Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Jana Mártonová

The Gothic in Some Rendell Novels and its Protagonists Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: PhDr. Lidia Kyzlinková, CSc., M.Litt.

2014

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

…………………………………………….. Author‟s signature

I would like to thank my supervisor, PhDr. Lidia Kyzlinková, CSc., M.Litt., for her valuable advice, patience and constant support. Thank you for all the help you gave me. I would also like to thank my family, Michal, Libor and Emina, for their infinite love and support they have provided me with. Thank you for being such beautiful people.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ...... 5

2. Background to Ruth Rendell ...... 7 2.1 Life and Work ...... 7 2.2 On the Genre of Crime Fiction ...... 11 2.3 Defining the Gothic ...... 21

3. Gothic elements in selected novels by Ruth Rendell ...... 25 3.1 Hero Figures ...... 30 3.2 Anti-heroes ...... 35 3.3 Damsel in distress ...... 40 3.4 Villain ...... 45 3.5 Modern horrors ...... 50 3.6 Mental disorder ...... 56 3.7 Dark Side / Hidden Reality ...... 62 3.8 The forbidden, crime and death ...... 66 3.9 Decay ...... 72 3.10 Plotting ...... 73 3.11 Emotions and elements of love ...... 77 3.12 Punishment and liberation ...... 79 3.13 Setting and atmosphere ...... 82

4. Conclusion ...... 86

Summary ...... 98 Resumé ...... 99 Works Cited ...... 100 Appendix ...... 103

1. Introduction

Ruth Rendell (born 1930), a British crime novelist, became popular through her detective stories in which she combines controversial social issues of contemporary society with a deep insight into human psyche, associating some Gothic aspects both with the society and individual characters. This thesis aims to present these elements which appear in Rendell‟s writings selected and defend their Gothic nature by analyzing them against classical interpretation of Gothic elements and in contemporary socio- cultural context. The thesis suggests that the elements explored in Rendell‟s novels carry the same essence of the Gothic as those present in the eighteenth- and nineteenth- centuries Gothic novels, yet their meaning shifts accordingly to the present time and its requirements.

The second chapter is divided into three sub-chapters, which together provide a background to the topic analysed. The first sub-chapter is devoted to Ruth Rendell. It offers background information to Rendell‟s life and outlines an overview of her work, including the topics processed and attitudes taken. As Rendell is referred to as one of the Queens of Crime, the second sub-chapter also briefly maps the history and development of the crime novel genre. It discusses various forms the detective figures had taken and mentions tendencies in the genre in relation to particular historical periods. It introduces essential crime writers and their work and places Rendell within the context of crime writing. Finally, the third sub-chapter aims to explain, clarify and define meaning of the word Gothic, in relation to the importance of this term throughout the thesis. The third chapter then focuses on Gothic elements in Rendell‟s novels. It supplies a list of selected elements which are found in both classical Gothic and Rendell crime novels and analyzes their contemporary form and content. Each of the thirteen

5 individual subchapters, providing the analyses of individual Gothic elements in selected novels by Rendell, covers all of the novels discussed, proving their affiliation to the

Gothic against specific examples from the primary texts. In the conclusion then I emphasize the most significant findings in the novels analyzed and highlight the points I arrived at during the discussion.

The four crime novels were chosen in order to cover various periods of

Rendell‟s writings, to include both Wexford and non-Wexford series novels and to look at social issues from different perspectives. The Secret House of Death (1968) is among the first novels Rendell has ever written. The central topic of this piece are secret love affairs and adultery, which appears in three distinct forms – accusation of adultery which people gossip about, experienced adultery as the main cause of a divorce, and secret adultery leading to murder plotting. Going Wrong (1990) presents a thorough study of an individual. The main character, Guy, suffers from obsessive passion for his teenage love, which withdraws him form the mundane life. Going Wrong offers almost exclusively only Guy‟s interpretation of the story, with several inputs by Leonora and her family. Harm Done (1999) is the first of two Wexford series novels discussed in the thesis. It concentrates on the perception of crime and criminals and offers an alternative to the classical concept of nature of crime. It presents a variety of reasons for committing an illegal activity, reaching from a fatal illness, through a desperate desire to become a mother, to being a victim of domestic violence. It further directs attention to mob hysteria resulting from fear. End in tears (2005), the last of the novels examined and also the second of the Wexford series novels included, focuses on surrogate motherhood and its perception within the family. It considers multiple aspects of the matter. The first of the standpoints is of prospective teenage surrogate mothers perceived entirely as business only. Further, the novel presents beliefs and feelings of a

6 pregnant woman and infertile women who see surrogacy as their last chance to have their „own‟ child offer another perspective.

2. Background to Ruth Rendell

2.1 Life and Work

Ruth Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, Barbara Vine. Three names, three alter-egos, many talents and writing streams incorporated in one body. Rendell resonates with keywords including for instance English crime writer, social thriller, modern Gothic, politics, feminism, mundane life, or eco-activism.

One of the so called Queen of Crime was born on 17 February 1930 to a family of two teachers residing in London, Ebba Kruse, who originally came from Sweden and spend most of her infant years in Denmark, and Artur Grasemann, an Englishman.

Characters by Rendell often invoke the notion of exclusion. Brooks develops a connection between this fact and Rendell‟s childhood, claiming that a sense of being on the outside coloured her upbringing, due to her mother‟s Scandinavian origin and lack of acceptance by the British. Ruth Barbara Grasemann, which was her maiden name, received high school education in Loughton, Essex. Based on what Brooks claims,

Rendell‟s passion for writing was obvious since her youth. She wrote her first stories at the age of fifteen, and soon after her studies in Loughton she started her career in small

London newspapers, the Chigwell Times. Journalism, however, had not allowed her to

7 work with information in the manner she would prefer – Rendell‟s devotion was to create. Rendell stopped working for the Chigwell Times in 1952, before she gave birth to her son, Simon. Also Rendell‟s husband and father to her son came from a writing environment - Daniel Rendell happened to be her former colleague from the Chigwell

Times. Ruth Rendell devoted the fifties and beginning of the sixties to her family and was writing only for pleasure. As Brooks claims, “making up stories had always been a compulsion” for Rendell and at the age of 23 “she began to experiment with different styles and genres”.

Her first novel was published in 1964. It was first of the series with Chief inspector Reginald Wexford as the main investigator – From Doon With Death. As far as the human qualities of Wexford are concerned, Brooks quotes from an interview with

Rendell:

“I just had to have an investigating officer in the first book. I didn't do

anything much about him, but gradually I realised that I was stuck with

him and so I made him more liberal, more literate, more interesting. I

realised that I had put an enormous amount of me - and to some extent

my father - into him, but it may be that women creating a detective

always put their fathers into them.”

Although Wexford, whose character has become rather complex over the years, has gained popularity among the readership, he was not the only inspector created. There was another stream of detective or rather thriller stories alternating the Wexford series, which was initiated by To Fear a Painted Devil (1965). In 1970s Rendell‟s writing started to change. The characters became rather psychopathic, the mundane reality described included more obsessive behaviour, extreme life conditions and crime than before. The world she described was not a safe place. Her new novels were regarded as

8 psychological thrillers. The first of them was A Demon in My View, published in 1977.

In 1986 came another shift. Rendell introduced her alter-ego, Barbara Vine. The name is a combination of her middle name - Barbara and her great-grandmother‟s maiden name – Vine). Since the genesis of Barbara Vine, Rendell started to publish under two names. Ruth Rendell has been associated with Wexford crime novels and psychological thrillers focusing on crimes, people affected by them and on the criminals at the same time; Barbara Vine has been connected with novels portraying mainly the psyche and lives of the criminals, often written in the first person, from the criminal‟s perspective, offering a deeper psychological insight and more severe social criticism. However,

“though her Barbara Vine novels offer a far more delicate lacing of mystery and psychology than one might expect from a traditional whodunit, Rendell is known as a crime writer”. (Brooks) Rendell/Vine has aimed at changing society through understanding both points of view, and at preventing denial of presence of crime in society.

Rendell has wanted to escape from the conventions ascribed to the detective genre. The most visible shift came in the 1980s with Barbara Vine and more of it followed in the 1990s. British Council comments on her innovative writing as follows:

“Ruth Rendell writes mysteries in the vein of a social critic who observes

and exposes social inequalities, racial and sexual discriminations and

gender biases. Rendell subverts the traditional conventions usually

associated with the genre and that make the detective instrumental to the

restoration of order in a society momentarily upset by the chaos brought

about by crime. Inspector Wexford, whose liberalism is confronted with

the conservatism of his deputy, Mike Burden, does assure criminals to

9 justice. Yet, Rendell insists on realism and strives to characterise her

detective as an ordinary person.”

This is to be seen in the 1995 Simisola where Rendell states her social concerns, focuses on unemployment, racial stereotypes, discrimination, sexism and social injustice.

According to the British Council, Rendell suggests the existence of a connection between crimes and social establishment:

“(…) the truth that Wexford‟s investigations bring to light indict

traditional and conservative beliefs as responsible for the crimes that

have been perpetrated. Murders and transgressions of laws are always

linked in Rendell‟s books to social injustice.”

