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Exorcising the Past: History, Hauntings and Evil in Neo-Gothic Fiction

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Exorcising the Past: History, Hauntings and Evil in Neo-Gothic Fiction View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by South East Academic Libraries System (SEALS) Exorcising the Past: History, Hauntings and Evil in Neo-Gothic Fiction A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts at Rhodes University by Karlien van der Wielen January 2016 Supervisor: Professor Samantha Naidu Abstract This thesis explores the conventions of both historical and Gothic fiction in order to investigate what seems to be a recurrent impulse to exorcise the past in what I define as contemporary Neo-Gothic fiction. It therefore attempts to establish a distinction between Neo-Gothic fiction and other forms of contemporary Gothic fiction by focusing on the treatment of history, the supernatural and the grand narrative of progress in three contemporary Gothic novels: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates. This thesis argues that the most potent manifestation of history can be found in the representation of the revenant in Neo- Gothic fiction, which exhibits a disruptive and evil ontology that problematises the exorcism of the past. Furthermore, the reactions of ‘modern’ characters to these revenants illustrate the imperative to exorcise the past, and therefore the treatment of history and the past is reflected in the interaction between the ‘modern’ characters and the Gothic revenants. Through this interaction as well as the parody of traditional Gothic and historical fiction conventions, Neo- Gothic fiction constructs a critique of the Enlightenment’s grand narrative of progress. Paradoxically, this constitutes Neo-Gothic fiction’s own attempt to exorcise the past, which it recognises in a simplified and reductive narrative of history propounded through the grand narrative of progress. This thesis therefore pays particular attention to the configuration of revenants as evil and ‘modern’ humans as good, and the disruption of this simple binary that is effected through Neo-Gothic fiction’s subversion of the grand narrative of progress. This focus allows for the theorisation of the revenant through Jacques Derrida’s notion of ‘hauntology’ and Julia Kristeva’s ‘the abject’, the investigation of the treatment of history in Neo-Gothic fiction and the exploration of very recent Gothic texts that have not yet received much critical attention. Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 Neo-Gothic Fiction: Old Methods and New Ways ........................................................ 4 Methodology and Chapters............................................................................................. 6 Chapter 1 Genre, History and the Revenant in Neo-Gothic Fiction ................................................... 8 Historical Fears: Gothic Fiction and the Dead Hand of History .................................. 10 Gothic Fiction and the Enlightenment .................................................................... 11 The Rise of Gothic Fiction ..................................................................................... 13 The Gothic Cusp: Historical Settings for ‘Gothic’ and ‘Modern’ Selves .................... 16 Historical Fiction Inheritances and Subversions .................................................... 19 Effets de Réel in Neo-Gothic Fiction ....................................................................... 21 Hauntology and the Revenant in Neo-Gothic Fiction .................................................. 23 Evil, Monstrousness and the Revenant .................................................................... 24 The Hauntology of the Revenant ............................................................................ 26 Disruptions of Being .......................................................................................... 27 Disruption of Knowing ...................................................................................... 29 The Impulse to Exorcise: Abjection and Conjurement ............................................... 31 Spectral Abjection in Neo-Gothic Fiction .............................................................. 32 Theoretical Exorcisms: Conjuring Evil .................................................................. 34 Neo-Gothic Fiction: a Working Definition ................................................................. 36 Chapter 2 Haunting in Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger ............................................................... 39 The Little Stranger on the Gothic Cusp ....................................................................... 41 Hundreds Hall, A Great Good Place ....................................................................... 42 A Matter of Class: the Gothic Gentry and the Modern Mob .................................. 44 Faraday and the Haunting of Hundreds Hall ................................................................ 45 Faraday, Voice of Reason ....................................................................................... 49 Faraday, Conjuring the Revenant ........................................................................... 51 The Haunting of Hundreds Hall ............................................................................. 56 Conjurement: Exorcism through Progress for Progress ............................................... 58 Chapter 3 History and the Perfection of Evil in Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian ...................... 62 Generic Conventions and Crossovers in The Historian ............................................... 63 Gothicising the Archive: Dracula and Dracula ...................................................... 65 Romancing the Archive: Quests for Knowledge .................................................... 68 Building the Archive: Growing up Good ............................................................... 72 The Good, the Bad and the Bildung in The Historian .................................................. 75 Knowledge as Progress for Evil .................................................................................. 81 Chapter 4: American Dreams and Nightmares in Joyce Carol Oates’s The Accursed ..................... 83 The American Gothic: Nightmares of the ‘New World’ .............................................. 88 Fear of the Racial Other .......................................................................................... 89 Fear of the Primitive Wild ...................................................................................... 91 Fear of the Corrupted Self ...................................................................................... 92 Historical Fears and the Dream of Utopia .............................................................. 95 Caprices of the Soul: The Revenants of The Accursed ............................................... 96 A Dream Corrupted: Faustian Deals with God ......................................................... 101 Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 107 Today’s Historical Fears and the Twentieth-Century Gothic Cusp .......................... 108 Evil and the Exorcism of the Past .............................................................................. 111 Bibliography ....................................................................................................................... 115 Acknowledgements Chasing the supernatural in literature is no mean task. Nor is it often an encouraged one. For this reason, I cannot express the magnitude of my appreciation for my supervisor, Professor Samantha Naidu, whose assertive confidence and patient support have kept me at it. Thank you for the gentle nudging, the ruthless questions and the kind words. Your guidance and support have been invaluable. This thesis would not have been possible without the financial assistance from the Rhodes University Prestigious Scholarship, which is hereby acknowledged. The opinions expressed and conclusions arrived at in this thesis are most definitely mine, and are not necessarily to be attributed to Rhodes University or the donor. Thank you also to the Rhodes University Library, whose employment has helped to keep me afloat in an increasingly demanding financial environment. The generosity of Doug from Weird Tales Magazine has also helped in this regard, as he was kind enough to send a free copy of Weird Tales to a poor South African student in her time of need. To the unforgettable denizens of the Rhodes University English Department, this thesis carries a bit of everything you have taught me over the happy years I've spent there. Thank you for the wisdom, insight and knowledge that I will take with me, always. And finally, thank you to my parents, sister and François Weich, whose unending support and championing allowed me the courage to chase ghosts and hunt vampires. Introduction What exactly is the difference from one century to the next? Is it the difference between a past world – for which the specter represented a coming threat – and a present world, today, where the specter would represent a threat that some would like to believe is past and whose return it would be necessary again, once again in the future, to conjure away? - Jacques Derrida, The Specters of Marx If, as Michel de Certeau suggests, the historian has been given
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