s focus on Victor 's secret transgressive act structurally resernbles the emphasis on Falkland's secret crime in Caleb Williams. However, the Creature's origins, like those of Safie's letters and Falkland's written confession, remair- an enigmatic part of the text. Victor's act, of course, is scarcely a secret. Nevertheless, Walton's narrative has little to Say about what specifically causes the "birth" of the Creature itself and, therefore, shrouds this momentous event with a veil of mystery. In fact, Frankenstein ends with the Creature "lost in darkness and distance" (FR 247). Thougn the answer to this mystery of life is recorded in Victor's journal, which the Creature reads, the readers never see this part of the birth account. Like Safie's letters, Victor's scientific description of the "cause of generation and life" (FJ 81; is unrepresentable in the text, As in Câleb Williams, then, the "secrets" of the narrative are iocated in various places of writing, These textual deferrals preserve and circulate the epistemological deslre betweeri the novel's narrators and between these narrators and their extra-textual readers. Instead of portraying a secret at the core of the tales of men, Frankenstein relocates the secret (whether of Safie's letters or of Victor's journal) at the limits of the tales of men. Though Faikland's secret functions to produce desire in Caleb's narrative, Safie's unrepresentability in the Creature's narrative and the Creature's inexplicable presence in Victor's story 50th generate and circumscribe desire. 1 have suggested that the multiplicity of meaning in Frankençtein stems both from the portrayal of Victor's nameless Creature and the transmission of Safiets letters. But the same is true of the representation of Safie herself. In rnany ways, Safie is associated with the Creature in Victor's account to Walton. For it is a curious fact that only two major characters in Shelley's novel are not given complete names: Safie lacks a surnamo and the Creature is nameless. In both cases, the lack of a name, or surname, signals the character's potential alienation £rom any form of community. Moreover, both the story of the Creature and that of Safie are left open-ended. Joyce Zonana in "'They Will Prove the Truth of My Tale'": Safie's Letters as the Feminist Core of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein" notes that the Creature is also connected with Safie in terms of the story he narrates "[flor he too tells a tale about a body's discovery of itself as spirit, and of that spirit's neod for a congenial social world in which to function" (174). In her implied comparison between the Creature's request for a mate and Safie's escape from the potential life In a seraglio to one with Felix, Zonana reads both the Creature and Safie as outsiders who desire to find a space for themselves in the predominantly patriarchal world of Frankenstein. Furthermore, that both tne Creature and Safie weep in hearing about "the hapless fate" of the Native Americans (m 147) implies that they identify with other dispossessed people, and perhaps recognize themselves in this position. --17 Although these various similarities between the two characters might support the argument that the Creature may be female, as Gilbert and Gubar have proposed (237), or that the Creature's situation is similar to tnat of its literal author Mary Shelley, as Barbara Johnson implies (7), 1 shall argue that through the story of Safie, Shelley foregrounds the injustices of disenfranchised individuals, such as the

Creature.3' AS harem wornen, whom Safie criticizes, are

j3 In Godwin's novel, during Caleb's final attempt to rebuild his life in "an obscure market-town in Wales" (m 2891, his close friend Laura Denison accuses Caleb of being "a monster, and not a man" upon discovering the false tale of the criminal activities of one "Caleb Williams" (ÇW 300). Caleb's fugitive status prefigures both Safie1s position as a sexual refugee and Victor's and his societyls characterization of the Creature as a "miserable monster" (FR 86-7).

34 H. L. Malchow in "Frankenstein's Monster and Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain" discusses how Shelley's "text and its subsequent development reveal inherent linkages between race and the other evolving concepts of class and gender" (127). One xeduced to their sexual bodies, the Creature is similarly trapped by his external body. If women's sexual qualities are disproportionately valued in a seraglio, one can argue that the Creature's grotesquely large structure is a physical manifestation of how women are made to feel. This does not imply, however, that the Creature is female, but merely that his situation foregrounds issues of importance to women under patriarcny. A close reading of the content of Safie's history is crucial to our understanding of Shelley's novel. To begin with, like Elizabeth and Justine, Safie is

such interesting later development is the banning of Frankenstein in South Africa in 1955 because it was considered "'indecent, objectionable, or obscene "' Iqtd. in Vlasopolos 133) . No doubt the novel's critical portrayal of the persecution of the Creature based solely on his physical appearance was too subversive for South African politics under apartheid- Anca Vlasopolos in "Frankenstein's Hidden Skeleton: The Psycho-Politics of Oppression" points out another historical instance that demonstrates the novel's "political power" (133). During an 1824 debate on the "Arnelioration of tne Condition of the Slave Population" in the House of Lords, a member of Parliament implied that Frankenstein was, in Vlasopolos' description, a "cautionary tale for the ruling class" (133). Before summarizing the plot of Shelley's novel, the M.P states that "[tlo turn the Negro loose in the manhood of his physical strength, in the maturity of his physical passions, but in the infancy of his uninstructed reason, would be to raise up a creature resembling the splendid fiction of a recent romance" (qtd. in Vlasopolos 133). What these two moments (1955 South Africa and 1824 Britain) illustrate is the way -'s construction through and of desire continues to be mobilized for other aims long after the story proper has finished. Moreover, as Margo V. Perkins in "The Nature of Otherness: Class and Difference in Mary Shelley's Fraakenstein" concludes [elven though Shelley's ethnocentrism tends to undermine the possibility that she had the issue of race/ethnicity seriously in mind, her focus on the monster's appearance as an essential aspect of his difference enables the novel to be read simultaneously as a symbolic study in racist oppression and as a revealing (and "emphatically political" [to use Anca Vlasopolos's words]) exploration of class. (40-1) initially aligned with the character and situation of Caroline Beaufort- The young Caroline meets her futüre hüsbând and father's best friend, Alphonse Frankenstein, in the midst of Beaufort's deadly illness. Safie, too, encounters her future lover, Felix De Lacey, during an equally trying time in her life. After the trial and subseqlcient imprisonment of ner father, the Turkish merchant is visited in prison by Felix. In his regular calls to the unjustly irnprisoned merchant, Felix meets the "lovely Safie" and considers her a "treasure which would fully reward his toi1 and hazard" (FR 150). Alphonse consiaers Caroline an equally valuable possession. Whereas in the 1818 edition Caroline is "placed . . . under the protection of [Frankenstein's] . . . relation" before he marries her two years later (FR 641, in the 1831 edition there is an expanded description of Alphonse Frankenstein's gradually developing desires for Caroline whom he "strove to shelter . . . as a fair exotic is sheltered by the gardener" (FR 322) . In the 1831 Frankenstein Caroline is thus more closely linked with Safie through the former's description as "exotic": we might argue that Caroline occupies the role of the "fair exotic" to Safie's implied dark exoticisrn. Caroline is also aligned more witn Safie tnrough a cornparison with Elizabeth Lavenza in tne 1831 edition of Frankenstein, in which Elizabeth is chosen by Caroline for adoption because she appeared of a different stock. The four others were dark-eyed, hardly little vagrants; this child [Elizabeth] was thin, and very fair. Her hair was the brightest living gold, . . . her blue eyes cloudless. (FR 323) Anca Vlasopolos in " Frankenstein' s Hidden Skeleton: The Psycho-Politics of Oppressionw daims that Caroline's selection of Elizabeth "strikes one as acutely racial. The poor children are 'dark-eyed,' and 'dark-leaved,' whereas Elizabeth would satisfy the strictest Aryan requirements" (126). Hence, Shelley's novel participates, if only through suggestive racial references, in the rhetoric of cultural imperialism. Although Safie is clearly defined by the Creature's narrâtive as a foreigner, Caroline's racial position in the novel is located ambiguously between this "lovely Arabian" (B153) and Vlasopolos' fâir "Aryan."" Whether a "fair exotic" or a richly rewardinç "treasure," Caroline and Safie are represented as highfy desirea "others," who have little or no family. Uitimately, for both these daughters, their prospective iovers, Alphonse and Felix, are "protecting spirit [sy (FR 64) . Safie's tale, then, appears structurally similar to Caroline's. However, while Caroline does eventually marry Alphonse, no such teleological marriage plot iç provided for Safie. This lack of a domestic context for Safie is a notable difference in a novel in which women are portrayed as either wives or materna1 individuals- Although Safie is

" Safie's ethnic status is one of the many paradoxes for critics of Shelley's novel. For as Joseph Lew in "The Deceptive Other: Mary Shelley's Critique of Orientalism in Frankenstêin" observes, although we see Safie "as unequivocally Oriental" (280), Shelley "inexorably strips away each of these 'oriental' traits. Her [Safie's] father is not an Arab, but a Turk . . . [and] this daughter of a Turk . . . is not herself Turkish" (281). Gayatri Spivak also notes that in depicting Safie, Shelley uses some cornmonplaces of eighteenth-century liberalism that are shared by many today: Safie's Muslim father was a victim of (bad) Christian religious prejudice and yet was himself a wily and ungrateful man not as morally refined as her (good) Christian mother. Having tasted the emancipation of woman, Safie could not go home. The confusion between "Turk" and "Arab" has its counterpart in present-day confusion about Turkey and Iran as "Middle Eastern" but not "Arab." ("Three Wornen's Texts" 252) embraced by the De Lacey farnily, as Elizabeth Lavema and Justine Moritz are adopted by the Frankensteins, Safie is not irnrnediately placed in a familial role. In fact, as 1 have mentioned, the lack of a surname for Safie erases any familial ties she may have. For Safie to be neither Felix's wife nor the materna1 influence in the De Lacey household is to locate her outside these gendered familial roles. Furthermore, that Safie goes on various journeys in Europe and Turkey, travelling beyond tne cornforts of the domestic realm, demonstrates tnat she is more active tnan the other, relatively passive, female characters in the novel. Although Agâtha De Lacey does travel with her father, she does so as part of Felix's plan, not because of her own desires, In other words, Safie is the only female character who acts on her desires. Finally, Safie is the only non- Western female character whose story is incorporated by the male narrators in an otherwise Eurocentric narrative. If Safie's story is so unusual, yet resembles that of the other female characters in Frankenstein, we need to consider what her difference implies. It is worth noting that Safie's history is centred on her mother, a "Christian Arab," and on the oppressive gendered çociety of the Muslims (FJ 151). The Creature explains that Safie's nâmeless mother was "seized and made a slave by the Turks" but because of her "beauty, she had won the heart of the father of Safie, who marriea ner" (FR 151) . Safie's mother is portrayed as an independent woman, who instructed her daughter in the tenets of her religion [that is, Christianity] , and taught her to aspire to higher powers of intellect, and an independence of spirit, forbidden to the f emale followers of Mahomet [sic]. (FR 151) Unlike Carcline who inculcates her adopted daughter Elizabeth in the practice of motherhood, Safie's mother encourages her daughter to foster her rationai capacities and strive for independence, While both Safie's mother and Caroline Eeaufort are rescued by men from some form of oppression--Caroline from poverty, Safie's mother f rom slavery '' --it is curious that the desire for freedom from society's various gendered binaries (such as male intellect versus fernale emotion) is given to the representative of the "East." If the text of Frankenstein implies that the attitude toward women is somehow more barbaric in the Ezst than in the West, the novel's portrayal of a "reproduction of mothering" that occurs among the Western women undermines such an orientalist opposition between East and West, a binary that the text strives to sustain but cannot. Rsther the novel forces us to ponder whether Safie's escape from Islamic rule to the loving arms of Felix is worthwhile considering the restrictive and altimately tragic situations of Caroline, Elizabeth, and especially Justine. In this sense, the character of Safie presents an alternative possibility for the expression of female desire, a prospect that can only be alluded to within the confining narratological structures both of a pre-Wollstonecraft Godwinian emphasis on the circulation of male desires and the deployment of a Wollstonecraftian Orientalist perspective on Eastern women. '' We might, thus, consider

36 In Godwin's Fleetwood, Mary's mother, the fallen and nameless Mrs. Macneil, is also described as being "rescued from slavery" by Mr, Macneil who becomes her "declared lover" after her disastrous Gothic-like seduction by a ruthless Italian (153).