Thus Rendell presents her radical socio-political views and challenges the traditional

English values and in many cases highly conservative attitudes. Rendell‟s standpoints are present in all kinds of her writings – the Wexford series, „non-Wexford‟ thrillers and

Barbara Vine‟s novels. With all possible forms of social issues reflected in her novels,

Rendell‟s books have crossed the line of being „mere fiction.‟

In 1996 Rendell was named Commander „of the British Empire and one year later a life peer, Baroness Rendell of Babergh. Since her newly gained position, Rendell has continued writing and also participated in “charities including the Royal National

Institute for the Blind, for whom she recently promoted a Right to Read week”. (Brooks) and has supported and initiated charitable events to support social happenings and environmental protection.

For years, Rendell has been highly productive. She has been able to produce one or two books each year. She wrote more than 70 books with the last Wexford novel The

Vault published in 2011 and another book finished in spring of 2013. Many of her novels have been adapted for film and television. Between 1987 and 2000 were created

10 48 episodes of a TV series The Ruth Rendell Mysteries, and besides them other television adaptations appeared. Her writing has been innovative, with characters and plots evolving and getting more into depth, with unpredictable, surprising endings and showing the other side of crime in an attempt to stop making judgments based on social stereotypes. In addition, Rendell has received numerous awards, including Sunday

Times Award for Literary Excellence in 1990, Cartier Diamond Dagger for a Lifetime's

Achievement in the Field in 1991 or Mystery Ink Gumshoe Award for Lifetime

Achievement in 2004.

Rendell resembles a complex network of channels connecting the world of literature to the worlds of everyday reality and social and political involvement.

2.2 On the Genre of Crime Fiction

Predecessors of the crime novels as we know them today came into existence already in the eighteenth century. The so called godfather of the modern crime story,

Edgar Allan Poe, was the first to introduce a detective figure. According to Munt, he drew inspiration from “Eugene François Vidocq (1775–1857), the first chief of the

Sûreté and instigator of the first detective agency, Le Bureau des Renseignements.” As

Munt continues, the inspiration in Vidocq placed the foundation stone for the genre.

Crime stories prior Poe usually lacked the detective figure; it was the reader‟s task to discover who the criminal was, and many a time the real identity of the criminal was speculative, if not revealed in a letter of confession. Topics of the early crime novels consisted of cheating, theft and mainly murder. Christian values were stressed and

11 punishment was of great importance. The stories carried a moral message that unacceptable behaviour leads to crime. The stories did not follow any investigation procedures and aimed at the appalling departure from what was considered normal.

These stories followed a pattern of crime, observations made by local people, imprisonment and execution. Poe‟s invention gave rise to a completely new type of writings. “He invented the first fictional detective, C. Auguste Dupin, first appearing in the „Murders in the Rue Morgue‟ (1841) as a man of supreme intellect and arrogance”.

(Munt) The uniqueness of Poe rests also in other of his developments. Apart from the locked room mysteries in which the crime – murder – took place in a locked room, an enclosed or separated place such as a train or an island where everybody is suspected,

Poe invented also the character of the detective assistant. According to Munt, Poe

“supplied the conventional foil whose relationship to the detective forms the narrative centre of the story in that its progression, and our response to it, is judged and mediated by a figure who reveres the hero and therefore concretizes his eminence”. By the creation of the sidekick figure, Poe increased the complexity of the whole genre.

With Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his detective Sherlock Holmes, assisted by Dr

Watson (1891), the appearance of a detective accompanied by a companion became archetypal. Watson became the ultimate representative of the sidekick figure, who attracts the readership by being not as clever as Holmes, brings in comical moments and, most importantly, contributes to the investigation with a different viewpoint, helping Holmes to generate the final crime profile and thus solve the mystery. Holmes is a new kind of detective who employs his brilliant deductive abilities and notices details which seem as if invisible to the others. As Munt claims, “Holmes was based on

Dr Joseph Bell, a consultant surgeon at Edinburgh, but the mythical Holmes transcended his human prototype, becoming a representation of the „Nietzschean

12 superior man”. According to Munt, the reason for the elevation of Holmes‟s qualities was, that “Doyle felt his readers needed „a man immune from ordinary human weaknesses and passion”. Further more, “Holmes exudes and exalts a specifically upper-middle-class Victorian masculinity based on cool rationality and intellect”.

(Munt) As far as the for is concerned, according to Munt, the detective story, the whodunit, corresponds with the prescribed structure distilled by Ronald A. Knox in A

Detective Story Decalogue (1929). (note: for the Knox Decalogue, see the appendix)

Simultaneously, the crime fiction had developed also in the United States. The main representatives, S. S. Van Dine, Rex Stout, and Ellery Queen, started to produce a divergent style of novels. In their novels, “the spirit of individual achievement rendered the class-bound British country-house murder inappropriate”. (Munt) As Munt suggests, traditional features of these writings included action and violence. The main figure was represented by the private eye, who, acoording to Munt, “works outside the social order with his own moral purpose”. The qualities an American private eyes is attributed are described as follows: “He is tough, stoic, honest, loyal to his own values, fighting a lone battle against urban chaos, a contemporary crusader/knight”. (Munt) As far as the connection between the private eye and social (in)justice is concerned, Munt states the following:

“The perceived social order is inherently corrupt, „fallen‟, and the

outsider represents the harbinger of truth and justice amongst hostility:

in fact the hero is no radical but represents the paranoia of the dominant

hegemonic Christian/patriarchal order, the assertion of values very

traditional, and our identification with the hero places him firmly back in

the centre, „our‟ values elevated and restored to common-sense status.”

13 The stories included a strong appeal of “re-establishment of the social order”. (Munt)

Later, a new generation of heroes created by writers as Dashiell Hammett, Raymond

Chandler, Ross Macdonald, or Micky Spillane appeared. Heroes who do not entirely coincide with common men; who carry the notion of superiority. Chandler‟s Philip

Marlowe represents “a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man... a man of honour.” (Munt) Spillane‟s Mike Hammer goes even further, He is “„the hammer of God‟. This Old Testament hero‟s personal code of violence and vengeance is absolute. Hammer is the „totalitarian moral policeman‟, „the new superman, a plainclothes Nazi‟” (Munt)

According to Munt, the very first crime novel written by a woman dates back to

1866, when Seeley Register wrote The Dead Letter. Further authors followed towards the end of the century. They were perceived as literary intruders, therefore consequently, the “common device of parody was an inevitable response to their position”. (Munt) As Munt continues, at this era “female authors were primarily augmenting, rather than rewriting, the form, already incipiently predisposed to caricature and self-mockery”. The first female detective figure, whose author remains anonymous, was Mrs. Paschal (1861), who “does detect in order to deflect „genteel poverty‟ she has the educational and family privileges of a lady”. (Munt). Munt mentions two categories of female detective figures. A classical representative of the first group is a “woman from a lower social class who sees detection as a form of employment, one preferable and significantly more profitable than the other primary occupations of the period such as acting, cleaning, or teaching”. The second type is represented by “conventional ladies who solve their puzzles as quickly as possible in order to return to the obscurity of their own homes.” As Munt further claims, if compared with the male-written crime stories, the female-written ones shared the

14 characteristics of including “utopian models of female agency; an exploitation of the transgression of social mores by the employment of disruptive humour and parody; an irreverent „feminizing‟ of male authority myths”. They also incorporated “the coded deployment of stereotypes (e.g. the refined white-haired spinster, the enthusiastic and naive young virgin) which signal to the reader the seeds of subversion”. (Munt)

The decades between the World Wars modified the roles of women within society. Women were given larger work opportunities and also the amount of women writers increased and, in reaction to the changing position of women in society, female detective story writers started to become prominent. The so-called Golden Age of crime fiction, represented mainly by Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, and further by

Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh, followed the sensation novel of the 1860s and

“shifted the focus of crime from the highways and the underworld to the home; and especially to the hidden resentments and revenges of female members of the household.” (Trodd) The crime fiction produced in this time was meant to entertain readers, to allow them to escape the mundane reality. It reminded a game following

Ronald Knox‟s Ten Commandments (see the appendix). As Trodd presents it, “„Golden

Age‟ of the genre, was often attributed to readers‟ desires to escape from the monotony of modem urban life” and proves her statement by quoting Christie (1890–1976), who dedicated her second novel The Secret Adversary (1922) “„to all those who lead monotonous lives in the hope that they may experience at second hand the delights and dangers of adventure.‟ In addition, Munt quotes Alison Light and thus also suggests, that the literature represented by Christie offered “the bloodless, detached, dispassionate, domestic murder which, like the woman‟s role within the family, soothed and reassured a nation ravaged by war. It read to forget, and to remove the threat of violence.” As Trodd further claims, crime fiction offered women writers a variety of

15 possibilities: “It offered the opportunity to break away from domestic and romantic fiction into the area of male adventure romance, but it was a flexible form which could be revised to accommodate women‟s perspectives and interests.” In accordance with what Trodd says, Munt mentions elements of feminization to be found in novels by

Christie. Though observing the formulaic pattern of Father Knox‟s Commandments, the element of feminization predominantly through Christie‟s detective figure Hercule

Poirot, who, according to Munt “embodies most clearly the „feminine‟”. Munt continues to define Poirot as follows:

“He is a parody of the male myth; his name implies his satirical status:

he is a shortened Hercules, and a poirot – a clown. He is narcissistic,

emotive, feline, apparently irrational, eccentric, quixotic, obsessed with

the domestic, and socially „other‟ in that he is a Belgian. In Christie‟s

first book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920), he is often referred to

as a „little man‟ – not a man, but inferior. He is a feminine hero”.

