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Uncanny Humor in Victorian Sensation Fiction

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Uncanny Humor in Victorian Sensation Fiction City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 5-2019 Humoring Violations: Uncanny Humor in Victorian Sensation Fiction Christine Choi The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/3095 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] HUMORING VIOLATIONS: UNCANNY HUMOR IN VICTORIAN SENSATION FICTION by CHRISTINE CHOI A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2019 © 2019 CHRISTINE CHOI All Rights Reserved ii Humoring Violations: Uncanny Humor in Victorian Sensation Fiction by Christine Choi This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in English in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. _____________________ ___________________________________________ Date Talia Schaffer Chair of Examining Committee _____________________ ___________________________________________ Date Eric Lott Executive Officer Supervisory Committee: Anne Humpherys Caroline Reitz THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT Humoring Violations: Uncanny Humor in Victorian Sensation Fiction by Christine Choi Advisor: Talia Schaffer Considering the many absurd coincidences, gender-bending characters, and unsubtle mockery of novelistic conventions that exist in Victorian sensation fiction, humor is something seldom examined in connection to the genre. Humoring Violations: Uncanny Humor in Victorian Sensation Fiction aims to fill this important critical gap by analyzing humor in well-known sensation texts as well as a later example of the genre: Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Lady Audley’s Secret, Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White, and Ouida’s Moths. This study specifically considers humor in context with the uncanny and the violent, which is what makes it unique to the Victorian sensation novel. Many of the instances of humor that are analyzed occur when an ostensibly uncanny or violent aspect with the potential to culminate into horror unexpectedly subsides. It is in this incongruous moment that humor arises almost imperceptibly, and functions as a way to deal with the dread or incomprehensibility of the uncanny. To be confronted with humor is to be confronted with the anxieties and tensions of the uncanny that humor helps to elide. It is in this way that humor works unobtrusively with the uncanny in response to various menacing cultural, historical, and political anomalies surrounding the sensational text. In paying attention to these reversals then, we can read humor as an essential iv medium for the expression of sensation authors’ cultural, historical, and political critiques. This mode of analysis more readily makes evident why humor was inserted into these otherwise serious, and uncanny texts, and why an attention to humor is crucial in our study of them now. In addition to revelations about cultural values, constructs, and stereotypes that were in ascendancy at the time each sensation novel was produced, and how each author interrogates them, attention is given to the evolution of humor, from the more subtle humor of Braddon, to the macabre humor of Collins, and the garish sarcasm of Ouida. Doing so reveals important changes in the novels themselves and the way humor and our responses to it articulates the cultural economy. In these ways, this study intends not only to highlight an omitted (and pivotal) aspect of sensation fiction, but also to demonstrate how humor offers a more modern and critically viable approach to interpreting this genre. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS No dissertation is an island. If not for the support and encouragement of a crucial set of people, this project would have never come to fruition. I am especially indebted to Talia Schaffer, who has played a seminal role throughout my entire graduate career, and graciously took on the responsibility of being my dissertation director. I echo the sentiments of many of Talia’s students (and Robert Frost) when I say that her consistent accessibility, her unwavering guidance and patience, and her motivating words have “made all the difference.” Anne Humpherys influenced and shaped this project from its inception. She helped me construct my Orals reading lists, and offered important feedback on my dissertation prospectus as well as early drafts of chapters. Despite having retired from the Graduate Center, Anne generously agreed to remain on my dissertation committee and has seen this project through to its end. Caroline Reitz joined this project in its latter stages. Nevertheless, her willingness to take part in my committee and share her expertise is demonstrative of her warmth and dedication to students. I am truly grateful for her involvement. I owe the most gratitude to my parents for not only blessing me with their unconditional love, confidence, and support, but for also instilling me with a fighting