37 If Safie's mother criticizes the practice of female enslavement in the Arab world, Mary Wollstonecraft in A Vindication of the Riahts of Woman indirectly criticizes the evidently universal condition of al1 Eastern women by urging British women to alter their situation precisely because their present state aligns them with women in a seraglio, To use Felicity A. Nussbaum's the figure of Safie a cryptic feminist, one who, like the post-Wollstonecraft Godwin's Mary Macneil Fleetwood, desires more than her situation allows. However, Safie's cryptic feminism--the ability to criticize patriarchal structures of domination, like the seraglio--is entangled with an imperialistic view of the East. Thus, the effect of Safie's mother's feminist lessons, which "were indelibly impressed on the mind of Safie," is to make the daughter sickened at the prospect of again returning to Asia, and the being [sic] irnmured within the walls of a harem, allowed only to occupy herself with puerile amusements, il1 suited to the temper of her soul, now accustomed to grand ideas and a noble emulation for virtue. (FR 151) The implication, of course, is that this "noble emulation for virtue" is endernic to the West and inherently not part of the "uncivilized" East. While the Western characters in Frankenstein do not indulge in Wollstonecraftian imperialist sentiments about the East, the novel does construct Safie as the "other" Eastern woman, who ponders her relationship to the West. This confrontation with the Eastern Other in Frankenstein, rather than the Western appropriation of this Other in Mary Wollstonecraft's The Riahts of Woman, has the potential to situate this Other not as part of another's desire, but as the subject or agent of desire. That both Godwin and Wollstonecraft use the term and notion of the words, for Wollstonecraft, the seraglio is Veld to be a threat that the worst women actually deserve" (193). Wollstonecraft condemns the seraglio for enacting a specifically oppressive gendered model that promotes a fom of immoral apathy and prevents women from exercising their bodies and minds in the service of husband, children, and the nation state: "in the true style of Mahometanism [sic], they [women] are treated as a kind of subordinate beings [sic], and not as a part of the human speciesv (Riahts of Woman 73). "seraglio" in their prose writings and in their fictions as a metaphor for weakness, male impotence or female mental imprisonment suggests that Shelley's narrative of Safie is a slight departure from her pareritsr deployment of images of Eastern alterity, however orientalist Shelley's use of these images may still be, For Shelley attempts to give voice to the Other, from the Other's perspective. One might read the Creature's fragmentary narration of Safie and her letters as an attempt to flesh out the experiences of women who zre only symbols for oppression in the writings of Wollstonecraft. Because the Creature's account does not narrate an ending for Safie--she does not die like the other female characters in Frankenstein--there is a space left open for the conceivable expression of her desires. As Joyce Zonana notes, the "silence and blankness of Saf ie 's letters--their failure actually to appear within the text-- resists the voyeuristic, culturally masculine appropriation of nature that the reader, along with the narrators, is engaged in" (181). And, 1 would add, this gap in the Creature's narrative also resists the "Western" appropriation of the "East" in the service either of British feminism, as in Wollstonecraft's The Riahts of Woman, or British democracy, as in Godwin's Political Justice. Far from being a mere parodic repetition of Godwin's Caleb Williams, Shelley's Frankenst~inthus constructs a new possibility for the expression of female desire through the character of Safie. Victor's partial and selective recounting of Caroline's, Elizabeth's and Justine's histories as culminating in each instance in a description of the woman's premature and tragic death forecloses the possibility of reading for female desire in these stories. Although Safie's story is subsumed by the Creature's narrative, it is not limited by that narrative. In fact, the figure of Safie cornes to mark the ~oundariesof tne male discourse in Shelley's novel. Tnat the Creature's retelling of Safie's story is circurnscribed not by her death but by his expulsion from the De Lacey cottage implies a potentially alternative tale of female desire. If Caroline is destined by Victor's narrative to be a figure of desire as constructed through her posture of mourning, and Elizabeth and Custine are fated to repeat the mother's tragedy, Safie remains a lack in the Creature's narrative. But tnis lack is a conceivable site for future readers to produce, perhaps, a less Orientalist narrative of Eastern women' s desires.'" Clearly, through their marginal positions, the various "female" narratives in Frankenstein disturb the novel's central tale of monstrous birth, that is, they provide a critical subtext for the portrayal of male egotism, especially of Victor's transgressive act of procreation. What is denied or left unsaid in Falkland's, Caleb's, and Fleetwood's narratives is magnified in Walton's and Victor's stories, as 1 have suggested, through their accounts of women's harsh experiences. In Shelley's Frankenstein, however, while the men (Walton, Victor, and the Creature) assimilate the stories of female suffering for their own

35 Although Kate Ferguson Ellis' argument in The Contested Castle is different from mine as it is based on a reading of Frankenstein "through the paradigm of opposing systems of value that . . . [she calls] 'guilt' and 'shame' cultures" (203), Ellis also concludes that Safie may represent an alternative portrayal of gendered relations in the novel. Ellis daims that in her active rebellion against "the most repressive of patriarchal cultures," Safie becomes not a "'true wife' but an emblem of an egalitarian third possibility" (204). Ellis's assumption that Safie's Islamic culture is "the most repressive" patriarchal culture is, undoubtedly, part of the same orientalist structure found in Wollstonecraft's The Rights of Wornan. purposes, the novel extends this incorporation one step further in portraying a man who insists on reproducinç without the aid of a woman. Thus, tne act of male appropriation and neglect of female desires is materialized and embodied in Victor's procreative experiment. If Godwin's Caleb Williams can only present physicai interactions between men, whether Tyrrel's beating of Falkland or Falkland's murder of Tyrrel, as productive of hatred and violence, and Memoirs can only imply that female desires are entangled with bodily pleasures and sorrows, Shelley's Frankenstein criticizes the inevitability of these two Godwinian legacies by presenting two characters who manage to escape the desires and malice directed at their physical bodies: Safie and the Creature. For Safie's story and letters map out a positive, liberating direction towards a new portrayal of female desires, while the Creature's tale and body become the overdetermined site of Victor's conflicted attitude towards female sexuality and the carnality of human interactions. And it is in tne confluence of these two "foreign," otherised characters (Safie and the Creature) that Shelley's novel confronts the Godwinian legacies of bodies and desires. Saf ie ' s escape from the constrictions of the body, whether in a harem or in a marriage with Felix, rewrites the destiny not only of Caroline, Elizabeth, Justine and Godwin's Mary Fleetwood and Emily, but also of the figure of Mary Wollstonecraft in Memoirs. Because in Frankenstein her eastern heritage signifies the tyranny inflicted on the female body, Safie's escape to Felix (whose identity as her future husband is elided by the mechanisms of the narrative) is a potentially powerful refinement and redefinition of Wollstonecraft's feminist politics, politics that are subsurned by the dictates of the pregnant and parturient body in Godwin's Memoirs. On the other hand, although the Creature represents the "old order" insofar as he is both composed of human remains and marked by Victor's abjected homoerotic anxiety and disgust (textual residues, particularly from the pre-Wollstonecraft Godwin of Caleb Williams), the Creature is not imprisoned by that order. Like Safie whose future is unknown, the Creature's lack of a determinate nistory and future functions as a space of desire in the novel.'"- Indeed, the Creature's social position as an outcast and the racial implications of his physiognomy connect hirn to the narrative position of Safie: both are enigmatic outsiders who, therefore, embody the excess in the text that requires a future sympathetic reader to supplement with renewed understanding. That Shelley's novel confronts the horror of Victor's hideous male progeny suggests that Godwin's exploration of male anxiety in Caleb Williams is being magnified ànd literalized in the body of the Creature. What Godwin's novel leaves as a textuai excess, Mary Shelley's novel tries to embody, but in a fantastical way through the

'' I have found Gayatri Spivak's comments useful in considering the Creature as a space of desire. In attempting to read Frankenstein as a novel that tries "to corne to terms with the making of the colonial subject, " Spivak describes the Creature in the following way: Sympathetic yet monstrous, clandestinely reared on sacred and profane histories of salvation and empire, shunned by the civilization which produces his subjectivity, the Monster's destructive rage propels hirn out of the novel and into an indefinite future. When, however, it comes to the colonial subject's prehistory, Shelley's political imagination fails. Her emancipatory vision cannot extend beyond the speculary situation of the colonial enterprise, where the master alone has a history, master and subject locked up in the cracked rnirror of the present, and the subject's future, although indefinite, is vectored specifically toward and away from the master. ("Imaginary Maps" 278) body of a monstrous creature that still leaves an excess. Thus, while the Creature may be the incarnation of Godwinian anxieties about male desires and desiring bodies, the Creature is still a body marked by desire. While Shelley's Frankenstein tries to construct a bitter parody of the Godwinian portrayal of the desires abjected ont0 and invested in the physicai body and physical interactions, it can suggest as mucn only throuqh the narratives of Safie and the Creature, two stories that, perhaps, revisit with an ixonic gaze the novel's twin pre- and post- Wollstonecraft Godwinian legacies. Xowever, through its aimost parasitic dependence on these same Godwinian narratological structcres and characters, Frankenstein becomes, like Safiets narrative, a cryptic feminist text that is haunted by Godwin's cornpassionate attempt to represent the multi-faceted life of the author of V i f Woman. Ultimately, a reading of Frankenstein with Godwin's works demonstrates that if the daughter's farnous novel desires to criticize the father's pre-Wollstonecraft writings, it can only do so by the father's textual resurrection in Memoirs of a feminist mother's voice. Thus, we might argue that through Frankenstein, which not only established Mary Shelley as an author in her own right but also remains her "signaturetf work, Shelley was finally able to occupy the intellectual path that Godwin had already ernbarked upon with his publication of Memoirs: the project of trying to articulate a feminist voice through the textual resuscitation of the rnother. Conclusion "An eternal mental union": Mathilda and the Circulation of Desire in Shelley's and Godwin's Writings