The feminist concerns of Christie are further stressed by the frequent appearance of competent women with feminist interests. The most. striking of them is the recurring character of Miss Marple. Munt further mentions that Christie‟s “feminized heroes appeal to women writers and readers, because in their social roles those women are

„actually the ones who put the pattern together, who restore order to a shaken world.‟”

Except for the feminization element, Christie conducted experiments within the frame of the genre. Christie, as Trodd claims, offered “her readers access to the consciousnesses of the murder suspects, without identifying the murderer”. Here a parallel might be drawn to Rendell who later employed similar elements on psychological insights into the minds of her characters. Trodd further continues saying that “Christie was covertly engaging in her own experiments with the representation of

16 consciousness, and she draws on popular psychology in the facility with which a succession of murderers repress their knowledge of their guilt.”

Dorothy L. Sayers (1893–1957) also applied new standpoints into her work. As

Munt suggests, Sayers was “interested in the specific cultural limitations which femininity imposed upon women.” She made her views known by creating the detective character Harriet Vane, a strong, independent, sexually active female figure. According to Munt, Sayers uses Harriet Vane to express her concerns over “ideological confluence between women‟s active sexuality and criminality” (Strong Poison, 1930) and

“women‟s independence in academia and its concomitant difficulties” (Gaudy Night,

1935). The importance of Sayers lies in her ability to combine the genres of crime and romance. Sayers introduced how the “presence of desire in the narrative disrupts the detective hermeneutic of pure reason, revealing its weakness and demystifying the

Golden Age detective as a metaphor for order” (Munt) and in this way gave rise to a new direction within the genre. Sayers, similarly to Rendell later, employs the elements of human psyche and its processes which cannot be predicted.

The rising popularity leading to unusually dominant position of women writers which emerged within the British crime writing became commented and criticised by numerous American Authors, including Raymond Chandler. Among aspects criticised belonged the formulaic features of such novels, which took part predominantly in country manors and vicarage gardens, and the main reason for such criticism was the fact that the features discussed implied the feminization of British crime writing. As

Trodd claims, Chandler “called on American crime writers to break free from the

British model and return crime to the mean streets where it belonged”.

The 1930s and 1940s were stigmatized by the two World Wars. As Munt suggests, the wars “shook the domestic morality exemplified in early detective fiction,

17 with its clear-cut metaphysical barriers”. Due to the new atmosphere, the old detective figures no longer satisfied the readers. As Munt continues, “the Great Detective, figure of refined reason, was an insufficient paragon for the rapid social change of the war years”. As a consequence of the new social establishment, the detective figures became

„humanized‟, more resembling a common person. The traditional pre-War hero with the qualities of an Superman was no longer acceptable. Authors, including Allingham and

Marsh started to change their heroes and their motives were partly political, “prompted by distrust of all Supermen, and partly based upon the writers‟ feeling that they had something of interest to say which would be hampered rather than helped by the development of a single character.” (Munt) The question which the writers started to ask was, similarly to Rendell in later decades, Why? and these were often accompanied by psychological insights into the minds of their characters and further background information making their profiles complex. Psychological aspects, social concerns and multiple female characters became typical of the post-War novels. The traditional formulaic structures of the crime novels started to be broken and substituted by new preferences. Psychological and social oppression of women is one of the topics which emerged in the 1940s. Novels as Green Danger (1945) by Cristianna Brand drew attention to gender differences at the workplace, “pressure on women to marry in order to achieve social credibility and „happiness‟” (Munt) or women‟s financial insecurity.

The novels carry the notion of claustrophobia relating to “the more material, social and psychological position of women, caught on many sides by expectations they cannot fulfill.” (Munt)

In the 1950s the attention moved to family structures. Authors like Charlotte

Armstrong or Celia Fremlin moved the interest of the crime novels to homes. The main topics of their novels included fears experienced by mothers for their children. Munt

18 explains this shift by putting the topic in connection to the Second World War and claims that “women were increasingly confined to the role of wife and mother during the 1950s, due to the „returning heroes‟ of World War II.” Disease of the family became typical of the writings of this era. Further political happenings continued to influence the genre of crime fiction. The Cold War and the proclaimed Enemy Within drew a parallel to the tendencies in crime novels. This movement inwards, as Munt says,

“towards the family and even the self, in a growing psychological imperative – evinced feelings of claustrophobia which fundamentally informed the work of the „Second

Wave‟ Queens of Crime from the 1960s to the present day”.

The „Second Wave‟ Queens of Crime to which is Rendell is assigned is specific by character analysis which gained in significance. Unlike the Golden Age, the modern crime novels do not attempt to escape from everyday reality, they concentrate on it.

Since this time, the boundaries between crime fiction and reality blur and Rendell‟s work is one of the best examples of this phenomenon. Authors belonging to this group, including Particia Highsmith, incorporate into their writings topics including psychological imprisonment between two people (Munt) This appears also in the novels by Rendell discussed in this thesis, particularly in Going Wrong where Guy is virtually imprisoned in his obsessive love for Leonora, or in Harm Done, where Fay Devenish suffers from domestic violence caused by the reckless love of her husband Stephen.

Further topics, depicted mainly by Rendell and P.D. James include the “dissolving sense of reality; lack of self-perception; reticence in moral pronouncements; obsessive, pathological character” (Munt) or violence and atypical relationships. According to

Munt, P.D. James portrays her heroines in a “somewhat brutal light, as fussy, neurotic, sadistic, simple, scheming, or evil... on the whole, a depressing lot.” According to Munt,

Rendell presents an “acute sense of domestic detail, and intricate plots, concentrates on

19 single mothers, lesbians, feminists and major issues such as rape.” (Munt) Despite her feminist tendencies, Rendell is not Radical in her presentation of feminist matters. She rather suggests “the ways in which modern feminism has changed the ambitions of her women characters.” (Munt) The similarities of Rendell and James are then summarized by Munt who claims the following:

“explorations into the effects and motivation for murderer are expressed

as psychological investigations into the darkness of the human psyche for

which there is no effective guiding moral principle. This, together with

the strongly ironical strand coursing through the novels when confronted

with the spoors „of the „cosy canon‟, situates them in an evolving

relationship with their predecessors. They write, however, in an era

when feminism has become an explicit discourse. Whilst distancing

themselves from its overt manifestation, and any type of „extremism‟, they

do in fact include forms and issues of interest to a feminist reading of

their works. Thus the „feminine‟ and much more so the „feminist‟ content

of these texts is rather implicit. Sexual violence is an area of crime

explored with little analysis of its social or institutional contexts, and

often representations of sexual deviance replicate common-sense, status

quo attitudes. The genre‟s historical development, however, has ensured

feminism‟s muted presence even in this appropriated and anaesthetized

form”

Rendell, whose novels are the core of the thesis, concentrates mainly on motives which lead her heroes to particular actions. She is interested in human psychology, obsessions and various forms relationships may take. She focuses on the element of imprisonment within the life of an individual. By doing this, Rendell builds on topics which were

20 introduced already by her predecessors as Christie, Sayers, Marsh or Allingham. In her writings she also commonly uses elements of the Gothic, which she brilliantly transforms to a rather metaphoric level. In her novels, including End in Tears, Going

Wrong, Harm Done and The Secret House of Death, she shifts the meaning of the

Gothic from the traditional concept of haunted castles and ladies abused by cruel noblemen to common houses where violence takes place and the modern damsels in distress are prevented from their free decisions (Fay Devenish in Harm Done or Louise

North in The Secret House of Death).

2.3 Defining the Gothic

According to Smith, the origin of the term Gothic dates back to the

Goths, a Germanic tribe who settled in Europe between the third and fifth centuries.

When it comes to architecture, the Gothic relates to the revival “of medieval aesthetic that was in vogue in Britain from the early eighteenth to the late nineteenth century.”

(Smith 2) As Smith further continues, “such reconstructions of a somewhat fantasised version of the past (…) provide a context for the emergence of Gothic as a literary mode.” (2) This advancement of the Gothic style was stimulated in the eighteenth century by the presence of Enlightenment and its believes which promoted the benefits of rationality. According to Smith, “such ideas were challenged in Britain by the

Romantics at the end of the eighteenth century, who argued that the complexity of human experience could not be explained by an inhuman rationalism.” From their

21 perspective concepts such as emotions or imagination “far outweighed the claims of, for example, natural philosophy.” (Smith 2.) As Smith continues to claim,

“the Gothic is at one level closely related to these Romantic

considerations, and poets such as Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, and Byron

at various times used the Gothic to explore, at different levels of

explicitness, the role that the apparently irrational could play in

critiquing quasi-rationalistic accounts of experience.” (2)

In this respect, a connection might be drawn to Rendell who processes the irrationality of human behaviour, especially in her depiction of Guy in Going Wrong, who constantly rationalizes his obsessive thoughts about his relationship with Leonora.

