Aspects of Gothic in Iain Banks' Novels

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies Teaching English Language and Literature for Secondary Schools Petr Klouda Aspects of Gothic in Iain Banks’ Novels Master’s Diploma Thesis Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. 2012 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. for his supervision and advice he provided me while I was working on this thesis. I would also like to thank Professor David Punter for his personal help in this undertaking. Table of Contents Introduction 1 1. Introduction into Gothic 3 2. Iain Banks 8 3. The Wasp Factory 9 4. The Crow Road 23 5. Complicity 34 6. A Song of Stone 45 Conclusion 54 Bibliography 57 Summary 59 Shrnutí 60 Introduction This thesis deals with Iain Banks‟ fiction, namely his novels The Wasp Factory, The Crow Road, Complicity, and A Song of Stone. My aim is to trace and analyze the aspects of Gothic in these works. The thesis consists of three main parts: Introduction into Gothic, then four chapters dealing with the four novels, and lastly Conclusion. In the chapter Introduction into Gothic I briefly introduce Gothic literature and its evolution from the beginnings to the present day. I also introduce some of the major features of Gothic literature and their significance. This is followed by a brief introduction of Iain Banks as a writer. In the next four chapters, each of them dealing with one novel and arranged chronologically, I trace and analyze the aspects of Gothic and their significance and also place them into the Gothic tradition. In the chapter on The Wasp Factory I primarily focus on the Gothic monster, its employment by Banks, and its implications for the readers. The next chapter deals with The Crow Road. In this chapter I analyze the Gothic significance of the north as an unknown territory and the notion of unresolved past problematizing present. In the chapter on Complicity I deal with the Gothic figure of the double, more specifically the doppelganger, but also the monstrous metamorphic female. The chapter on A Song of Stone deals with Banks‟ use of the Gothic castle and the motif of incest as an extension of the doppelganger. In the Conclusion I summarize my findings from previous chapters and compare specific aspects of the four novels. In my research for this thesis I used these three critical studies of Gothic: David Punter‟s A Companion to the Gothic, Jerrold E. Hogle‟s The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, and Fred Botting‟s Gothic. These are all extensive studies covering the history and development of Gothic as well as many features, themes, motifs and critical 1 approaches to the subject. Each of these three studies has proven to be extremely helpful and provided me with invaluable insights to Gothic. Beside these sources I used number of articles and the most significant for my research were those written by Professor Punter of the University of Bristol and those written by Dr. Kirsty Macdonald of the University of the Highlands and Islands. Their articles and studies helped me to further expand my knowledge and understanding of Gothic literature. 2 1. Introduction into Gothic Before proceeding to Iain Banks and my analysis of his fiction, I will briefly introduce the Gothic as a literary genre, its development and major themes and features used in order to provide the reader with some insight into Gothic literature and how Iain Banks fits into the Gothic tradition. The term “Gothic” used to describe literature was first used in the eighteenth century during the Enlightenment period and “has little, if anything, to do with the people from whom it is derived” (Punter, Companion 25). Originally, the adjective “Gothic” was derived from the word “Goth” which is a name of a Germanic tribe that attacked and waged wars with the Roman Empire. In the Enlightenment, “Gothic” was used derogatively about art and literature that “failed to conform to the standards of neoclassical taste, „Gothic‟ signified the lack of reason, morality and beauty of feudal beliefs, customs and works” and it symbolized rejection “of feudal barbarity, superstition and tyranny” (Punter, Companion 13). “Gothic” as literary critical term was established in 1764 with the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto. Horace Walpole's novel, described as the first “Gothic story”, introduced features and themes “that came to define a new genre of fiction, like the feudal historical and architectural setting, the deposed noble heir and the ghostly, supernatural machinations” (Punter, Companion 14). Single meaning is obscured and ambiguous, Fred Botting notes that rather than rationality and understanding, the novel “stimulates emotional effects … thereby emulating the vicious passions of the selfish and ambitious villain” (Botting, Gothic 51). The Castle of Otranto set out themes and features that would be used in future Gothic novels and “can be seen as a reinforcement of eighteenth-century values, distinguishing the barbaric past from the enlightened present” (Botting, Gothic 52). 3 The next large step in the evolution of Gothic came in the 1790's. During this decade, Gothic went through a surge of popularity, which critics generally attribute to the public's experience with the horrifying realities of the French Revolution (Hogle 43). It was also the decade of Ann Radcliffe and Mathew Lewis. These two authors changed Gothic writing in the sense that they gave rise to two critical schools of Gothic literature – female Gothic and male Gothic. Robert Miles compares and contrasts the writing of Radcliffe and Lewis: Radcliffe looked back to the novel of sensibility, whereas Lewis opted for „Sadean‟ sensationalism. … Where Radcliffe strove towards poetic realism, Lewis exulted in pastiche and irony. And where Radcliffe explained the supernatural as the product of natural causes, Lewis left it as a problem. Radcliffe famously typified their contrasting styles as the difference between horror and terror … . Radcliffe begins with what it is that induces horror or terror in the viewer, where terror forms the basis of the sublime. An explicit representation of threat induces horror, whereas terror depends on obscurity. The difference turns on materiality. Terror is an affair of the mind, of the imagination; when the threat takes a concrete shape, it induces horror, or disgust. When Radcliffe's heroines fear physical injury or rape, they react with horror; when the inciting object is immaterial, such as the suggestion of preternatural agency or the ghostly presence of the divine in nature, they experience uplifting terror. Radcliffe's is a Gothic of sublime terror; Lewis's, of horror, of physicality observed with „libidinous minuteness‟. (Punter, Companion 50) These different traits in Radcliffe's and Lewis' writing became foundation for the distinction male – female Gothic. Female Gothic, perceived as literature written by 4 women for women, usually presents the reader with an orphaned (or otherwise weakened e.g. being of low birth or poor) heroine pursued by a patriarchal father with all other male characters being weak and rather ineffectual. Male Gothic, on the other hand, has mostly been identified in Oedipal terms with son's conflict with the authority of the father figure (Punter, Companion 52). During the Romantic period, Gothic was influenced by the failure of the French Revolution “to realise hopes for human progress and equality” and this failure “contributed to the inward and darkening turn of Romantic speculations” (Botting, Gothic 93). Gothic heroes from this period very often become disillusioned and alienated from the society. Another powerful Gothic feature appears – the Gothic double – “[a]n uncanny figure of horror, present[ing] a limit that cannot be overcome, the representation of an internal and irreparable division in the individual psyche” (Botting, Gothic 93). This figure of the double is present in works such as Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, and James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. After a certain decline in popularity during the Victorian era, Gothic re-emerged in the 1890's closely related to the fin de siecle movement with several major works of the time – Robert Luis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, H. G. Well's The Island of Dr. Moreau, and Bram Stoker's Dracula. These works articulated the anxieties about the stability of the domestic and social order threatened by criminal and sexual transgressors and “the effects of economic and scientific rationality” (Botting, Gothic 136). The figures of the mad scientist moved in their interests from the materiality towards experimenting with the mind and psychology “to reveal things that, in the interests of maintaining both social and psychic equilibrium, were often 5 considered better left untouched” (Punter, Companion 148). Various shape-shifters, both male and female, appeared, articulating fears of the instability and fluidity of one's identity which refuses to be categorized within any stable binary system. The features of the nineteenth century Gothic are largely carried over to the twentieth century, with Gothic writing diffused over multiple media and genre “with Gothic motifs that have been transformed and displaced by different cultural anxieties” (Botting, Gothic

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