Although Mary Shelley sent the novella Mathilda (1819) to her father and literary agent William Godwin, he curiously refused either to return or to publish her manuscript. Only a letter to the daughter from a mutual friend, Maria Gisborne, indicates that Godwin's feelings towards Shelley's second work were strong but strangely mixed. While Godwin is reputed to have said that the pursuit and catastrophe which end the narrative are "the finest part of the whole novel," the sarne letter reports him finding the theme of father-daughter incestuous desire "disgusting and detestabie" (Jones 44). Significantly, Godwin's reaction to Percy Shelley's lyrical tragedy The Cenci (1820), written the same year as Mathilda, is not as vitriolic, although it too portrays parent-child incest. Unlike Mathilda, with its sensitive depiction of potential father-daughter love, The Cenci features an incest that Fs committed, albeit offstage. In addition, William St Clair's biography states that Godwin Xked The Cenci because it involved "individuals not abstractions" (453). Thus, while Percy's The Cenci was published with Godwin's approval, Mathilda was not published until Elizabeth Nitchie's edition in 1959. Godwin's censure of Mary's reference to incestuous desires in Mathilda, when juxtaposed with his tolerance for a more concrete inscription of this theme in the action of Percy's The Cenci, suggests that persona1 matters, pertaining to the private libidinal dynarnic between father and daughter, played a role in his suppression of her text. Clearly, for both William Godwin and Mary Shelley, the potential publication of Mathilda had implications beyond the simple matter of whether it was commercially and aesthetically viable for the Romantic literary market of 181 9- Overshadowed by Frankenstein (1818), Mathilda has until recently attracted little scholarly attention despite, as 1 have previously implied, its crucial role in Mary Shelley's lîterary individuation from the legacy of her parents.: Written as the narrator is dying, Mathilda is a tragic tale that both resembles Shelley's experiences and suggestively comments on the fate of Romantic women writers who express their own desires. As Mathilda recounts the death of her mother (Diana) in childbirth, the departure of ber father (whom she does not name), and her childhood spent rereading her father's last letter and worshipping his image, she sets the stage for the inevitable and yet innocent emotions of complete affection she feels for her father upon his return

The few early readings of Mathilda, notably those by William Veeder ("The Negative Oedipus" l986), Anne Mellor (Marv Shellev 1988), and Terrence Harpold ("'Did you get Mathilda from Papa?'" 1989), have not only renewed scholarly interest in Mary Shelley's novella, but have also, inadvertently, encouraged, through their own critical tendencies, an analysis of only those segments of the narrative that parallel certain biographical details of Shelley's life. Thus, while Katherine C. Hill- Miller's chapter on Mathilda in her 1995 study "My Hideous Proaenv" : Marv Shellev. William Godwin. and the Father-Dauahter Relationshi~contributes significantly to our understanding of the familial and historical subtext of Mathilda, Hill-Miller's reading, ultimately, provides little insight into the relationship between the novella's aesthetics and the cultural context of its production. Recent readings have considered the connections among the novella's form, content and textual history in suggestive and illuminating ways. See especially the readings of Mathilda by Tilottama Rajan ("Mary Shelley's Mathilda" 1994), Kerry McKeever ("Naming the Daughter's Suffering" 1996), Margaret Davenport Garrett ("Writing and Re-writing Incest in Mary Shelley's Mathilda" 1996), and Rosaria Champagne (The Politics of Silrvivorshi~1996). sixteen years later. Mathilda's autobiography dwells on this long-awaited reunion and the subsequent period of shared happiness, which is rudely shattered by the father's confession of his incestuous desire and the daughter's recognition of and revulsion toward her desires. Her father's suicide and her own consequent melancholia prompt Mathilda not only to flee society in shame, but also, in her grief, to write her "tragic history" (MA 175). This "history" is addressed to the sympathetic Shelleyan poet Woodville, who encourages Mathilda to find hâppiness in her solitude. Because of the overwhelming resemblance of this plot to Mary Shelley's own experiences, Mathilda has suffered from a history of readings embedded in the biographicai space of the Godwin/Shelley family circle. Indeed, Mathilda's reception has been predetermined by Godwin ' s autobiographical reading of the text . Domna C. Stanton in "Autogynography: 1s the Subject Different?" notes that the "autobiographical Lis] wielded as a weapon to denigrate female texts and exclude them from the canon1' (4). It is often the case that work by "minor" writers, such as women, is read autobiographically, especially when the theme is one of possible sexual violence. Though Mathilda is an intensely persona1 work, if read fictionally it is also a severe critique of the period's figurations of incest as the ultimate literary expression of creative fulfilrnent for male Romantic poets.' Mathilda portrays this Romantic preoccupation with the pursuit of subjectivity, often

While most Romantic male writers portray either symbolic or psychological forms of brother-sister incest--as in Percy Shelley's Laon and Cvthna (1817) and Byron's Manfred (1817)--in The Cenci (1820) Percy Shelley depicts parent-child incest, specifically the horrifying ramifications of a father's sexual abuse of his daughter. depicted as an incestuous relationship, from the perspective of the fernale writer. While the fictional character Mâthilda writes about her experience of incestuous love, the author Mary Shelley writes the novella Mathilda using incest as a trope, as Percy Shelley had done in his lyrical tragedy The Cenci. By depersonalizing Godwin's reaction to the novella, we can reconsider its theme of incest as a trope within the larger Romantic literary tradition. If, as 1 suggested in the last chapter, Franke~steinLs Shelley's cryptic feminist text, her second work, Mathilda, attempts to emerge from the crypt of the male Rornantic ego to criticize its deployment of fernale figures. For with Mathilda, we return to the libidinally complex territory of Godwin's rendition of Shelley's mother's death in Memoirs (1798), and especially to the effect of this death on the relationship of the surviving father and daughter. Particularly because of the similarities between Mary Shelley's experiences and those that she depicts in the brief narrative of Mathilda's mother's premature death in childbirth, Mathilda has been considered an intensely autobiographical work. However, it is precisely this brief episode of Diana's premature death that resembles not so much Shelley's mernories as Godwin's Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft. Although Godwin's historical narrative of Shelley's mother in Mernoirs provides a detailed history of Wollstonecraft prior to her marriage and death, and Mathilda presents only a few such details about Diana, Shelley's text is striking for the way it recalls, even at the level of diction, the most salient features of the Godwin- Wollstonecraft relationship. For Diana's and Mathilda's father's early friendship is characterized as "a passion that had grown with his growthtt(m U8), a sexually suggestive description that is reminiscent of Godwin's portrayal of his relationship with Wollstonecraft in Memoirs: "It was friendship melting into love. . . . 1 had never loved till now; or, at least, had never nourished a passion to the same growth, or met with an object so consummately worthy" (Memoirs 258). The repetition of words ("passion" and "growth") alone is highly suggestive of the intertextual influence of Kemoirs on Mathilda. Moreover, Diana is depicted both as Mathilda's father's "monitress," and as a woman who is adored more for "her superior wisdom" than for "her beauty,' two descriptions that aptly capture Godwin's view of Wollstonecraft in Memoirs.' That Diana and Mathilda's father keep their wedding a secret £rom their friends, as did Godwin and Wollstonecraft, further alludes to the rhetorical and structural similarities between Memoirs and Mathilda. In this sense, Mathilda recalls Frankenstein in its inheritance of Godwinian narrative f orms . As the last chapter demonstrated, a close reading of Frankenstein exposes its debt to Caleb Williams (1794), both in narratological and characterological structures, Similarly, an analysis of Shelley's second novella reveals some of the discursive features of Godwin's eariy work, particularly his textual construction of Mary Wollstonecraft in Memoirs. If Frankenstein functions more as a testing ground for pre- and post-Wollstonecraft Godwinian ideas, and, therefore, partially enables Shelley to find her own voice, Mathilda inherits the post-Wollstonecraft Godwinian struggle to articulate a feminist position frorn within the pre-Wollstonecraft Godwinian world (that is, a hornoerotic