The view which Smith states was supported by philosophers whose interest lied in the limits of human thoughts and feelings. According to Edmund Burke and his A

Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

(1757) the sublime correlated with the feelings of terror. As Smith continues,

“frightening feelings (…) are the most powerful that people are subject to and therefore the most sublime.” (2) Also in Rendell‟s writings the notion of terror is present in all possible ways, including the fear of losing a child in End in Tears, fear of the effects of domestic violence on children in Harm Done, fear of losing the loved one in Going

Wrong or the fear of not being able to interact with men in The Secret House of Death..

Although the Gothic, which focuses on thoughts and feelings, sometimes shares the anti-Enlightenment views, the early Gothic pieces appear in highly formulaic forms.

Mainly the settings and characters became archetypal, with often recurring castles, monasteries, ruins and aristocrats. “Nevertheless, these stories are not as stereotyped as they may seem, and it is necessary to look beyond such narrative props in order to consider the anti-Enlightenment impulses and related themes and issues which are

22 central to the form.” (Smith 3) Another key aspect of the Gothic is the representation of evil. As Smith continues to suggest, particular representations of terror and evil can reveal the moral outlooks and political sympathies of specific writers.” (3) Also in the

Rendell novels the aspect of evil, terror and horror is key. She presents her social concerns over issues including domestic violence, drug abuse or decay of behaviour and illustrates them on her characters (Domestic violence is illustrated mainly on Fay

Devenish in Harm Done, drug abuse on Guy in Going Wrong and partially also in End in Tears where drugs become the red herring of the story. Decay of behaviour is then mainly discussed in End in Tear in relation to young surrogates Amber and Megan who carelessly deceive their clients).

What Smith also stresses is the fact that the Gothic literature varied in particular national and social contexts. The American Gothic, for example, is closely bound to the issues of slavery and its impact on the formation of the identity of the black politics.

The German tradition of the Gothic represented itself in the form of the so called

„shudder novel,‟ included Schiller and Goethe and influenced many national manifestations of the Gothic. Except for multiple national variations, the Gothic emerged also in various forms, including drama, poetry or the novel. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the Gothic made its appearance also on the television, on the radio and in the subculture of the Gothic, distinguished by the dress code (long, dark clothes) and music.

According to Lake‟s summary of the Gothic literature, the main attempts to be found were “to explore the innermost recesses of ourselves and our society. Gothic novels attempt to create for their readers "pleasing terror" by considering elements of human psychology and social acts that were often suppressed in the polite culture of the eighteenth century." As Smith claims, “the roots of the British Gothic can be found in

23 the mid-eighteenth-century „Graveyard Poetry‟ of Collins, Young, Blair, and Gray.” (4)

As Encyclopaedia Britannica suggests, the popularity of the Gothic novel in England started with Horace Walpole‟s Castle of Otranto (1765, see the appendix). As

Encyclopaedia Britannica continues to suggest, Walpole‟s footsteps were followed by

Ann Radclife whose Mysteries of Udolpho and Italian are regarded as two of the best examples of Gothic novel genre. Further examples include the following:

“A more sensational type of Gothic romance exploiting horror and

violence flourished in Germany and was introduced to England

by Matthew Gregory Lewis with The Monk (1796). Other landmarks of

Gothic fiction are William Beckford‟s Oriental romance Vathek (1786)

and Charles Robert Maturin‟s story of an Irish Faust, Melmoth the

Wanderer (1820). The classic horror stories Frankenstein (1818),

by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and Dracula (1897), by Bram Stoker,

are in the Gothic tradition but introduce the existential nature of

humankind as its definitive mystery and terror.” (Encyclopaedia

Britannica)

The early works had been rather extravagant and were criticized due to that reason.

Nevertheless, the dark atmosphere continued to appear – for instance in the works of the

Bronte sisters, Edgar Allan Poe, H.G. Wells or Dickens in his Bleak House or Great

Expectations. As Britannica further suggests, “in the second half of the 20th century, the term [Gothic] was applied to paperback romances having the same kind of themes and trappings similar to the originals.”

According to Rowland, aspects typical of the nineteenth-century Gothic include the notions of terror and the sublime. As Rowland claims, “terror, in the Gothic sense, signifies the psyche-enlarging fears engendered by notions of events that are

24 unrepresentable in full, or which evade classification and „mapping‟ in human mind.”

(111) This equals the Gothic sublime, in which “terror expands the sense of self and the sense of what potentially can be, or what potentially can be known.” (ibid.) The perspectives of the nineteenth-century Gothic are particularly important for the aims of this thesis, since Rendell, along with Christie, Sayers, Allingham, Marsh, and James, produces “a literature that bears a strong imprint of nineteenth-century Gothic horror.”

(Rowland 111) This crates the link between the Gothic and crime writings by Rendell, the elements of which are discussed later in the thesis.

3. Gothic elements in selected novels by Ruth Rendell

Despite the national and generic mutations of the Gothic mentioned in the previous section of the thesis, “it is possible to identify certain persistent features which constitute a distinctive aesthetic.” (Smith 4) According to Smith, Rowland, Harris and

De Vore et al, there exist multiple elements which regularly appear in novels attributed as Gothic. These elements are the core interest of this thesis.

In order to proceed to the analysis of the selected novels by Rendell, let us first discuss the characteristics of Gothic elements, whose presence in the novels examined will be proven further in the text. The reason why the already discussed novels of the eighteen and nineteen centuries were attributed as Gothic, lies, among other aspects, in the setting which incorporates medieval buildings, ruins, old castles and monasteries, and other features typical of the Gothic architecture. Gothic novels also carry a special

25 atmosphere. Encyclopaedia Britannica states, that “the atmosphere of a Gothic novel was expected to be dark, tempestuous, ghostly, full of madness, outrage, superstition, and the spirit of revenge..” In relation to the atmosphere ascribed to the Gothic, De Vore et al. claim that “a Gothic novel could be seen as a description of a fallen world, which might be experienced through all aspects of the novel.” The aspects which De Vore et al. regard as Gothic include the setting invoking the atmosphere of horror (another

Gothic element in itself), the hero figure who is somehow isolated from the rest of the world, elements of decay reminding us of the reality of the past which used to be thriving, the forbidden desires which separate the heroes from their community, the villain who embodies the evil, the divine punishment which enables the victim to escape, and the plot which itself “mirrors the ruined world.” Harris then adds the elements of Damsel in distress – an oppressed heroine and often the central figure of the

Gothic story, emotions in their extreme forms, raw nerves influencing the perception of the world and the element of romance which usually embodies powerful, even obsessive love. The server nus.edu includes also the element of dark secrets which create the notion of suspense, and plots revealing the reasons why seemingly inexplicable events occurred.

As it was stated in the previous chapter, Rendell builds on the nineteenth- century tradition of Gothic novel writing and applies numerous Gothic elements into her own novels. The Gothic elements she uses, and which will be analysed in the subsequent sub-chapters, include the hero and anti-hero figures, the damsel in distress, the villain, mental disorder, the dark side overlapping with a hidden reality, forbidden, often criminal activities, the decay, plotting, emotions and romance, punishment and liberation and setting. The Gothic elements present in Rendell‟s novels in essence correspond with those in original Gothic novels, though what they represent shifts and

26 adapts accordingly to the contemporary social situation in England. Rendell‟s novels examined include elements of the Gothic tradition and carry a strong appeal concerning issues of horrors of everyday life, including social inequalities, injustice or crime. To raise awareness of present-time social and political happenings, Rendell analyzes delicate, often thorny phenomena from a multiple point of view perspective. What she aims at is understanding and solution, not judgment, punishment or eventual denial of matters in question.

Let us now briefly introduce the elements examined.

The importance of heroes of the Rendell novels selected shifts from deeds to thoughts, though the heroes are not passive. Rendell‟s heroes are people whose minds are open to us to read in. Insights into their minds make Rendell‟s writings closer to everyday reality of not only British society. It is possible to observe streams of thoughts reflecting changes in socio-political structures, contemporary requirements and personal preferences. The heroes, most of whom are females, are not only necessarily police inspectors and great villains. They include ordinary people who happen to possess bright observation skills, curiosity, courage and common sense. Often, they are strongly self-reflective. They are also isolated in their existence. The isolation we are talking about is not of physical character, though in some cases physical isolation happens to be the starting point or the result of emotional or mental isolation.

Rendell further incorporates the element of the damsel in distress. The stereotypical representation of a damsel in distress based in the Gothic tradition is that of a young, beautiful woman imprisoned by a vicious villain from whom she needs to be saved by a brave hero she later marries. In Rendell‟s novels the imprisonment is not only physical, yet also psychological. Damsels in distress find themselves in situations with seemingly unknown and unachievable solutions.

27 The villains appearing in the Rendell novels discussed all correspond with the

Gothic tradition in multiple aspects. They cause sorrow to their loved ones, their deeds are lead by the best intentions, they are rebellious and do not admit any social or physical limitations. Though many times unconsciously, they behave recklessly with no respect for the others.

