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Anxiety of Motherhood in Vathek Abigail J The Onyx Review: The Interdisciplinary Research Journal © 2017 Center for Writing and Speaking 2017, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 1–6 Agnes Scott College Anxiety of Motherhood in Vathek Abigail J. Biles Agnes Scott College In William Beckford’s Vathek, we encounter one of the only living and active mothers in the Gothic genre. Carathis, the mother of the titular character and caliph, exercises her maternal control in pursuit of the survival as well as fame of her offspring, but is led terribly astray, securing for herself and her child an eternity of damnation. Revealing eighteenth-century concerns about the role of mothers, and eerily anticipating Freud, Vathek reveals cultural anxieties about the power of the mother over the child, especially when the mother has her own desires and ambitions. In her hellish end, Carathis illustrates the fate of women who seek more than society is willing to allow them. In conclusion, it appears that whether she lives or she dies, whether she is present or absent, whether she is selfish or selfless, the Gothic mother will bear the weight of the father, and the patriarchy, and his ruthless desire to have sons and money, and if she dare, as Carathis dared, to have her own ambition and her own son, she will fail and she will only have her mother to blame. n a footnote on “On The concerns about the mother consuming the Reproduction of Mothering: A child, like a reverse birth, when the child I Methodological Debate,” the editors fails to separate from its mother in the early pose a thought provoking idea: stages of development. In Carathis, the “Motherhood whether as experience or as ambition of the mother is unfolded to its subject for research, is now as controversial fullest extent, and her downfall illustrates as it once was bland” (482). Nowhere is this the punishment for any woman’s desire for more evident than in the post-Freudian field control. of psychoanalysis and in the Gothic novel. Psychoanalysis has spent a great deal of In one, scholars wrestle with the energy examining the development of the development of children and the place of the child, especially in relation to its parents. mother in that development, and in the Claire Kahane, in her article “Gothic other, authors illustrate manifestations of Mirrors and Feminine Identity,” defines the those same anxieties centuries before society psychoanalyst’s notion of the “pre-oedipal had the words to describe them. In William period of our early infancy” as the period in Beckford’s Vathek, we encounter one of the which “mother and infant are locked into a only living and active mothers in the Gothic ‘symbiotic relation,’ an experience of genre, with the rest either resigned to the oneness, characterized by a blurring of sidelines or the grave (frequently both). boundaries between infant and mother—a Carathis, the mother of the titular character dual unity before the emergence of a and caliph, exercises her maternal control in separate self” (48). In such a relationship, pursuit of the survival of her offspring, but “separation and individualization, for both is led terribly astray and secures for herself boys and girls, then, means breaking or and her child an eternity of damnation loosening the primal attachment to the instead of infernal control of the universe. mother” (48). Nancy Chodorow, a leading Rife with critical concerns about the psychoanalyst, remarks that for proper eighteenth-century woman, Vathek reveals development and survival, “all children must cultural anxieties about the power of the free themselves from their mother’s mother over the child and expresses omnipotence and gain a sense of The Onyx Review, 2017, 2(2) A. J. Biles/ ANXIETY OF MOTHERHOOD IN VATHEK 2 completeness” (147). Though the (for readers, the characters, and the author) eighteenth-century Gothic authors did not in the texts, and furthermore, is fertile have the terms or theory to define the ground for examining societal conventions. mother-child relationship as such, they did Vathek, by William Beckford (1786), in fact have a rich cultural heritage that centers on the passage of the titular allowed them to recognize concerns with character from the land of the living to the mother-child relationships based on an realm of the undead and damned in the inherited and deep-seated sexism and anti- ruthless pursuit of power and fortune. feminism that was threatened not only by Vathek, a caliph of a kingdom in the vague the female body but by her natural control landscape of the Orient, is introduced as a over the next generation of male citizens of creature of insatiable desire, “addicted to the British Empire. women and the pleasures of the table” and Eighteenth-century English culture was “devoted […] to the sole gratification of his still largely at war with itself about what a senses,” and unrestrained emotions, woman was, biologically, legally, and especially anger (85, 