Godwin, too, describes Wollstonecraft as a woman of "superior" intellect (Mernoirs 272). universe unaware of or not able to reconcile itself with the libidinal dynamics that nevertneless circulate through its own economy). As a result, one can argue that while Mathilda implicitly criticizes the "patriarchal" father from the daughter's perspective, the text does so by confronting the erotic dimensions of father-daughter relationships, especially in a world devoid of mothers. Mathilda is not the only text in Shelley's vast corpus that focuses on father-daughter emotional incest. Both Shelley's Lodore (1835) and her last novel Falkner (1837) return to the issue of father-daughter incestuous emotions through portrayals of symbolic father-daughter intimacy. Falkner is a particularly significant return to the terrain of parent-child ernotional incest since Elizabeth Raby is able to maintain an affectionate relationship both with her father, Rupert Falkner, and her lover, Gerard Neville. Indeed, precisely because Falkner adopts Elizabeth as an infant, and is, therefore, not biologically related to her, the novel can explore the fervent and passionate bond that can exist between fathers and daughters. While the spectre of incest haunts Shelley's novel, it neither prevents Elizabeth's pursuit of her chosen suitor (Gerard Neville) nor forecloses her relationship with her father. Thus, Falkner appears to offer a tenuous closure, albeit through a sentimental "happy" ending, to Shelley's literary exploration of father-daughter relationships. Moreover, that Falkner was composed while Shelley was nursing Godwin in his final days, was completed shortly after his death, and became the last work of fiction Shelley wrote in her long writing career suggestively points to the role Godwin, both as father and notable writer, played in Shelley's life. Shelley's short tale "The Moumer" (1829) also deserves closer scrutiny in any study of Shelley's depiction of father-daughter emotional incest . For "The Mourner" may be read as a crucial rewriting of the then unpublished Mathilda. "The Mourner" focuses on the ramifications of the affectionate relationship between Lord Eversham, a young widower, and his daughter Clarice. When an accident ac sea takes her father's life, Clarice not only feels guilty about her father's death but is also "accused of having destroyed her parent" ("The Mourner" 94) . Clarice, like Mathilda, becomes a recluse, and then changes her name to Ellen Burnet. Clarice's lover Lewis Elmore searches for her only to discover frcm her new young friend, Horace Neville, that she has died from the misery of believing that she has killed her father. Altnough "The Mourner" does not portray incestuous father-daughter desires as in Mathilda, this short tale of "parricide" can be read intertextually with Shelley's novella to suggest as much. Lord Eversham's history is remarkably similar to that of Mathilda's fa-ther: both leave their baby daughters after the premature death of their wives, and their return years later inspires passionate filial devotion in both their daughters. Significantly, the father's death at sea is the climactic moment in both Mathilda's and Clarice's life. That "The Mourner" repeats the narrative of a father's death by drowning, a death that is foreshadowed by Mathilda's dream but not considered by Clarice prior to its occurrence, suggests that Mathilda's fear that others may "read . . . [her] father's guilt in . . . [her] glazed eyes" (Me 216) is literalized unduly in Clarice's belief that she is, in fact, her father's murderer. Clarice considers herself a parricide as do the other survivors despite the accidental nature of Lord Eversham's death. As the fire destroys their ship and they await the rescue boats, Clarice is described as one who "clung to her father, and refused to go till he should accompany her" ("The Mourner" 93). Because there is not enough room for everyone, Clarice, who has to be forcibly separated from her fathex and put on the rescue boat, is accused of wanting to kill her father. And in the next instance when the surviving passengers in the rescue boat watch, along with Clarice, as the father drowns, she is immediately accused of having caused her father's death. Clearly, this harsh indictment of Clarice's filial affections for her father is overdetermined given the narrative with which we are presented. We might then read this tale intertextually with the unpublisned Mathilda as the published acknowledgment of the pu~ishmentthat Mathilda feels she deserves for her secret crime of desiring the father's death. A story ostensibly about a daughter's guilt over patricide, "The Mourner" also encapsulates some of the key ideas explored by Godwin in Deloraine (18331, which itself is a significant reworking of and response to Mathilda from the father's perspective. Indeed, Shelley's Mathilda, like Godwin ' s Memoirs, resonates in particularly cornplex ways for both the father's and daughter's domestic novels written after 1819. In fact, Falkner, which is Shelley's last fictional work, not only revisits the theme of father- daughter guilt and passion developed in Mathilda and "The Mourner," but also responds to Godwin's portrayal of father- daughter relationships in Deloraine. Deloraine rewrites not only Mathilda, but, as 1 have discussed in Chapter One of this study, also Memoirs, especially the relationship of Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. This chapter, then, through a focus on the libidinal dynamics of Mathilda's fictional narration (a tale of father-daughter incest), narrative production (a novella that returns to scenes in piemoirs), familial transmission (a text sent to and suppressed by Godwin), and subsequent textual dissernination (a ~ovella revisited by both Shelley and Godwin) returns my discussion of the libidinal economy in Godwin's and Shelley's writings to the aiscursive figure of the rnother in Mernoirs: Mary Wollstonecraft. In lieu of a definitive conclusion to this study of the circulation of desire in the Godwin/Shelley farnily, this chapter sketches out another trajectory of desire that is, nevertheless, irnbricated in the textual circuit 1 have traced thus far in the previous chapters. For my readings of Godwin's Memoirs, Fleetwood, and Caleb William3 followed by Shelley's Frankenstein map out the complicated influence of pre- and post-Wollstonecraft Godwinian ideologies on Shelley's writings in a way that suggests the direction that Mathilda will trace. Because Mathilda stimulates new textual appraisals of father-daughter intimacy in the form of Shelley's later works ("The Mourner," and Falkner) and Godwin's last novel (Deloraine), Mathiida functions structurally like Godwin's Mernoirs. In other words, from the perspective of the Godwin/Shelley libidinal econorny, Mathilda, like Memoirs, is a particularly rich text that produces, as well as reproduces, Godwinian paternal desires for both the daughter and the absent rnother. In reconsidering Shelley's use of the Romantic incest trope, we need to recall Anne Mellor's insightful analysis of women in a patriarchal, heterosexist society. For Mellor reminds us that women are forever cast into the role of daughter even in their marriages: "[plrocreation thus gives life, not to the future, but only to the past. When the child-bride's daughter is also her sister and peer, significant generational and psychological development becomes impossible" (Marv Shellev 200). In this model, women are never allowed to grow up; they are permanently infantilized in the service of the Father's Law both literally, in their exclusion from structures of power, and symbolically, in their relations with men. in Re~roduction of Motherinq, Nancy Chodorow argues that a woman never really separates from her mother and as a result can only resolve her relationship to her through one with her own daughter. The young girl receives her rnother's sense of feeling inadequate as a woman in a patriarchal culture, and is, therefore, not encouraged, as is her brother, to be an autonomous self. Mellor's concept, then, may be regarded as a reproduction of daughtering in which the adult woman, even through her relationship with her own daughter, is incapable of solving her conflictual relation with her mother. Both models have negative connotations for women: in the reproduction of mothering, as we saw in my discussion of Caroline Beaufort's education of Elizabeth Lavenza in Frankenstein, the woman solves her psychic conflict with her own mother, but reproduces this tension for her daughter; in the reproduction of daughtering, neither tension is solved-- it is a static systern. One can suggest that for the essentially motherless Mary Shelley, the way to restore her subjectivity and separate herself from the memory of an absent/dead mother was not to identify with the mother, for this would mean her own death, but to write her w'selfw in fiction. 1 argue that tc create an identity through the act of writing was for Shelley her act of mothering herself. Moreover, Shelley's Mathilda portrays a fictional, motherless daughter who also needs to write her own story. Mathilda writes her "tragic history" for Woodville in the hopes that he will not "toss these pages lightly over," as she expects others will (m 176). By constructing a fiction of the "self" in autobiography, both the fictional autobiographer Mathilda and the writer of fictional autobiography Shelley "mother" themselves in a world without mothers that has inherited the legacies of fathers. Furthermore, this act of self- creation, unlike Victor Frankenstein's grotesque private asexual production, is not meant to be a horrible secret. In fact, although Shelley's initial audience (her father, husband and friends) was located in a more private domain, her intention to publish Mathilda expresses her desire to address a wider readership. As Shelley hoped to circulate her narrative, so, too, does her narrator declare that she "shall relate . . . [herj tale therefore as if . . . [she] wrote for strangers" (m 176) . Hence, despite its foundation in personal, private experiences, Mathilda addresses a literary reading public through its enactment as narrative. In textualizing the act of writing about desire --both Mathilda's desire to record her sufferings and Shelley's to narrate those of a motherless female writer-- the novella thus destroys the gendered social boundary instituted to regulate desire, masking it as the family structure in the private realm, and juridical authority in the public realm.' The writing of Mathilda; the reciting of the text to Percy Shelley, the Williamses, and the Gisbornes; the circulation of the manuscript from Mary Shelley via Maria Gisborne to Godwin; the novella's explicit content of desire--al1 occupy significant positions within the circulation of libidinal energy. However, it is Mary Shelley's socially constructed symbolic position as daughter within this circulating system that needs to be

By juridical authority, I am referring to the social imperatives that control the expression of sexuality and desire such as the various legal institutions, as well as the Lacanian notion of the Father's Law. investigated. In discussing the relevance of Shelley's incest trope in Mathilda, it is necessary to reconsider both the function and the desires of the daughter within the libidinal economy. Two of the more powerful discourses attempting to explain the circuitous path of desire are Freuaian psychoanalysis (and Jacques Lacan's elaboration of Freudian theory within the linguistic register) and the structural anthropoiogy of Lévi-Strauss. My specific focus is on Freud's Oedipus complex and Lévi-Strauss's kinship structures. These two models overlap in their discussion of the incest taboo, which is always articulated as the prohibition of the son's desire for the mother. Like Gayle Rubin in her analysis of the use and exchange of women, 1 do not intend to recover these two models for a feminist project but to uncover the complex, oppressive subservience of women that these models require. In both Freud's and Lévi-Strauss's traditional theories of desire, 1 am particularly interested in the position of the daughter: her perspective on ner desire and the possibility of her aqency through resistance. How does the daughter's articulation of her desire, the restriction of which is the cornerstone of these two models, effectively deconstruct the patriarchal, hierarchical, heterosexist structure of both the bourgeois family and capitalist society? With respect to my discussion of Mathilda, 1 want to consider how the daughter's textualization of her desire disrupts the libidinal economy to the point that Godwin refuses to publish or return Shelley's manuscript. Beginning with Lévi-Strauss's theory of kinship structures, it is significant that the prohibition of the incestuous desires of the son for his mother Fs instituted to regulate an exogamous exchange of women in the form of daughters. This is done so as to extend social alliances between families. The father is the possessor of the daughter-as-goods whom he exchanges as a gift with anotner man for the purchase of a son, who in turn possesses this daughter as a wife. Women have no subjectivity in this system except as they occupy the economic role of daughter. As mothers, they are rnerely vessels of procreation, devoid of desire. As daughters, their desire is explicitly guided by the hand of the father towards profitable excnanges. As Luce Irigaray explains in This Sex Which 1s Not One, the transaction of women as commodities in society functions to rnaintain men's homoerotic relations under patriarchy: "This means that the very possibility of a sociocul tural order requires homosexuality as its organizing principle" (Irigaray, This Sex 192) . Furtherrnore, Foucaultts description of the family as the site for "the interchange of sexuality and alliance: it conveys the law and the juridical dimension in the deployment of sexuality, " reveals that the repression of desire and its "proper" channelling are in the hands of the authoritative father figure (The Historv of Sexualitv 108). In other words, the Father's Law can be instituted only by creating and then suppressing desire. The incest taboo acknowledges desire and then redirects it through the power of the Father/the Law towards heterosexual exogamous relations in which women as daughters become the signifiedfigure of exchange. The implications of this for a reading aimed at discovering the role of the woman in society strongly suggests that the father's desire towards his daughter is tacitly encouraged, since his desire for her becomes part of the index of her exchange-value in the libidinal economy. Although in both Shelley's and Godwin's works there are portrayals of daughters oppressed, inadvertently, by seemingly loving fathers, Shelley's fictional daughters süffer from guilty feelings of patricide and Godwin's fictional daughters suffer from the repercussions of theix criticisms of their benevolent, but patriarchal, fathers. Mary Macneil in Godwin's novel, for example, is transferred from her father to Fleetwood in response to the latter's request "Will you give me one of youx daughters?" (a168). However, Mr. Macneil insists that Fleetwood shall "win . . . [one of his daughter's] partiality ând kindness" (a169) . As I have discusseci in the previous chapters, Mary Fleetwood is far from being a passive cornmodity of homoerotic exchange: after the death of her family, she decides to mourn for her loss for a significant period of time before accepting Fleetwood's proposal. Alrnost indistinguishable in terms of beauty and position from Mary Fleetwood, Godwin's Margaret Deloraine is also forced to consent to her father's choice of a groom. In order to reestablish the çlory of the house of Borradale, Margaret's father Maurice agrees to marry his daughter to Lord Borradale's son. However, in her desire to satisfy her father, Margaret's dedication to filial duty surfaces on her body as signs of physical exhaustion. Neither the daughter nor the father discusses her physical deterioration: She assured her father that she was perfectly well. The old man, fixed to his purpose, and willing to deceive hirnself, was easily satisfied. He kissed her parched and burning lips, and almost believed that what he found there was the genial glow of health; he felt the cold, clamminess of her palm, and thought the skin was elastic and dry. He said to himself. She must know the state of health better than I do; and she assures me sne is well. (m71) Indeed, Margaret sacrifices herself on the altar of patriarchal homoerotic exchange. However, unlike Shelley's Mathilda who cannot be saved by the sympathetic Woodville, and who thus dies of a "rapid consamption" (MA 243) because of her grief and guilt over her father's death, Margaret is released from ber father's blindness by the intervention of her mother. In nis narrative, Deloraine reminds the reader that he "has already . . . mentioned" that Margaret's mother "was a weak woman" (DE 71) . Nevertheless, this "weak" mother not only prevents the expected marriage between Margaret and Lord Borradalels son, but is also given the most explicit iines concerning the libidinal dynamics of father-daughter relationships: Old man, old man, what will you do without your daughter? You have been accustomed to see her every day: when / [sic] you do not see her, you think of her. What will you do with your nobility, if you have none to inherit it after you? Will you give your daughter in exchange for it? You may indeed piace a coronet on her coffin. You may bury her in the sepuichre of the Borradales. Will that be a sufficient equivalent, and satisfy you for cutting off the thread of her life? (DE 75) That in his last novel Godwin depicts a mother, however weak, who is capable of risinq to the occasion to criticize and prevent the abuses of paternal desires suggests that he was reworking at least two other eârlier novels. First, Godwin's recognition of the underlying oppressive structure of hornoerotic relations cemented through the exchange of a female comrnodity acts as a textual response to his pre- Wollstonecraft rendition of the tragic and premature death of Emily Melville as the result of the rivalry between Falkland and Tyrrel in Caleb Williamg.' Second, by