The modern horrors in the novels selected represent the phenomena disturbing the mundane lives of contemporary people. The connection to the Gothic tradition is provided by the fear they evoke. In relation to this element of the Gothic, Rendell concentrates on horrors including domestic violence, drug abuse or stalking. By presenting all the circumstances imaginable, she attempts the readers to understand and avid general judgements without information concerning particular issues.

An element frequently used in the Rendell novels analysed is the mental disturbance, which is at the same time one of the underlying elements of the Gothic tradition. Rendell‟s interest in the mental conditions of her characters is presented by the insights into their minds, enabling a better understanding of their deeds.

The dark mysteries Rendell depicts reveal the hidden realities of violence, adultery or fatal illnesses which serve as the leading motives for the deeds of the characters involved. Most of the times, the way Rendell presents it, it appears that the characters discussed are able to rationalize all of their evil actions and present them as good intentions.

What Rendell stresses most in the novels examined are the human relationships and behaviour. Rendell offers a portrayal of mundane reality, where relations transform into somewhat extreme forms.

28 Rendell, following the Gothic tradition, further concentrates on Decay of human behaviour and old moral structures. She points to recklessness and indifference within the contemporary English society, where the money is often valued over human feeling.

The plotting itself, the motives and methods used include both inventiveness and evil. Novels by Rendell possess the same elements. They appear in contemporary forms. The prisons and dungeons transmit into relationships, cruel noblemen into husbands and wives, yet the main goal, to kill, remains the same. As it is common with

Rendell, much attention is paid to psychology of those developing the murder plots. The plots usually involve a great volume of invention and allow the reader to penetrate the criminal‟s mind and thus gain a better understanding of them. Rendell concentrates on the motives which vary from novel to novel, including liberation of the self, love for a child, paranoid illusions and secret love affair.

Rendell masterly presents the effects of excessive love and the effects it might have. She takes over the elements of emotions and romance appearing in traditional

Gothic novels and, with no need of modification, implements them into her writings, since the power and intricacy of human emotions and their corollaries has remained unchanged across centuries.

Rendell‟s focus on setting and its manifold and detailed aspects makes it possible for her to create a reality which could be easily mistaken for something existing. The complexity with which she develops characters with a history as well as places which undergo changes as the time passes makes her novels unique. The ruined castles from the Gothic novels turn into houses and deserted sinister areas into destructive feelings of loneliness and the physical transforms into the psychological.

Yet the impact of the modernized Gothic elements is almost thrown on the reader and the invocation of tension and uneasiness bring similar shocking effects. Rendell‟s

29 depiction of the secluded setting and of the emerging Gothic atmosphere is always depressing and destructive.

3.1 Hero Figures

The first of the Gothic elements examined is the hero figure. Such as in the

Gothic tradition, the hero is somebody separated from the rest of characters in a particular way. According to Harris, the archetypal Gothic hero is usually isolated,

“either voluntarily or involuntarily.” Unlike the traditional Gothic novels, the hero is not a poor nobleman or an orphan, but rather an „ordinary‟ person in inopportunely situation, being it a divorced woman suffering from loneliness, a young police officer struggling with her feminist world views, or .a surrogate mother agonizing about the future loss of her yet unborn child. Each of the hero figures possesses a rich inner life, the richness of which lies in their capability of self-reflection and the ability to think about their deeds and attitudes in broader context. It is, however, important to mention, that the self-reflection spoken about is not always advantageous. In many a case the heroes apply rather strict criteria on their behaviour, tend to blame themselves for not being correct or objective and feel remorse. Rendell masterly shows how it might be for a person to live in a world where being „good‟ entails fulfilling a number of conditions; where people tend to judge the others, judge themselves and eventually forget to accept themselves as they are.

Among remarkable characters in End in Tears belongs Chief Inspector Reginald

Wexford, who exposes his concerns about his relationship towards his family and self-

30 doubts about being politically correct. It seems that each issue Wexford perceives, touches him deeply. What influences him most are family affairs, especially the relationships within the family. As Wexford explains it, “If you‟re part of family, what you do is bound to some extent to be the business of the others” (ET 66) He becomes troubled by the relationship with his wife who, after their daughter Sylvia announces her decision to become a surrogate mother, almost rejects her daughter. Wexford finds himself in a situation where he tries to find balance between standing by his wife and supporting his daughter in a difficult life situation. In relation to what Harris claims about the isolation of the characters from the Gothic tradition (see above), it is

Wexford‟s thoughtfulness that prevents him from a deeper interaction with his community. Another hero is Sylvia, Reginald Wexford‟s daughter, who decides to become a surrogate mother for her former husband Neil and his infertile fiancée Naomi.

The character of Sylvia is noticeable also in another of the discussed novels – Harm

Done. She represents a young woman, strongly aware of feminism and political correctness. Nevertheless, In End in Tears, the situation in which she appears shows her from a different perspective and gives space to a deep emotional introspective. Whereas in the earlier novel Sylvia figures as a professional social worker and her thoughts are mainly connected with her job, in End in Tears Sylvia shows the other side of herself – a pregnant woman and a mother of two. In both of the cases presented, Sylvia experiences the feelings of separation from her family and friends. Finally, there is

Detective Sergeant Hannah Goldsmith, a young, ambitious woman with a high sense of political correctness. Hanna represents a strong, modern woman, disregarding old speech patterns, especially in relation with gender issues. As it was mentioned in the introduction to this section, hero figures of the Gothic tradition are in certain aspects isolated from the rest of their community. What draws a parallel between the heroes of

31 the Gothic tradition and Hannah is her language consciousness. She is constantly thinking about others not using the correct language, thus separating them from herself.

Her disagreement with the inappropriate word choice is evident in her thoughts and sometimes even facial expression. At a crime scene, when Chief Inspector Wexford calls Diana Marshalson „Mr Marshalson‟s wife‟ instead of his partner, she gives him

“the sort of look she kept for a middle-aged man who still called the woman he married his wife.” (ET 13) Hannah is particularly sensitive about addressing females. “It irked her [Hannah] that Wexford used the word `girl`. Amber was a woman, she was eighteen.” (ET 17) Hannah further expresses her being correct while Wexford not by showing concerns for him: “He would have to learn correct terms, she thought, or the rapidly changing world would simply leave him behind.” (ibid.) By the constant observation of mistakes everybody makes in their speech while she is the only person using the correct language, Hannah unconsciously moves away from her community and her further communication with its members becomes rather complicated. The language awareness affects not only her work, yet also her personal relations.

In Going Wrong the reader meets Guy and Leonora, two young people living in different worlds, people of opposing lifestyles and value sets. The centrepiece of the novel is Guy, who resembles a character of the Gothic tradition in multiple aspects which merge. First of the aspects is the obsession on the verge of mental disturbance which is, at the same time, the main cause of his isolation from the outer world. Guy is not able to process the information about Leonora‟s engagement and gets a paranoid suspicion. He believes in a conspiracy, manoeuvring Leonora into the arms of another man, for which all of Leonora‟s family and friends are responsible. Guy‟s obsession is so strong that it gradually becomes a virtual prison from which it is impossible to escape. The notion of imprisonment also supports the possibility of Guy being a Gothic

32 character. As Lake claims, “Gothic texts frequently contain images of women who have gone insane, have been kept captive by tyrannical men.” Guy, though not a woman, incorporates both aspects of the claim. He is a person who went insane and is kept captive by his own illusions. The object of Guy‟s love, Leonora, is another typically

Gothic character. Considering the above mentioned statement by Lake, Leonora, though not insane, fits the description a woman captivated by a tyrannical man. The abuse she has to face is not physical, but in the forms of constant stalking and numerous verbal assaults performed by Guy.

There are several characters in Harm Done who suffer from the Gothic isolation.

The novel presents, once again, Reginald Wexford who in this text appears to be the silent observer, perceiving and evaluating all stimuli entering his field of vision. The isolation lies in his reluctance to ignore the multiple forms of children abuse he has to face and in his high moral standards which no longer apply in contemporary English society. (For example, Patrick Flay uses his four year old step daughter Kaylee to break in a shop through a cat flap and threatens her not to tell anybody, Wexford expresses his anger over the situation: “It made him angry when he looked at her [Kaylee‟s] bright face and keen eyes, and knew that she was using that intelligence, which should have been channeled into the right paths, to deceive authority.” (HD 289 – 90)) Wexford‟s dislike of the contemporary social issues corresponds with what the server nus.edu suggests about the Gothic and the modern morals. It claims that the Gothic “is replete with the problems of urbanity: rising crime, declining morality and the blurring of social boundaries.” In relation to Smith, the Gothic nature of Wexford is also due to his distaste for new structures and concepts. One of the typical features of the Gothic tradition is refusal of the new, where the Gothic represents “the counterpoint against which a modern amorality appeared to be developing.” (Smith 157) Fay Devenish is

33 another of the characters with the attributes of the Gothic tradition. Except for being an abused woman “kept captive” (Lake) in the dysfunctional marriage by her tyrannical husband, she is also the keeper of a dark secret. “In gothic literature, secrets aid in creating a sense of suspense, hinging on a scandal or mystery and subsequently lead to a shocking revelation at the end.” (nus.edu) The secret Fay has to live with is the abusive behaviour of her husband, which nobody knows about.. Fay behaves as a stereotypical 1950‟s perfect housewife. However, in reality she lives a lonely life with almost nobody to confess and share with, under constant fear of being not good enough.