107). Despite being a theologically, and what she was capable of grown man, Vathek frequently displays doing, and all of these concerns rested on childish behaviors like demands for food the inability of the patriarchy to understand from his mother and fits of rage or wrath the woman in the most basic biological when he doesn’t get his way. Spoiled by his sense. As Ruth Bienstock Anolik suggests in position and his adoring mother, Vathek is her essay “The Missing Mother,” the female unable to provide for himself, even in the body itself was disruptive to “cultural most basic sense. Carathis, his mother, categories, particularly at childbirth,” scolds him, “You but ill deserve the because her body “is fragmented, one provision I have brought you,” to which becomes two; what was internal and Vathek exclaims, “Give it to me instantly! invisible becomes external and visible” (30). […] I am perishing for hunger!” (103). Like Anolik also states that the mother was a child, he desires instant gratification, and unable to be categorized in the long-standing like a child, he is heavily reliant on his “virgin” or “whore” dichotomy, especially mother. Though the novel is titled after the in literature, and as such, she presented a son, the novel appears instead to be focused considerable obstacle for writers of the day, on the mother, Carathis1. and thus, Anolik suggests, had to be written Carathis has immense power over the out (29). Noting that the Gothic world was a adult Vathek because even in adulthood, he dangerous place for any woman, Anolik still requires the same things from her that remarks that “no woman is at greater peril in he needed as an infant, displaying the the world of the Gothic than is the mother. inability of Vathek to individualize and the The typical Gothic mother is absent: dead, power of the mother to suspend the child in imprisoned or somehow abjected” (25). a perpetual state of need, thus retain her However, I suggest that because the power over the person. When Vathek falls ill mother’s position was so perilous, because or into a fit of passion, it is only Carathis she was already outside of the binary imposed by the culture, the mother is a 1 Carathis bares close resemblance to another figure that Gothic authors were very independent mother – Medea. Both sorceresses and interested in and concerned about. Whether foreigners in the land of their husbands and sons, they resort to wickedness and evil to secure better she was absent or present, the mother lives for their children. For more on Medea, see presents herself as a figure of great anxiety Nancy Datan’s “After Oedipus: Lauis, Medea, and Other Parental Myths.” The Onyx Review, 2017, 2(2) A. J. Biles/ ANXIETY OF MOTHERHOOD IN VATHEK 3 that is able to assuage or comfort him. She their impious temerity, and prompted them treats him as a child, tucking him into bed to utter a profusion of blasphemies. They and sitting with him until he was composed gave loose to their wit […]. In sprightly enough to rest: “Nor would these transports humor, they descended the fifteen hundred have ceased, had not the eloquence of stairs, diverting themselves as they went” Carathis repressed them,” and “Nor could (Beckford 105, emphasis mine). Once anyone have attempted it with better Carathis and Vathek are set down the road to success” (93, 89). Carathis supplies the hell, they become a single figure again, as in stability for Vathek that, because he is the pre-birth stage, and ultimately must meet immature, he could not supply on his own as the same fate. a fully developed man could. Carathis’ care Though her maternal affection for is not fabricated, but entirely based in her Vathek is clear, Carathis obviously has love for her son at first. When he is ill she designs of her own, like Medea, in actively devotes herself entirely to finding some perpetuating Vathek’s immaturity. When restorative cure for him, and grieves when presented with Vathek’s situation with the he is in pain. She protects him from the wicked Giaour, Carathis delights in the turn angry mob that seeks to destroy Vathek for of events: “The recital of the Caliph murdering civilian sons and keeps an eye on therefore occasioned neither terror nor the stars to watch for danger coming his surprise to his mother: She felt no emotion way. but from the promises of Giaour” (101). In Further establishing the deep connection fact, she had been preparing for such an between the two is the subterranean tunnels opportunity for quite some time by gathering that only they know about and use. In a stockpile of magical items “from a connecting the dark, cavernous underground presentiment that she might one day, enjoy space to a mother’s womb, as Leslie Fielder some intercourse with infernal powers: to does by connecting an underground dungeon whom she had ever been passionately to the womb and “maternal blackness” attached, and to whose taste she was no “beneath the crumbling shell of paternal stranger” (102).
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