' Moreover, it is clear in the third volume of Godwin's last novel in which Deloraine is hunted throughout Europe for his crimes, and has to resort to numerous ploys to avoid being caught, like adopting various disguises, that Godwin is returning depicting a daughter who is rescued from a father's selfish desires by her mother, Deloraine tacitly acknowledges that Mathilda "record[s] no crimes" and that the motive behind both Mathilda's narrative and implicitly Shelley's novella "proceeded not from evil . . . but from want of judgement" (MA 176). Godwin's narrative of Deloraine's awareness both of his and Borradaiegs cruelty to Margaret functions, therefore, as a textual supplement to Mathilda's "want of judgernent" by providing the voice of the mother, From the perspective cf Godwin's post-Wollstonecraft fictional fathers, then, it appears to be the rnother's absence that circumscribes the father's relationship to the daughter. Shelley's works, however, explore the ramifications of the absent mother not so much on the father as on the daughter. While Godwin's Fleetwood and Deloraine centre on the inherent problems of powerful husbands and implicitly weak, daughter-like wives, Shelley's Mathilda, "The Mourner, " and Falkner focus on the libidinal dynamics of emotionally vulnerable fathers and obedient daughters, Hence, the spectre of incest arises in each of these three works. To return to our theories of desire, it is clear that paternal incestuous desires are invited but not acted upon in a homoerotic systern of exchanging women. For in Freud's theories, within the farnily, endogamous desire is regulated through the Oedipal cornplex. The prohibition against incest is once again the repression of the son's desire for the mother. Both the little boy and the little girl have to separate from their mother through a connection with the father in order to enter the symbolic order. The little boy can do this through an identification with his father, which to the world of fearful pursuit, mistaken identity, and vindication that he so rnasterfully created in Caleb Williams. is therefore similar to the homoerotic structure of his later relations with men. The little girl can achieve this separation only through a desire for her father, which must be subsequently transferred ont0 other men. Hence, the little girl is encouraged and expected to express toward the parent of the opposite sex (her father) the very same incestuous desire that her brother is prohibited from expressing towards his parent of the opposite sex (his mother). Undoubtedly, as Gayle Rubin explains, "for the boy, the taboo on incest is a taboo on certain women. For the girl, it is a taboo on al: women" (193) . Consequently, as Madelon Sprengnether notes, far from being a complementary system, the Oedipal cornplex is a "screen for the exchange of women and for fathor-daughter incest" (521) . The complex does not empower the mother to prevent father- daughter incest, nor does it provide a valid justification for the daughter's need to change her love object from the mother to the father to a future lover or husband. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that because the daughter leaves the familial unit in a system of exchange, she has not already become damaged qoods, that is, a victim of her father's incestuous desires. The Father's Law is erected precisely so that the father will not desire his own daughter, whom he must exchange in exogamous relations, and so that he may maintain relations with other men through the use of his daughter as a conduit for this homoerotic connection. To this end, the incest taboo regulates female desire. The taboo "imposes the social aim of exogamy and alliance upon the biological events of sex and procreation" (Rubin 173) , and 1 would add, desire. The incest taboo clearly dernarcates the path of desire by distinguishing, in Rubin's terms, between "permitted and prohibited sexual partners" (173) . Prior to the incest taboo in these theoretical articulations, there is the more ancient taboo against homosexuality. Another purpose of this earlier taboo is to ensure the exchange of women by redixecting the son's desire away from the father and toward the mother, Although this desire for the mother is also prohibited, it must be tacitly encouraged in order to channel the son's desires for a heterosexual economy of female exchange. Because the son cannot desire the father within a heterosexual economy, the son must transfer his desire to what the father possesses, namely the mother, To have what the father has is to be the Father, From a feminist perspective, however, the taboo against homosexuality plays its dominant role in protecting its most valuable rnerchandiss: the daughter. For the daughter to desire the mother is a threat to the father. Not only does this desire for the mother, transferred to other women in the adult woman's life, threaten the father's position as the subject of the exchange of women, it cornpetes with the father's singular possession of the mother. Thus, the daughter's lesbianism threatens the heterosexual economy upon which the Father's power is based, In light of these two models, Mathilda can be read as a novella in which the daughter disrupts the traditional flow of desire described by Lévi-Strauss and Freud. The novella's structure of death, desire, and abandonment operates around gender lines since the men (Mathilda's father and Woodville) exit the narrative in the middle-- within the symbolic order --whereas the novella opens and closes with the death of women (Mathilda's rnother and Mathilda), In a curious twist of the exchange and departure of women within the libidinal economy, men are to a certain degree exchanged--after rejecting the desires of her father, Mathilda yearns "for one friend to love" her (MA 222)--while the daughter manages to maintain a sym~olicconnection with her mother, aibeit through death- AS well, in Mathilda's tale the pattern of the daughter's desire from father to lover is directed by the daughter, not by the Father's law. Although the father, in desiring his daughter and warding off a potential lover, delays her entrance into the economy of exchange, his incestuous attentions are rejected by the daughter. This rejection insures the father's death and the end of his control over the daughter's desires, which aflows Mathilda to meet Woodville on her terms, not her father's. Even the presentatioc of Mathilda's confessional tale registers the power of the daughter within the symbolic order, and alludes to the struggles of a literary daughter with her father's textual legacies. For it is significant that the first chapter focuses on the childhood, courtship, marriage, and relationship of Mathilda's parents. This introductory chapter ends with the death of the mother in giving birth to the narrator and the departure of the narrator's grieving father. In an insightful discussion of the Kristevan "narcissistic structures" of Mathilda's relationship with her father, Kerry McKeever in "Naming the Daughter's Sufiering: Melancholia in Mary Shelley's Mathilda" notes that the second chapter of Shelley's novella begins with the lines, "1 now come to my own story" (MA 152), "as if the material related in Chapter 1, her parents' histories, were not part of her story" (McKeever 193). Indeed, in these £irst few pages, the fictional character Mathilda rewrites from the daughter's perspective Godwin's rendition of these same events in his Memoirs, such that the first chapter of Mathilda asks to be read in the context of Godwin's published recollections of Wollstonecraft. For Mathilda's debt to this transitional pre- and post- Wollstonecraf t Godwinian text is unrnistakable. In fact, Shelley's novella opens with a curious detail that appears to have no particular relevance in the narrative plot: "It is only four o'clock; but it is winter and the stin has already set" (Me 175). The significance of such a specific demarcation of time as "four o'clock" is only clear if we recall the precision with which Godwin recorded the death of Mary Wollstonecraft both in his daily journal and in Memoirs: The journal describes Wollstonecraft's demise as "20 minutes before 8" followed by three straight lines (Cameron 196 and Plate VIII), and Memoirs states that "She expired at twenty minutes before eight" (271).' That the f ictional character Mathilda echoes Godwin ' s factual description of Wollstonecraft's death suggests not so much a bond between Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft, as between the discursive figuration of "Mary Shelley" through Mathilda and Godwin's autobiographical construction of Wollstonecraft in Memoirs. In other words, the opening lines of Matnilda situate Shelley's second work, like her first novel, as a textual response to a father's depiction of the loss of a wife and mother. As Frankenstein foregrounds certain narrative structures and characters drawn from Godwin's Caleb Williams, Mathilda rewrites specific details included in Godwin's Memoirs. Moreover, as if to justify this endeavour, the narrator Mathilda claims "1 record no crimes; my faults may easily be pardoned; for they proceeded not from evil motive but from want of judgement" (MA 176). That Godwin's last novel Deloraine opens with an acknowledgement of the fictional father's crimes of passion and also

See footnote 15 in Chapter One for an explanation of the importance of the three straight lines. functions as a response to Mathilda's justification (insofar as the diction is remarkably similar to Mathilda) suggests that Godwin recognized al1 too well Shelley' s narrative critique of his rendition in Memoirs of the family's prima1 scene.- And this textuai criticism is best iilustrated by Mathilda's reworking of the portrayal of her parents, whose experiences not only echo Godwin's depiction of his relationship with Mary Wollstonecraft in Memoirs, but also contribute to Godwin's portrait of Deloraine's marriage to mi lia.' Mathilda, then, is a novella of subversion precisoly because the daughter inserts ner own voice into the family's textual history. Whereas Shelley's critique of Godwin does not surface completely in Frankenstein, making this f irst novel a cryptic feminist reply to a literary father, Mathilda confronts the father's narrative of familial loss by disrupting the story offered by Godwin. To begin with, although Mathilda's mother is namea, her father is not, From a Lacanian perspective, this nameless father is the abstract concept of a father: he is the Father, tne Law that attempts to preserve the patriarchal order. However, if we read this gesture intertextually with Memoirs, we might also argue that Mathilda's erasure of the father's name (and this includes her refusal to provide either her own surname or her mother's maiden name) effectively disfigures what

' In Deloraine, the eponymous narrator worries that "the next hour may render me up to the vengeance that my crimes have so amply deserved" (8). Furthermore, Deloraine states that "1 have sat down with a determination to record the fortunes of my life; and the task shall be performed" (DE 8).

See Chapter One for a detailed discussion of the influence of Godwin's Memoirs on his later domestic novels. otherwise might have been read as the historical Godwin.' The biographical father figure of Shelley's novella is textualized through the operation of Mathilda's desires in a process akin to Godwin's transposition of Wollstonecraft from historical existence to discursive construction. Indeed, the nameless father's presence as a textual figure is foregrounded by Mathilda's description of her obsession with her father's miniature portrait and his last letter. Mathilda explains, I clung to the mernory of rny parents; my mother 1 snould never see, she was dead: but the idea of [my] [sic] unhappy, wandering father was the id01 of my imagination. 1 bestowed on him al1 my affections; there was a miniature of him that I gazed on continually; 1 copied his last letter and read it again and again. Sometimes it made me weep; and at others I repeated with transport those words, --"One day 1 may daim her at your hands." (MA 185) An "id01 of . . . [her] imaginâtion," Mathilda's father becomes a paternal fetish of her desire to cherish the ''memory of . . . [her] parents. " As if to respond to Shelley's depiction of Mathilda's fetishization of her father's image, Godwin's last novel Deloraine portrays the value of such an operation. Shortly after the birtn of