In The Secret House of Death Susan Townsend becomes the Gothic heroine with respect to Harris‟ interpretation (see above) of the isolated Gothic hero. Susan suffers from the Gothic form of loneliness due to several reasons. She is a divorced woman who lost her friends along with her husband. She is used to the company of a husband, but does not have one any more and tries to overcome her solitude by work. Also, she is not a valid member of her community, since she is divorced, lives alone and does not engage in the most popular sport of the neighbourhood – gossiping. Further, she does not allow herself to enter a new relationship. Her old bonds constantly pull her back and do not allow her to move forwards. As a result, she finds herself in a space in between, not having anybody and not being reconciled whit that situation. Also David Chadwick, another character of the novel, is an isolated hero resembling the Gothic tradition. He is solitary in his attempts to solve the murder of his old friend without having any solid evidence. His only lead are his observation skills and bright reasoning. He is also deserted in his feelings towards Susan, who is becoming rather distant and unapproachable as the result of his investigation.

There are usually multiple heroes present in each of the discussed novels, each of them representing a unique set of backgrounds, character traits and view points.

34 Despite the uniqueness of each of the characters, there is one aspect uniting them.

Common feature of Rendell‟s heroes is the already mentioned loneliness which draws a parallel to the heroes of the Gothic tradition, as Harris defines them. The loneliness is present in varying forms, being it the feeling of separation, feeling of dissociation, feeling of being torn apart, feeling of being misunderstood, feeling of not being a part of

„them‟. Yet loneliness is not the only element which makes the heroes of the novels examined Gothic. Most of also keep dark secrets, or are imprisoned by a villain. The features which prove their affiliation with the Gothic will be analysed in the subsequent sub-chapters.

3.2 Anti-heroes

An anti-hero is another character often present in Rendell‟s novels. Cambridge

Dictionary offers a definition, where „anti-hero‟ stands for a central character in a play, book, or film who does not have traditionally hero qualities, such as courage, and is admired instead for what society generally considers to be a weakness of their character. An anti-hero implies a villain for whom one can feel sympathy. In the

Rendell novels examined, justice is not an easy concept to define, since the situations

Rendell develops in the novels selected lead “to the breakdown of community standards.” (Beaty) Many a time, “the victims are the killers, not their prey.” (Beaty)

The life-stories of the representatives of this category explain their motives to commit crimes, and consequently it may occur that they are not the ultimate villains, but rather victims. Rowland claims that one of the elements typical of the Gothic tradition is its

35 “attempt to „map‟ unfixable borders of desire, identity, psyche and knowledge.” (110)

The connection between the anti-heroes by Rendell and the Gothic tradition lies predominantly in Rendell‟s depiction of the fragile border between being the hero and being the anti-hero, or in other words the victim and the prey.

All of the novels discussed contain an anti-hero who moves on such a border.

The most frequent appearance of characters of this type is to be found in Harm Done.

There the readers meet Vicki, a woman who repeatedly decides to kidnap a young girl in order to supply assistance for her mentally ill nephew. She feels deep, almost motherly affection for him: “D‟you understand you can just love someone without sex and stuff being involved, and when they‟re not your own kid?” (HD 287) She herself does not think of her deeds as crimes; from her perspective she needs to ensure a woman who would manage the roles of a nurse, cleaning lady, seamstress and cook in one person, who would provide necessary care for the relative Vicki loves so much. Her action is provoked mainly due to her medical condition with fatal diagnosis and her awareness of conditions in psychiatric wards: “He‟s been in and out of those places, psychiatric wards, they‟re worse than the old Bedlam was, so for the past ten years he‟s been with me.” (ibid.) (English-heritage explains Bedlam as the first hospital for the mentally ill in England with a scandalous history. As a consequence, the word later started to represent all the institutions of similar kind in the public imagination.) As the only person, Jerry, her nephew, can rely on, Vicki feels responsible for his future well- being, which is not compatible with a lifelong stay in a state psychiatric hospital.

Further, she regards her plan as beneficial for the „chosen‟ girl as well saying that: there was plenty in it for the lucky girl (ibid; 288), who would as a result inherit a house with all necessary equipment. In relation to what Beaty claims, Vicki balances on the edge between being a victim of the social system and the prey hunting for car-takers. She

36 thus represents an anti-hero who commits crime in order to protect. The same applies for Fay Devenish, who voluntarily abandons her child. Fay combines the qualities of a hero and ant-hero at the same time. Being a victim of domestic violence, the contemporary form of the Gothic isolation, Fay feigns abduction of her little daughter in order to protect her from her father. Rendell describes „the despair and last-ditch remedy, the complicity of others, the final but painful necessary sacrifice” (HD 314) a parent is able to undergo in order to protect their children. This relates to the Gothic notion of balancing in between two opposing realities. Through Wexford‟s words

Rendell stresses the absurdity of the whole situation where “the innocent victim [is] declared guilty and the ruthless perpetrator emerging guiltless.” (HD 314) Similarly to

Vicki and Fay, Louise Sharpe, a minor character, finds herself in an anti-herioc position after being declared infertile, she decides to buy a child from Romania. Though Louise is a rich woman with all the prerequisites for becoming a loving mother, her deed equals trafficking in human beings. Louise is the woman little Sanchia should find a new mother in. Adoption of Sanchia is the second attempt of acquiring a child Louise makes.

After its failure, Louise, unsuccessfully, tries to drown herself and subsequently swallows medicaments as a cry for help from an arduous situation. The connecting elements between all of the anti-hero characters are their gender and love for children.

Their motherly instincts give them the courage to cross the boundaries of what is generally approved, overcome often dangerous obstacles and move to what is best for their children.

End in Tears presents a different kind of anti-heroes. They do not, at least some of them commit any crime, yet their behaviour deviates from what is usual and is still understandable and may invoke sympathy. One of the main story lines in the novel is of the two surrogate mothers, Amber Marshalson and Megan Barthlow being killed. The

37 anti-heroes to be mentioned at this point are Amber‟s parents, specifically her father with his second wife. The family is devastated after Amber‟s death. Mr. Marshalson has lost the only love of his life, as he presents it. His sorrow over the loss of his daughter prevents him from being able to be in the vicinity of Amber‟s son, who strongly resembles her. As time flows, his sensitivity towards the unbearable sameness of his daughter and grandson increases. Furthermore, as more facts become known about

Amber‟s business activities, the more devastated her father becomes. The ravage to his psyche reflects on his physical condition. Mr Marshalson‟s wife, Diana, does not show any sympathy for little Brand. She excuses this by explaining what a burden he is to her.

From what she presents, both her professional and personal lives were destroyed when

Amber gave birth, since without asking her, everybody took it for granted that Diana would care of the child when necessary, which later turned out to mean constantly.

Through most of the book she promotes herself as absolutely cold towards the child, having no emotional bond with him whatsoever, due to the loss of her identity of Diana at the expense of being merely a fulltime nanny. The original instigator of Amber‟s murder. Similarly to the characters examined in the previous paragraph, Both Diana and her husband balance on the between two different worlds – of the generally approved behaviour and the rather insane one - which is typical of the Gothic tradition.

Going Wrong presents yet another type of an anti-hero. Guy, already mentioned in the previous section, may be viewed both as a hero and an anti-hero in one person. In accordance with the definition of a hero in Rendell as well as the Gothic novels, he is a typical representative of a person suffering from alienation from his community. At the same time, his deeds do not fit the accepted behavioural standards, yet he invokes sympathy. It is Guy‟s mental condition which allows readers‟ compassion and pity for him.

38 In The Secret House of Death there appears no anti-hero figure which would fit the definition. The character closest to is Louise North, who for most of the novel remains misunderstood and falsely accused of adultery. This is the cause of the separation from the community typical of the Gothic tradition. While other anti-heroes invoke disapproval of their deeds and sympathy at the same time, the effect Louise has is the same but not happening at once. She is first being disapproved of and sympathy for her comes only after her death. Louise is not popular with her community, she does not have anybody to trust and share with. The neighbours condemn her for what they accepted to believe is true. They feel affection for her exceptionally good looking husband and have no compassion for her at times when compassion is the only thing she really desires. In fact, Louise is the victim of a cleverly planned story. Being a victim is another of the typically Gothic elements. According to Clamp, “there are two main female roles within Gothic literature; the predator and the victim, (…) the latter is fragile and vulnerable, she gives the heroes something to rescue.” Except for being a victim of her husband‟s murderous attempt, she is also the victim of public contempt.

Everybody believes Louise cheats on her husband before the eyes of the whole neighbourhood and lies about it with no regrets. One of the few moments when Louise approaches Susan Townsend in a desperate attempt to talk with someone who might understand her. Nevertheless, even now is Louise rejected. Louise, therefore, as it is frequent with the characters analysed, is also the victim of the isolation typical of the

Gothic tradition.