spirit and a strong work ethic. My mother left this world too soon, but I know that she lives on in me, and has helped me reach this milestone in unfathomable ways. My father, too, has been equally instrumental in helping me reach this point. I am especially thankful to him for all the times he supported me with a simple chat over tea and dim sum, which on many occasions was the only break I had from the computer screen. vi Last, but certainly not least, my precocious son, Joshua, has been so patient and understanding throughout this long dissertation journey, often keeping himself busy with Legos or a book so that I could work. His boundless cuddles and unflinching love have served as a constant force that pushed me forward to the finish line. Joshua continues to fill my life with a joy I had never known before. He is my everything, and I am beyond thankful for each day, each laugh, and each adventure I have with him. vii For Angelina & Joshua viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract iv Acknowledgements vi Dedication viii Chapter One Introduction 1 Chapter Two Charming Facades: Fair Fronts and Rotten Interiors in Lady Audley’s Secret 26 Chapter Three Victorian Freaks and the Humorous Uncanny in The Woman in White 67 Chapter Four Killing Her Softly: The Role of Social Humor in Ouida’s Moths 105 Bibliography 146 ix CHAPTER ONE Introduction Let us for a moment consider the Victorian sensational novel beside one of its modern, American counterparts, the Lifetime movie. Much like Victorian sensation novels in their time, Lifetime movies carry the stigma of being formulaic and contrived. Characterized by plots rife with secrets, lies, and deception, they deal in coincidental occurrences, heightened suspense, and women both in physical danger and oftentimes the source behind it. Ellen Wood’s sensation novel East Lynne would fit right in, whereby a hideously disfigured Isabel returns home after an unsuccessful love affair, and must work covertly as a governess to her own children in the house of her former husband and his new wife. Events unfold with maximum melodrama: babies stolen from the womb, spouses who end up having unspeakable pasts, and murderous villains exposed in an otherwise quiet suburban neighborhood. Execution aside, the stories are not completely farfetched, and in fact raise real issues about culturally relevant topics such as domestic violence, social expectations, and marital distrust and infidelity. Due to our culture’s disdain for traditionally female genres like melodrama and sentiment, however, Lifetime movies are generally considered trivial and humorous, and as mindless entertainment for only a select (i.e., female) audience. Why then are the plots of these otherwise serious stories deliberately inflected by humor? What can we make of these unexpected shifts in narrative disposition? How does paying attention to who or what is rendered as humorous and when provide key insights into the concerns and anxieties of the era in which these stories were created? What do they tell us about the values, prejudices, and belief systems of the contemporary audiences that mock them and thereby the real issues they pose? What is the larger cultural significance of regarding stories with “women in peril” and “women as peril” tropes as trivial? Given its reputation as a network 1 for women, why does Lifetime continue to produce such movies that exploit distorted stereotypes of its target audience? Is there, in fact, a method to this humor? This study asks similar questions of Victorian sensation novels, a clear predecessor to Lifetime movies. Despite there being a gap of over a century and a half between sensation fiction’s heyday and today’s Lifetime movies, the two are related in terms of their melodramatic treatment of serious subject matter, which often lends itself to humor. As with Lifetimes movies, analyzing the humor in Victorian sensation novels would be beneficial as a means of bringing to light the frustrations or absurdities of its contemporary society. Examining humor would also be revealing of the existing cultural values, constructs, and stereotypes that were in ascendancy at the time each sensation novel was produced, and how each author interrogates them. Considering the many absurd coincidences, gender-bending characters, and unsubtle mockery of novelistic conventions that exist in Victorian sensation fiction, humor is something seldom examined in connection to the genre.1 Early recovery work by critics like Patrick Brantlinger, whose seminal essay “What is ‘Sensational’ about the ‘Sensation Novel’?” (1892), repeatedly emphasize the genre’s fluidity, yet neglect humor as one of its many elements. Likewise, in Pamela K. Gilbert’s A Companion to Sensation Fiction (2011), a comprehensive collection of the most recent critical scholarship on the genre, inherent associations with diverse topics including law and science are explored, but research into sensation’s comic spirit is conspicuously absent.
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