Whereas Katherine C, Hill-Miller claims that "William in is clearly the mode1 for Mathilda's unnamed father" (105 1 am suggesting that Shelley's biographical reference is complicated by its embedded position in the fictional Mathilaa's autobiography. For Mathilda's unnamed father recalls the discursive figures of affectionate and sympathetic fathers that Godwin often portrayed in his novels from Hawkins in Caleb Williams to Ambrose Fleetwood, Ruffigny, and Mr. Macneil in Fleetwood to, perhaps, the image of Godwin himself that he constructs in Memoirs. Although Margaret Davenport Garrett recognizes that the "youthful, romantic father" in Mathilda is portrayed in a way that makes it "impossible for us simply to read hirn as Godwin, " she concludes that " [t]his father, in fact, appears to be much more like Percy Shelley" (51). Catherine, Deloraine persuades his first wife Emilia to travel the continent with him and, therefore, to leave their one-year-old baby girl at nome. Although Emilia is described as loving her child "scarcely less than her husband" (DE 24), she appears to have no difficulty in accepting her husband's proposal. Indeed, the narrative seems contrived at this point, as if Godwin r2quired some plot devico to focus on what follows, nûmely the infant's relationship with a portrait of the mother. Significantly, the baby is left with Emiiia's close friend, Mrs. Catnerine Fanshaw. Not only is the infant Catherine named sfter Emilia's friend, but the baby's understanding of her mother is also constructed by this friend who closely regulates Catherine's interaction with a vivid portrait of Emilia. The one-year-old Catherine is taken to see the painting, which was "placed in a select and retired opartment," once a day "at well chosen periods" (DE 26): To see the picture was treated as a regale and a reward. Further than this, the picture was so placed that it could not be viewed but at a certain distance. Emilia's friend told the child that that was its mother, and when the child was able to speak, the first articulate sound she uttered, as she saw the picture, or thought of the picture, was Mamrna! Her guardian knew that that which is immoveably in one position a child soon learns to separate from the idea of life, and passes by with carelessness / [sic] and indifference, Mrs. Fanshaw devised a remedy for this. A curtain was spread before the recess in which the portrait was placed; and this curtain was drawn back with a certain degree of ceremony. Means wexe contrived that the portrait should be viewed through an optical delusion [sic], sometirnes through a magnifying medium, and sometimes looking as if it were a miniature. The picture grew into a sort of amusement; and the child and her protector went to play at marnrna. . . . In quitting the scene, the child was taught to kneel, and join its little hands as in the attitude of supplication . . . as if she had been engaged in a ceremonial of a religious sort. (DE 26) An odd gothic scene tnat recalls Fleetwood~sexperiences with wax effigies of his wife and her supposed lover, Godwin's detailed description of the various devices used to bring, as it were, the portrait to life, exceed the requirements of the plot and, thus, suggest an intertextual response to another such scene, possibly Mathilda's libidinal investment in her father's miniature. This brief episode in a novel that otherwise does not depict any significant mother-daughter reiationships begs to be considered in light of the father-daughter relationships that predominate in both Shelley's and Godwin's works. While one might read Catherine's first word "Mamma" as an alternative entrance into a symbolic order ruled not by the overwhelming image and memory of an absent father, as in Mathilda, but by the larger than life figure of an absent, idealized mother, because Deloraine does nothing more with the Catherine and Emilia relationship, this interpretation remains merely a suggestive alternative history, not unlike the figure of Safie in Frankenstein who embodies the possibility of another story of fernale desire. Like Frankenstein's Creature who copies the letters of Safie to Felix as part of his self-education, Mathilda's act of copying her father's last letter and uttering his words is part of her process of education, that is, of entering the symbolic world of the father by occupying his words.lc

lC Mathilda's statement that "disguised like a boy . . . [she] would seek . . . [her] father through the world" (MA 185) also reinforces my point that Mathilda desires to occupy the father's position of privilege in the symbolic order. Earlier in this passage, Mathilda identifies with the situation of three literary characters: Shakespeare's Rosalind and Miranda, and If Godwin's auto/ biographical tribute to Wollstonecraft çupplants her voice with his, Shelley's narrative of Mathilda's fictional autobiography displaces the father's voice with the daughter's. Hence, the desires of both the grieving Mathilda and Godwin to capture the memory of a beloved family member result in the construction not of an accurate representation, but rather of an ideal vision of the lost indiviuual. Because Mathilda also gazes on a miniature portrait of her father, her act of inhabiting the father's words Fs not merely imitative but transgressive. For the daughter's gaze Frnplies her active participation in the libidinal economy as she returns, in one sense, the Father's prerogative to gaze, and therefore elicits desire.'' Like Godwin's textual fetishization of his wife in Mernoirs and the brief episode of a similar act of fetishization of the mother in Deloraine, Mathilda's fictional father is an imaginary individual constructed by the vicissitudes of her desires, desires which enable this imaginary figure to occupy a symbolic presence in discourse. Thus, the rupture in Mathilda's narrative that is signified by the emergence of incestuous affections 1s confirmed by the gap between the narrative father who proclairns "My daughter, 1 love you!" (MA 201) and the imaginary father who utters Mathilda's desired words, "My daughter, 1 love thee!" (a183). In other words, Shelley's novella registers the

Milton's Lady in Cornus. That these three women symbolize either the realization of male power or the pain of female oppression further alludes to Mathilda's awareness of the importance of male entitlement in the symbolic order. While a woman's gaze does not serve the same function as the patriarch's gaze which both constructs and controls the other, the woman's returning gaze significantly restricts the power of the male gaze. tension between the literary daughter's idealized imaginary father and the inherited textual iegacy of Godwinian incestuous father-figures, such as Fleetwood in his marriage to the much younger Mary Macnei1.-=, - We should note, however, that incestuous and envious patriarchal males such as Fleetwood are not refiections of the authorial figure of Godwin, for Fleetwood surfaces in the post-Wollstonecraft Godwinian novels. Rather, Shelley's novella may be read as a criticism of tnese types of châracters who appear even in Godwin's post-Wollstonecraft phase for compiex reasons that I discuss in Chapter One of this study. Hence, the depiction of the mother in Mathilda becomes a crucial site for the implicit criticism of the exercise and effects of patriarchal power as they emerge not only in the pre-Wollstonecraft Godwinian Caleb Williams, but also in the self-consciously aware post-Wollstonecraft Godwinian Fleetwood. Significantly, this critique occurs through an adaptation of Godwin's portrayal of Mary Wollstonecraft in Memoirs. In Shelley's novella, Mathilda's mother is given the name Diana. We may recall that Diana, or Artemis in Greek mythology, is the virgin goddess of the hünt, the protector of the Young, and the patron of childbirth, nursing, and healing (Walker 233). The choice of tnis name implies that the mother in Mathilda, though a minor figure, is far from a passive vessel. That Mathilda's mother's name refers to the patron of childbirth alludes, of course, to Godwin's

l2 One might also argue that Mathilda's reveries of the "extatic" (MA 185) moment of her father's return in which he echoes her imagined words, but with a sexual connotation, indicate that the seeds of the seduction are already planted in her unconscious desires, encouraged by a patriarchal system in which the mother is always absent. memorable rendition in Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft as a parturient mother." Although Terence Harpold in "'Did you get Mathilda from Papa?': Seduction Fantasy and the Circulation of Mary Shelley's Mathiida" rightly characterizes the portrayal of Diana "as the object of the father's passion, with no independent initiative or interest" (53), there are tensions in the narrative with respect to the mother. She is described by the daughter as the one who had "tom the veil which had before kept [Mathilda's father] in his boyhood: he was becorne [sic] a man" (MA 179). The symbol of losing virginity through rupturing of the veil or hymen is explicitly applied to the father in this case. Furthermore, the narrator makes it quite clear that her mother was older than her father. In a society which condones the marriages of young women to older men, thus implying that the older, experienced man will sexually initiate his young wife, the reversal of this mode1 recalls the true power of the mother within the libidinal economy, for she is the "Other" whose desire the father wishes to satisfy. It is the "(M)Otherm who incites the father's desire to satisfy her desire, However, the narrative cannot restrain such materna1 power; consequently, she, too, is absented £rom the economy of desire as is the father's mother, and eventually his sister, who act as guardians to Mathilda. In a world with no female role models, no generational connection among women, the scene is set for Mathilda's seduction by her father.

" Significantly, unlike Godwin's depiction of Wollstonecraft's various pre-marital affairs, Shelley's portrayal of Diana emphasizes her chastity. Thus, one can read Mathilda's rendition of the mother as partly revisionary since it is precisely Wollstonecraft's unchaste past and Godwin's apparent acceptance of this in Memoirs that contributed to the defacement of both their reputations. However, this aescription of the experienced mother initiating the young father in the ways of passion is also reminiscent of Godwin's rendition of his affair with Mary Wollstonecraft. In Memoirs, Godwin describes his relationship with Shelley's mother as a new beginning: "1 had never loved till now; or, at least, had never nourished a passion to the same growth, or met with an object so consumrnately worthy" (Memoirs 258). The sexual implicatio~s of Godwin's passage are, thus, foregroundea in Mathilda's narrative of her parents. As Shelley's strategy in Frankenstein of magnifying through repetition the narrative structures of Caleb Williams serves to criticize the pre- Wollstonecraft Godwin's inability to acknowledge female desire, Shelley's depiction in Mathilda of a motherless woman writing the story that Godwin provides for public consumption in Memoirs highlights both the daughter's acceptance of this paternel narrative, and her need to construct and "own" this familial history. That this first chapter of Mathilda's tale ends in the abandonment of the baby girl not so much by the grieving father as by the beloved rnother further indicates that the portrayal of the fictional Diana is circumscribed by the discursive figure of Wollstonecraft that Shelley's text inherits from Godwin's Memoirs. In Mathilda's narrative, the death of her mother prompts her to locate her subjectivity in relation to the father, just as, we might argue, Mary Shelley attempts to construct her identity as a writer in relation to the legacy of Godwin's works. Mathilda accomplishes this task, however, nor by separating from her mother and becoming her father's possession as a daughter, but by occupying the place of the mother and becoming his possession as a lover. This reading implies that the motherfs absence converts Mathilda's primal scene, her site of origin, into a seduction scene ât the hands of her father. Terrence Harpold points out that the abstraction of the seduction fantasy over the entire novel signals its function as a primal fantasy: every character in the novel is an accomplice to the seduction, because every position in the fantasy is cathected by the daughter who records it. (56) Thus, the timely deaths of Mathilda's grandmother, mother, and guardian al1 prepare for the seduction. Additionally, earlier in ner description of the father, Mathilda notes that while her father "earnestly occupied himself about the wants of others [sic] his own desires were gratified to their fullest extent" (MA 177). She makes the caveat that her father was not a selfish man but that his desires had not "been put in competition with those of others" (MA 177). Through these details the narrative prepares the reader for the seduction fantasy. Chapter Two contains the primal fantasy which is recast as a paternal seduction fantasy. Although Mathilda acknowledges the memory of her mother, her desire is to remember the father. Because of the literal death of the mother, Mathilda's libidinal energies are transferred ont0 a living father with whom she may be able to reunite. Hence, Mathilda copies her father's letter and gazes at his image. Mathilda's pronouncement in this section of her narrative that her mother "was dead" (MA 185) forecloses not only the possibility of actual reunion, but, more importantly, the possibility of syrnbolic reunion. If we concede that a female subject can desire instead of be desired within the symbolic order, then her desire within the psychoanalytic framework would be to replace the mother so as to becorne the object men desire, implicitly the object of the father's desire, However, for Mathilda to identify with ner mother is symbolically to assume her own death. To be in the place of the mother is to be dead: absent from the circulation of desire. Therefore, Mathilda transfers her desire ont0 her only surviving parent. However, there is s paradoxical desire to be associated still with the mother since the implications of Mathilda's desire for the father are that he will return home from his wanderings to her: she will be "his consoler, his companion" (MA 185) . The woman in psychoanalytic terms can never truly return to her origins because she is symbolically the origin: men can return to her, but if she herseif desires an origin it must be elsewhere. In this sense, Mathilda does identify with the figurative position of the mother: she desires to be the cornforter of the father, as she claims, "in after years" (MA 185); it never occurs to her that her father might return with a companion, or that ne may later desire one other than herself. Hence, the fantasy of a return to the origin is precisely that: a fantasy of one's desired site of origin. For Mathilda, although a return to the mother would constitute the primal fantasy, because her mother dies so soon after her birth, Mathilda recasts her primal fantasy into a reunion in the future with a father she has never known except textually, through his last letter,'' What Mathilda is actively searching for--desiring--is an existing originary connection from which she can later individuate. While Chapter Three describes Mathilda's "Paradisaical