The anti-hero figures in the novels discussed differ significantly. Apart from people who despite their illegal or inappropriate deeds meet with acceptance and sympathy, there are figures who commit activities which are not accepted, yet cannot be regarded as villains or criminals. Further, there are characters in whom a hero aspect

39 mixes with anti-hero one. Finally, there appear characters who deviate from any of the previously mentioned types. All of them, however, fit in the concept of the Gothic tradition, being it due to their seclusion, their position in between two opposing worlds, or for being a victim. This only shows Rendell‟s creativity in depicting each of the characters as an individual, reactions on whom may vary in dependence on the perspective they are seen from.

3.3 Damsel in distress

The damsel in distress is a traditional Gothic element. According to Lake, damsels in distress are “central to almost all Gothic texts.” As Lake further claims, a heroine of this kind “is usually beset by an evil male suitor intent on possessing her fortune or body.” The representation of a damsel in distress in Rendell slightly shifts.

The alteration comes in terms of rather modern variants of imprisonment. Among these belong unhappy marriage, domestic violence, self-doubts or communication barriers within family. The eagerly awaited hero to save a damsel in distress also does not come on a white horse but appears from the inside. The saviour is the damsel herself, it is her inner power and strength.

Hannah Goldsmith in End in Tears and Lynn Fancourt in Harm Done both experience the same kind of imprisonment. They both voluntarily, without any consultation with their team, venture into the hands of long sought for criminals, yet the case of Hannah resembles the classical eighteenth century damsel in distress scenario.

Hannah disguised as an infertile woman, desperately attempting to become a mother,

40 comes into the house of a man, who had offered a solution to dozens of women in similar situation. After being discovered and imprisoned, Hannah starts to meditate over her past judgements. Hannah enters a situation typical of the Gothic tradition, she is

“kept captive by tyrannical men.” (Lake) In this situation, Hannah remembers how she thought she would behave if someone had kidnapped her: “Never mind if they hit and kicked her, she wouldn‟t humiliate herself by begging the British government or anyone else for her life.” (ET 346) She does not reflect only on her speculations the type of what would she do if…, yet she brings attention also to her relationship with others, especially with Bal, the man she loves. In a critical situation, when it is not clear if she is going to survive, Hannah finds humbleness and realizes her past assumptions were merely false pride. The desperate feelings Hannah has also belong to the Gothic tradition. “It is the sense of there being no escape that contributes to the claustrophobic psychology of Gothic space.” (nus.edu) The rescue of Hannah then clearly follows a

Gothic tradition. After having a premonition in his dream, Bal suddenly knows what has happened to Hannah he could not have reached the last day. Though in risk of losing his job, Bal decides to follow his inspiration which brings him to a specific segment of a road where traffic accidents happen. Suddenly, a car comes in which he sees Hannah and Bal decides to take action. Later he describes his state of mind as follows: “So that‟s how it feels in a battle, how it felt when they used to go „over the top‟, when adrenalin surges and puts the frightened mind to sleep. (ET 354) Bal becomes the intrepid Gothic hero who with devotion and courage risks his own life in order to save the lady of his heart. The sub-plot of Hannah ends in accordance to the Gothic scenario where “the protagonist must be saved through a reunion with a loved one.” (De Vore et al.)

41 Similarly to Hannah, also Lynn experiences imprisonment by criminals she is tries to arrest. After a number of attempts to hitchhike a woman whose profile fits the description of Vicki, Lynn‟s car accidentally breaks down and as a matter of coincidence, it is Vicki who offers Lynn help. Consequently, Lynn is imprisoned such as it is typical of the Gothic tradition. Physical entrapment is a “recurring Gothic device

(…) of a protagonist trapped in a maze of some kind and trying to escape.” (nus.edu)

After being locked in a first floor room, Lynn mobilizes all her powers and concentration and develops a plan of escape. She uses the equipment she finds in the room to create an improvised rope with the help of which she escapes through the window. Unlike Hannah, Lynn finds the rescue from the physical imprisonment within herself. Harm Done offers one more example of the same kind. An analogy may be drawn between Lyn Fancourt and Fay Devenish. Although Lynn‟s captivity is only temporal, the way how both women free themselves shares one trait in common. They both find the courage and power within themselves to escape their prisoners. As it was already mentioned, Lynn employs her common sense and calmness to escape from the house in which Vicki had locked her. Though Fay is not locked, the house she lives in is her prison as well. This resembles the Gothic psychological entrapment “manifested in the form of inescapable, agonising tension.” (nus.edu) The locked doors are substituted by constant fear she is under. The chains which shackle her are nothing less than her husband‟s orders and threats. Fay has to face pressure every moment of her life and cannot afford any mistake, being it tidiness of the house, freshness of morning juice, not talking to people her husband does not approve of, or answering using appropriate words. The liberation Fay wishes for and achieves in the end is ultimate. Suspecting that an escape would mean only a temporary solution, Fay kills her perpetrator to free herself. According to Clamp, this is also typical of the Gothic tradition, since

42 “Occasionally, however, Gothic writers seem to blur the lines between these stereotypical characters [victim and predator] in order to add depth, uncertainty and suspense.”

Leonora Chisholm is another of the damsels in distress Rendell has created in the novels examined. Throughout reading Going Wrong, readers get the opportunity to empathise with her due to Guy‟s interpretation of his emotions for Leonora. Following the Gothic tradition, Leonora is entrapped by Guy‟s obsessive love which evokes the

“sense of helplessness, or a feeling that one is caught up in some sinister plan (…) over which one has no control over.” (nus.edu) For the sake of peace of both her and Guy‟s mind, Leonora agrees to have lunch with him every Saturday. These regular meetings, however, do not work the way Leonora would prefer. Not only they nurture Guy‟s hope to marry Leonora, they also make his addiction to her much deeper. The lunches are not enough and Guy phones Leonora daily. Leonora becomes the victim of Guy‟s unconscious, yet abusive behaviour. When he is not able to reach her at home, then he tries to dial telephone numbers of all of her relatives and friends. His constant interference makes Leonora loosing her freedom. Leonora‟s imprisonment is not physical, and nor has she to see her captor on daily basis. Yet the constant pressure which is put on her as well as her family, forces her to accept a proposed solution. In accordance with the Gothic tradition, Leonora “reflects the transition from the victim to the predator stereotype.” (Clamp) To free herself, Leonora tricks Guy to believe she would spend a whole day with him, Meanwhile Guy is preparing himself for the desired day, Leonora gets married and before Guy realizes, leaves for her honeymoon. Similarly to Hannah Goldsmith, Leonora is saved and her part of the story ends in the company of her loving man.

43 There are two damsels in distress in The Secret House of Death, each of whom experiences quite a different kind of imprisonment. The first of them is Louise North, captivated by her husband‟s adultery and her commitment to the Christian church. As a strong believer, Louise does not see a divorce as being an option; she is not allowed to get divorced. Drawing a parallel to the Gothic tradition, Louise is trapped in a way which is “attributed to a character‟s sense of helplessness” (nus.edu) Unlike her predecessors from other novels discussed, Louise is not saved and allowed to enjoy the beauties of newly gained strength and the love of her rescuer. She is „freed‟ by death and her name is cleared with time. Susan Townsend, the second damsel in distress of the novel, is imprisoned by her passivity, reflecting only on her relationship with her ex-husband and on the habit of being a wife. In relation to the Gothic tradition, the entrapment which “confines to a certain state of mind.” (nus.edu) Susan feels lonely and instead of facing her dissatisfaction with her situation and making steps to change it, Susan is mired in her self pity and lack of energy to do anything. What saves her is, paradoxically, a relationship with Bob North, a fresh widower, whom she fears and admires at the same time. He is the stone causing ripples to spread across the stagnant waters of her life. Bob brings emotions and action back into her life. Little by Little,

Susan slows herself to feel, to step outside the box labelled „an ex-wife accustomed to being a married wife‟. Though Bob has freed Susan from one imprisonment, he slowly traps her into another. To the prison of lies and sweet words his wife, Louise, had already became the victim of. Luckily, Susan is saved by the amateur-detective David

Chadwick, whose temptation to uncover the real story of the murder of his friend, mixed with his natural curiosity and deductive skills lead him to the desired destination.

He cleverly collects evidence so that in the end he is able to give the police an accurate profile of what had happened, based on which Bob can be sentenced. David‟s sympathy

44 for Susan is more than friendly and he feels the need of saving her from Louise North‟s fate. Athough by implication only, it seems that also this damsel in distress will end up in the embrace of her saviour.

Common feature for all damsels in distress is the fear and the Gothic element of imprisonment. All of the damsels in distress analysed have to face their fears of imprisonment and their captors and subsequently have to make the first steps towards freedom. They all realize that the “first duty of a prisoner is to escape” (ET 343), so consequently they have to take a stand and find a solution. All of them experience how difficult it is to live under existing conditions. As Hannah says: “,How could you [be sure] when your judgement was affected by fear:” (ET 343) They all see that a fraught situation can reveal the best as well as the worst in a person. Eventually, they are all freed, being it by the power they carry inside, or by a Prince Charming.

3.4 Villain

Among the Gothic elements emerging in the Rendell novels selected is the villain character. It is “a classic figure in Gothic fiction. (…) A morally ambiguous, contradictory personality, the villain is a figure torn by the conflict of good and evil within him.” (nus.edu) Interestingly, in most of the cases it is the husband or former lover of one of the already discussed damsels in distress. Almost all of them share their need to control their partners, need for ultimate power over their households. Yet they all do it out of pure love.