'' Mathilda's seduction fantasy, then, may be interpreted as a displaced primal fantasy for the mother. Mathilda's desire to return to a pre-Oedipal stage of complete loving harmony with a parent, although she projects this desire into the future, is akin to the male Romantic poet's desired union with the mother. The Narrator's desire to penetratehnveil the Mother's "innermost sanctuary" in Percy Shelley's Flastor (1816) is one such example. bliss" (MA 189) with her father, it is apparent that she also views this reunion with her father as somehow similar to a pre-Oedipal stage, since she refers to herself as living "in an enchanted palace, amidst odours, and music, and every luxurious delight" (MA 190). Moreover, Mathilda mentions how "it was a subject of regret to . . . [her] whenever . . . [her father and she] were joined by a third person" (MA 190). It is striking that Mathilda views her father as a maternal-figure with whom she shares the first early pleasures of smells, sounds, and sensual delights, jealous of any intrusion by a third person into this imaginary union. However, Mathilda also views this reunion as an Edenic paradise of lover with beloved. She explicitly States that she "disobeyed no command . . . ate no apple, and yet . . . was ruthlessly driven f rom it" (MA 189) . The lack of early materna1 affection creates a palimpsest of mixed emotions in Mathilda: while she is always already oedipalised because of the absent mother and can tnerefore only consider the father as a lover, she also looks to the father as a mother and thus recreates the pre-Oedipal stage to compensate for the loss of a mother. Consequently, when the chapter closes with ber despair over the father's emotional distance from her, this separation is not her first entrance into the symbolic order but her conscious re- entrance or fa11 into a post-lapsarian world. Although the father and daughter share an early period of Edenic bliss, as in Milton's paradise, the evil is already present. In a curious bit of orientalisrn, the father's later incestuous desires are justified by his travels in India: lonely wanderings in a wild country among people of simple or savage manners may inure the body but will not tame the soul, or extinguish the ardour and freshness of feeling incident to youth, The burning Sun of India, and the freedom £rom al1 restraint had rather encreased [sic] the energy of his cnaracter: before he bowed under, now he was impatient of any censure except that of his own mind. (m188) Since being in India--away from "civilized society" (m 188)--has not sufficiently restrained the father's desires (os an internalization of the Eurocentric Father's Law would), his passion for his daughter is possible. While the daughter justifies her father's desires through an orientalized description of his travels abroad, the father justifies his by ail too clearly articülating what the patriarchal system of exchanging women encourages. In his confessional letter to Mathilda, the father explains how [t] he sight of this house, these fields and woods which my first love inhabited seems to have encreased [sic] . . . [my love for you] : in my madness I dared Say to myself--Diana died to give her birth; her mother's spirit was transferred into her frame, and she ought to be as Diana to me. (emphasis added) (MA 210) In explaining his motives for desiring the daughter, the father rationalizes his actions through a connection between Mathilda and her mother Diana. Specifically, his sense of the interchangeability of the two women implies that each woman is only a receptacle for his desires, a signifier of erotic pleasure in a libidinal economy based on the traffic of women. In giving birth to a daughter, Eiana gives birth to an erotic replacement of herself to service the desires of the father. This reproduction of dauqhters insures that the father's desires for an innocent younger woman will always be satisfied. It is significant that Dianafs last request to her husband before she dies is to make "her child happy" (a210). Although discussing the relationship of Shelley and Godwin, Harpold's analysis is apt: "The mother who commands the father to make their daughter 'happy' provides in fantasy the materna1 approval of oedipal succession" (55). Thus, the father in the narrative can view himself as the rival of the "young man of rank" (Mq 191), who begins to visit Mathilda. This competition discloses both the father's inadequacy to circulate desire "properly" within the libidinal economy and the flaws of a system that demands that men distinguish tneir own daughters from other women and yet consider all women âs sexual objects. As 1 have argued, the Law of the Father is instituted precisely to protect the father from acting on the desires he has encouraged in his daughter. The father's inability to protect himself from his desires exposes the gap between the Law which he represents and his own self in actual relations. The father is not all-powerful but has erected a Law to suggest otherwise. This is apparent in the actual scene of confession, in which Mathilda controls the situation, not the father, It is Mathilda who is determined to gain her fatherls confidence and thus know the reasons for his sudden coldness toward her. She directs the scene of desire, which reveals the devastating emotional toll of a social system in which mothers are absent, fathers must depend on daughter figures to satisfy their desires (since wives as süch do not exist), and daughters regard their fathers as their only "friend, . . . hope, . . . [and] snelter" (MA 199) . In such a patriarchal system, Mathilda has no choice but actively to seek her own desires if she wishes to recover her subjectivity, as evidenced by her need to reenact another prima1 fantasy with her father. For it is Mathilda who prompts the father to Say "Why do you bring me out, and torture me, and ternpt me, and kill me" (MA 200), implying that he is threatened Sy the possibility not only of being seduced by a daughter, but also of being replaced by her. Symbolically, Mathilda cornes tc occupy the position of the (male) child who wishes to replace the father in the new generation. In addition, the father's description of himself as being "struck by the Storm, rooted up, laid waste," in contrast to Mathilda, who "cm stand against it [for she is] . . . young" (m 200), points to the father's inability to redirect his desires outside of his family, and, thus, symbolically represents his social impotence, since he cannot uphold the Law. In other words, this imagery depicts the destruction of the father's "family tree" as it is "laid waste" by his incestuous desires. The father's confession of his incestuous desire ultimately exposes what his Law was meant to hide, namely that his power rests on encouraging his daughter's desire for hirn, not on being replaced by the daughter through her own desire. Without the presence of a strong female role mode1 or mother, the gap left by the father's collapse takes its toi1 on the daughter as well. Far from being a simple recognition of her own erotic desires for her father, Mathilda's despair and revulsion in hearing her father's confession manifests itself as a fear of the mother: [Flor the first time that phantom sêized me; the first and only tirne for it has never since left me--After the first moments of speechless agony 1 felt her fangs on rny heart: I tore my hair; 1 raved aloud; at one moment in pity for his sufferings 1 would have clasped my father in rny arms; and then starting back with horror 1 spurned him with my foot; 1 felt as if stung by a serpent, as if scourged by a whip of scorpions which drove me--Ah! Whither--Whither? (MA 202) A cursory reading of this scene may imply that for Mathilda, the phantom is the absent mother. It is the mother's "fangs," the mother as "serpent," that returns to punish Mathilda for attempting to replace the mother in the father's embrace. Harpold has suggested that "the absent mother may stiil punish her rival; indeed, the rival will share her mother's fate if she takes her mother's place-- she, too, will be subject to the fatal effect of the father's desire" (57). However, recalling tnat Mathilda transfers her desire for a return to the mother ont0 the father, 1 propose that in this instance Mathilda is once again transferring her libidinal energies. In this case, the horror of the father's incestuous desires is transferred to the mother. While the description is phallic, with the mother as serpent si~kingher fangs into Mathilda, it is not necessarily that of a phallic mother. Mathilda's early sensual pleasures with her father resurface here as a fear of rejection by the loving parent (the father in Mathilda's case). This anxiety of separation is manifested as a horror of the mother who, £rom the daughter's perspective, has abandoned her. Thus, the mother is imagined as devouring, ravishing and hungry, greedily sinking her "fangs" into the child instead of nourishing her. This projection of unwanted/ horrifying emotions onto the figure of the absent vampire-like mother is a defense mechanism geared to prevent the sexualization of what Mathilda has expsrienced as an innocent affectionate pre-Oedipal-like relationship with her father. Far from desiring her father sexually, she desires to be loved as a child, as is evidenced by her curse: "This is my curse, a daughter's curse: go, and return pure to thy child, who will never love aught but thee" (MA 204). Her transference is a preventive tactic that maintains the illusion of the innocent prima1 fantasy that can only be for Mathilda a seduction fantasy. It is also a way to redirect the flow of libidinal energies by reversing the power dynamics: Mathilda is neither the victim of her father's desires, for she ultimately rejects them, nor is she the victim of her mother's perceived desires, for Mathilda has merely transformed ner mother's possible anger into jealousy. Mathilda's own resentment towara her father can surface only in her unconscious, in a drearn in which she pursues her father to his death, a dream that Melior takes to be indicative of Mathiida gratifying her "represseà desire to punish her fathert' (Marv Shellev 201). In this sense alone, Mathilda is not so much about father-daughter incest, as Godwin imagined, as it is about the active resistance to it in a social polity geared towûrds controliing the daughter's desire. In a suggestive reading of Shelley's novella, Anne Mellor has claimed that "from the moment of his death, Mathilda wishes only to reunite with her father, to ernbrace him passionately in the grave" (Marv Shellev 195). Mellor supports this point by interpreting Mathilda's sinking "lifeless to the ground" upon discovering her father's corpse as "something stiff and straight" (MA 214) as "an ecsta[tic] . . . incestuous necrophiliac desire that leaves her exhausted, consummated, 'lifeless,' yet yearning for a repetition of this experience" (Marv Shellev 195) . Far from feeling ecstasy, Mathilda feels nothing: "1 did not feel shocked or overcome" (MA 214). In fact, there is no evidence to suggest that the site of her dead father's body "covered by a sheet" (MA 214) is something from which Mathilda derives erotic pleasure. Neither is there any indication that Mathilda desires to repeat this experience. Indeed, the last sentence of the chapter, "al1 had been at an end" (MA 214), hints at Mathilda's freedom from the tyranny of her father's desires, To argue that Mathilda desires to repeat the experience of seeing her father's corpse, one would have to interpret her longing for death in the subsequent chapters as her desire to reunite with her father. But the narrative does not support this argument, for what Mathilda desires is affection; "1 wished for one friend to love me" (MA 222). Although she recognizes her inability to love again, she still clings to life, hoping that somecne may desire ner. Woodville who, after the death of his new bride, befriends Mathilda, turns out to be less than ideal. When asked to join her in a suicide pact, albeit a megalomaniacal proposition, he reveals his own desire to seek Mathilda to fil1 his own loneiiness, not to appease hers. Tt is this second rejection, this second instance of being used to satisfy someone else's desires that persuades Mathilda that death is al1 that remains for her. Mathilda is not so much enamoured of death as she is of being loved. Thus, when Mathilda does contemplate death as a maiden wrapped in her "brida1 attire" (MA 2441, preparing to meet her father, far from enacting a desire to be united erotically with him, as Mellor argues, Mathilda, 1 suggest, is merely reenacting her primal scene. As an always already oedipalised daughter, Mathilda's primal scene, and hence return to origin through death, can only be figured as a seduction scene. She is once again refiguring her need for compassion in the only way she knows how: an erotic way. Her desire to occupy the place of the mother, something she has not articulated before this point, is an acknowledgement that she no longer fears the mother, who has always been associated with death. To occupy the place of the mother then, is not so much to be her for the father as to simply be with her as one oblivious to the father. The possibility of loving the mother, of identifying with the mother without the intervention of the father, is restored through Mathilda's death in a fulfilment of her desire for "sinless emotion" (m 204). While Diana dies to give birtn to Mathilda, the daughter dies to give birth to her new self, that is, to liberate herself from the clutches of the father's desires. In this sense, Mathilda mothers, or rather gives birth to, herself through the act of writing. For Mathilda, the narration of her prima1 scene, which in ner case is a seduction scene, enables her to pass through the mirror stage again, this tirne emerging from out of the grasp of tne F/father. Tt is as if the narrator has to go through the mirror stage and separate from her primary love--a father-- because she never had a chance to do this with the mother, However, since the narratorrs identity is linked to the father, she too must die in killing the fatner. For Shelley, the manuscript of Mathilda itself becomes the vicarious path to a new self, with the old self allegorically represented by the character of Mathilda. For the woman writer, the escape or destruction/ critique of the Father's Law and, hence, patriarchy is, to a certain degree, the death of self. Because her identity is so intricately bound up with that of the father, of patriarchy, and of the weight of a nistorically masculine literary tradition, to criticize these in order to find a place for herself is also to embrace death. So, Mathilda becomes a critique of the impossible situation of the woman writer who must simultaneously individuate/ separate herself from the father but also, because of her gender, occupy the place of the absent/dead mother. The woman writer who articulates her own specific desire has to write/speak herself out of silence. But, in so doing, she also enters into a crumbling symbolic order that she disrupts through the act of breaking her silence, that very silence upon which the order is built. To use Luce Irigaray's term, she becomes the "disruptive excess" of the order (78). And this is the libidinal textual excess that radiates out from Shelley's Mathilda not only to her own later works, but also to Godwin's last novel. In Romantic Androavnv, Diane Hoeveler argues that the male Romantic poets were self-consciously employing "the feminine as 'Other'" in their pursuit of a "new and redeemed/expanded self in an androgynous ideology that stressed union with one's complementary opposite" (79). Hoeveler is referring to the trope of the male Romantic poet's desire to merge psychicaliy witn one's sl7 ster. Recalling that Freud considered the illicit sexual attraction to one's sister as a displacement of the desire for the Mother, the role of resistance for the woman writer who occupies the position of the feminine "Other" of this male Romantic trope of literary creativity is to position a male family member as "Other." In Shelley's case, we might claim that she recast Godwin in this role. Unable to escape from the shackles of her gender, being symbolically represented as the Other in her husband's poetry, Shelley attempted to "otherize" her father by sending him Mathilda, effectively disrupting Godwin's sense of who occupies the place of alterity. Through the writing and transmission of this text of patricide--Mathilda--Shelley returns Godwinls/the Father's gaze by providing an alternative narrative, one that does not obey the Father's Law. By doing so, she dephallicizes Godwin and collapses his law. Similarly, her fictional narrator's rejection of her nameless father's incestuous desires leads to his death and her creativity, for she writes her autobiography and not his memoir of a woman writer. Far from being simply about Shelley's personal desires for Godwin, Mathilda is a work in which Mary Shelley as novelist explores her ability to create a subjectivity for herself in the face of an overwhelming pre- and post- Wollstonecraft Godwinian literary inheritance. If in Frankenstein Shelley is incapable of escaping from the pre- Wollstonecraft Godwinian forms and can only allude to alternative potentialities for the expression of femâle desire through the lack signified by the sign "Safie," in Mathilda Shelley confronts the post-Wollstonecraft Godwin's narrative of these desires. Clearly, though, Shelley's twin inheritance of both a disabling pre-Wollstonecraft Godwinian literary tradition and an enabling post-Wollstonecraft Godwinian textual legacy also suggests that she has no choice but to be complicit with her father's structures. Thus, as Mathilda's longing to merge with the mother is accomplished only through death, Shelley's desire is gratified through complicity with the patriarchai literary structures that her mother also occupied and challenged. While "the pen will always already have been dipped into the murdered bodies of the mother and the woman and will write in black, in black blood (like) ink, the clotting of its (his?) desires and pleasures" (Irigaray, S~eculum126), the wornan writer and daughter of a literary mother may still reconcile herself to her choice of profession through an acceptance of the mother ' s writings . Although Luce Irigaray potently articulates the cost of writing for women, in the case of Mary Shelley she may 5e writing over the literal body of her dead mother, but she is also identifying with the literary body of her mother's corpus. Godwin's reaction to the novella's private disclosures implies, in part, a social ideology that considers the imaginative use of the incest trope in fiction and poetry as a role preserved for male writers only. With its theme of incest, Mathilda may be regarded as a counter-discourse to this type of Romantic masculine ideology. Shelley's transmission of her novella to Godwin enacts her desire to communicate openly her critical perspective on the familial libidinal economy to a parent who had been known for his rationai views on political justice. Hence, Mathiida is also a political novella in its sharp critique of a Romantic social familial structure that requires obedience from women, subsequently transforming al1 sexual relations between men and women into a syrnholic form of father- daughter incest- Mathilda, then, functi~nsto force Godwin's political writings and their fictional manifestations into a dialectical encounter on the subject of female libidinal energies, while offering a severe criticism of the male Romantic's investment in the excision and appropriation of female desire. Although Shelley's Mathilda subverts this Romantic use of the incest trope, the novella aiso implicitly cornments on the disastrous consequences of the incest motif for the female writer. Through the textualization of a female writer's (Mathilda's) tragic history of her refusal to participate in a literal incestuous relationship, Shelley points to the violence that underlies the literary representation of incest. The struggles of the female Romantic writer are also conspicuously rnirrored in the novella's publication history, which replicates the threat of incestuous family violence found in the text. Whereas the fictional character Mathilda is able to deny her father and write her text, the author Shelley cannot escape from her father's judgment whicn prevents her from publishing her text. Godwin essentially violates Shelley's right to publish her text by refusing to acknowledge her work. Ultimately, Godwin robs his daughter of her voice in a symbolic form of father-daughter incestuous violence. In this respect, sending Mathilda to Godwin is a hermeneutic act, an attempt at understandinç. Because Shelley's text circulates privately, the only person to whom the power to complete the hermeneutical act is given is the father, Godwin, who offers Shelley no imrnediate response--he never returns the original manuscript. Derrida has said that "it is the ear of the other that signs. The ear of the other says me to me and constitutes the autos of my autobiography" (51). Curiously, although Godwin "textually hears" Shelley's desires, he responds, not by speaking, but by offering another text: his last novel Deloraine. Deloraine was written in a year and a half £rom March 20, 1831 to November 11, 1832, a time when Godwin was often visited by his daughter Shelley and his grandson Percy (Hindle vil. Maurice Hindle states in his Introductory Note that Godwin reread Shelley's novella Mathilda, "the MS of which had been in his possession since 1819" (vi), shortly after composing the section on the death of Ernilia and inserting Deloraine's daim that he regarded their baby girl as Ernilia's "representative . . . [and] desired to heap al1 sort of benefits on its head . . . [seekinq] its society, not always, but often, and at stated returns" (DE 36). Significantly, Deloraine echoes the sentiments of Mathilda's father concerning his motherless daughter. Hindle's brie£ discussion of this remarkable detail provides additional insight into the literary production of Deloraine insofar as this literary history clearly situates Godwin's novel as a textual response to Shelley's criticism of patriarchal structures in Mathilda. Moreover, based on Godwin's letters, we also know that on April 13, 1832 in the midst of writing Deloraine, Godwin wrote to Shelley clairning that he was "at a loss for materials to make up . . . [his] third volume" and asking if she would "give it one serious thought," "a single spark" (qtd. in Hindle vil. Hindle notes that "Mary Shelley supplied the appropriate 'spark' and Godwin finished the first draft of the book within three months" (vi). One might argue that Deloraine emerges through a collaborative process involvina the circulation of various texts (the manuscript of Mathilda and letters exchanged between the father and daughter). While not a co- authored work, the production history of Deloraine asks to be considered aiong with the private reception of Mathilda by Godwin. For this circulation of a "secret" manuscript hints of ünresolved desires, or the circulation of some inexplicable excess, as in Godwin's Caleb Wiliiams and Shelley's Frankenstein.

An exploration of the circclation of desire in William Godwin's and Mary Shelley's writings must necessarily be circumscribed by a set of texts. In this study, 1 have tried to trace the complex path of desire archaeologically oriented toward Godwin's 1798 composition and publication of Memoirs of the Author of "A Vindication of the Riahts of Woman". 1 have argued that this curious work may be productively used to distinguish between two phases in Godwin's long career: the pre-Wollstonecraft and the post- Woilstonecraft phase. The significance of this demarcation is revealed in rny discussion of Mary Shelley's first notable literary production in 1818: Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. For it is only with a recognition of the influence of these two Godwinian legacies that it is possible to untangle the cryptic ferninist concerns from the complex of apparently rnasculinist homoerotic forms and structures in Fra nkenstei n . That Mary Wollstonecraft's life and writings played a crucial role in both Godwin's and Shelley's works is undeniable. What this study suggests, however, is that this Wollstonecraftian voice is always to a certain extent circumscribed and mediated by Godwin's discursive construction of Wollstonecraft's history. Xence, the circulation of this figure of the absent mother in both Godwin's ldter works and Shelley's fiction generates new stories about her. In this sense, this "desire" that is transferrec and transmitted is a positive generative force, even if its subsequent textual manifestation is based on a previous lack. Thus, the textual excess cf a novel, whether it arises from the utopian quality of a work's ending as in Godwin ' s Caleb Williams or from the inexplicable presence of an unidentifiable figure as in Shelley's depiction of Safie in Frankenstein, always raises the possibility of changing and reworking a previous narrative. If Shelley's Matnilda begins anew another circuit of desire (transrnitted os this novella is in the preeminent conveyor of desire, the letter), it is only stimulated to do so DY a previous trajectory of desire, which Ln this srAy began with Godwin's Memoirs. --.C Desire, then, is something that cannot be confined by a particular text, biit is rather multipiied exponentially by the text's very production. Ultirnately, in the writings of William Godwin and Mary Shelley, the former's Memoirs and the latter's Mathilda temporarily frame the pair's investment in the ongoing creation of the family's history of origins that ironically begins with the historical death of its mother: Mary Wollstonecraft.

l5 Although neither Shelley's Mathilda nor Mathilda's confessional narrative are epistolary in form, Mathilda does indicate that Woodville will receive her narrative upon her death. This transmission of a narrative from Mathilda to Woodville mirrors the transmission of Mathilda from Shelley to Godwin. In both cases, the narrative is sent as a letter. WORKS CITED AND CONSULTED

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