45 Stephen Devenish is the first of them. In Harm Done he represents a stereotypical perpetrator. From the outside, he looks like a perfect husband and loving father, an ideal man to ensure the life of luxury. Seen from a closer distance, Stephen is a brute convinced of his own superiority. When his wife, Fay, calls the shelter for abused women, she explains her husband‟s behaviour towards her using the following words: “My husband says he‟ll stop hitting me if I put myself in the hands of a good psychiatrist.” (HD 78) Stephen makes her believe that all the corporal punishments she experiences are for her good sake. In this respect, Stephen embodies “the duality of self that in the Gothic represents the alter ego of the character; the hero/villain has within him his evil twin.” (nus.edu) Stephen constantly assures Fay of her subordination. “Well, darling, … you know you do silly things sometimes. “(HD 152) It is Fay who makes mistakes, not him, not all the people in the world, nobody but Fay. Therefore it is Fay who should be blamed and punished for her insufficiency, who should be cured of her weaknesses. Stephen does not keep his judgement of his wife for himself only, he presents Fay as feeble even in front of others. When Wexford comes to investigate the disappearance of the Devenishes‟ daughter, Stephen gives him the look of “my wife isn‟t very strong” (HD 154) but does not forget to mention how excellent a housewife she is. He also does not hide his views of men being superior to women when the development of his daughter is concerned. When it is mentioned that Sanchia, aged almost three, does not speak yet, Mr. Devenish makes his opinion known: “my sons both walked at a year and were fluent by two. Sanchia‟s a girl and maybe it‟s that which makes the difference.” (HD 156) Further, he presents himself as the ultimate master of the house, which nobody can enter without his permission, pronouncing “I wouldn‟t have allowed it” (HD 158) when discussing the possibility of Jane Andrews and other people visiting. With respect to the Gothic tradition, Stephen Devenish is

46 never satisfied with what he has; he is “constantly trying the boundaries of societal and ethical constraints. The hero/villain is the archetypal overreacher, a figure unable to accept human limitations.” (nus.edu) Stephen Devenish is depicted as the modern slave master, whose one and only slave is his wife, forced to do anything he wants. As

Wexford sees him, Stephen Devenish is one of the “well intentioned, earnest people who break the law by uprooting fields of genetically altered oilseed rape and linseed, arrested them and had them charged with causing malicious damage…” (HD 343)

Bob North in The Secret House of Death shares the same good looks and charm

Stephen Devenish has. Following the Gothic tradition, he is “seductive and repulsive” at the same time. (nus.edu) Nevertheless, he is not the type of a villain who would persecute his victim physically. The ongoing torture he prepares is emotional. North appears to possess skilful plotting abilities. Even though it is him who has an extramarital affair, he manages to make the whole neighbourhood, including the police, believe, that it was his wife who committed adultery. His acting skills enable him to trick Susan Townsend into pitying and comforting him. For Susan, “his loss made him different from other men, a pariah, someone you had to treat warily, yet appear to be no different” (SHD 80) Bob North‟s crime does not lie in spreading false accusations only.

In order to eliminate everybody who stops him from having a relationship with his mistress, i.e. his wife and Bernard Heller, he plots and realizes a double murder which would look as a double suicide. In this respect, he too encompasses the double nature of the Gothic villain whose evil deeds are rationalised by good intentions, as was examined with Stephen Devenish.

Guy Curran, the central character of Going Wrong, is an interesting case of the character that combines the traits of a hero, an anti-hero, the victim and the villain in one person. Guy possesses the quality of following his dreams, is faithful and dedicated

47 to his love and therefore a seemingly ideal Gothic hero. He is also the victim of his obsessive desires, which make him suffer and constantly create hypotheses in which the whole world has conspired against him. When drawing a link to the Gothic tradition,

Guy represents the villain who “is never intrinsically wicked, he is promethean, he is rebellious.” (nus.edu) Guys baldness and rebellion is reflected in his refusal to accept the possibility that Leonora really does not want to marry him. With all the weapons he possesses, Guy fights for his love and his main motivation is love as well. Nevertheless, with no excuse, Guy is also a villain who, maybe unconsciously, makes two women in his vicinity suffer. The first of them has already been discussed. It is Leonora who is constantly stalked and interrogated by Guy. He is stuck in their teen years when they both belonged to a street gang and were in love with each other. Guy does not want to admit that Leonora‟s background, studies and interests allowed her to grow and enter new areas of life. Guy has changed, too. He left drug trafficking and started a more serious business in mass producing sentimental paintings and established a travel agency, but otherwise he remained unchanged. His main interests are still fun and his good looks, whereas Leonora does not care much about how she looks and is keen on philosophy and ecology. Guy does not want to accept the fact that people change as they grow and gain experience. As Celeste gently tells him: “Sweet Guy, I don‟t want to hurt you…But Guy, isn‟t it most likely she changed because she was realising you‟d nothing to share any more? You‟re not the same kind of people.” (GW 116) Guy is captured in stagnation which brings nothing but decay. His inability to make a step forwards does not influence only Leonora, the victim of his obsession, but also Celeste.

Celeste is a young model, having the same world views and interests as Guy. Celeste is the woman Guy shares his house, bedroom and deep emotions with. He is not afraid of telling her anything, due to the feeling of closeness. She possesses exceptional

48 understanding for Guy and tolerates his excesses with patience. She is the only person who dares to tell Guy the truth without sarcasm or venom in her voice. She shows concern for his mental state: “Guy, sweetheart, you are a bit crazy, do you know that?

You are a bit obsessed with this thing about Leonora.(…) Don‟t you see this is all in your head, and your head is very strange these days,..”(GW 115) Celeste offers the missing piece of the puzzle Guy needs to understand and let go of the past. Yet his constant refusal and indifference towards Celeste makes her suffer. Further, Guy in his paranoid states is ready to hire an assassin to kill the person who, in his eyes, turned

Leonora against him, which results in murder of an innocent woman who had no connection to him whatsoever.

The final villains to be discussed are the Samphire brothers and Diana

Marshalson appearing in End in Tears. All of them follow the Gothic tradition of being villains with noble intentions, as was examined earlier in this sub-chapter. At the beginning, Ross is a seemingly unimportant character, just a construction company owner, but as more and more crimes appear on the scene, more clues lead to him. Ross keeps a protective hand over his brother, Rick, who seems rather slow in thinking. After years of imprisonment for assault, Rick is devastated and Ross gives him work. Out of gratefulness, Rick consents to do anything for his brother. Ross is capable of doing anything to please his lover, Diana Marshalson, who fell madly in love with her step- daughter‟s son. When it seems that Amber will move out of her father‟s house and take her child with her, Diana together with Ross plan the murder of Amber, so that Diana could become a mother to the little boy. Their plan would have no weak points if Rick was not clumsy and stressed. His nervousness leads the police, little by little, to revelation of the crime. The question remains, who of the two, Diana and Ross, is the originator of the primal crime. Diana‟s love of Brand enabled her to do anything,

49 including the murder of her step daughter. Ross, for the love of Diana assigned to kill the young girl to his brother. Rick, out of gratefulness to his brother, is able to do anything. The three of them, Diana, Rick and Ross, all became parts of a vicious circle of Gothic villains with initially good intentions, who are driven by boundless, ruthless love leading to pain and sorrow of all around.

The villains discussed in this section of the thesis all share certain characteristics. Similarly to the Gothic tradition, they are the originators of suffering and sorrow. They act with good intentions led by their love for their wives, girlfriends and family members. What they want is the good, but at the same time they do not pay any attention to the risks and possible results of their deeds. Many a time they are so blinded by their „good intentions‟ that they are indifferent to everybody around, and able eliminate any obstacles in the way to their happiness.

3.5 Modern horrors

The horrors belong among the topics classically emerging in the Gothic tradition as well as in the texts examined. According to De Vore et al. “the strong imagery of horror and abuse in Gothic novels reveals truths to us through realistic fears.” What the horrors represent shifts from the Gothic ghosts and mythic creatures to something rather real – to abuse, discrimination, suffering, manifold forms of prejudice and to modernity. In other words, the horror Rendell writes of in the texts selected can be regarded as horrors of everyday lives of contemporary Britons. In relation to what De

Vore claims, the fears these horrors invoke in Rendell‟s novels examined enable her,

50 and thus also the reader, to penetrate deep into the psyche of the characters involved. As

Rowland claims, “the Gothic shadows modernity in that it explores what is repressed or ignored by the social privileging of reason, consciousness, masculinity, materialism and the law.” (110) Each of the novels analysed presents a variety of such modern horrors which, at the same time, are not new to mankind.

End in Tears concentrates mainly on the horrors connected with infertility and its effects on human psyche. The novel depicts effects of such a fear on infertile women who, out of despair, put trust in anybody promising a child, even into a miracle fertility treatment in Africa prior which each of the woman was advised to keep a diet consisting of typically African dishes. Then, after several days of travelling around safaris, the women were given an injection with sedatives and after they woke up, they were holding a baby in their arms. Their own baby. Another on the list of horrors of modern society appears drug trafficking. Though nobody is convinced, and the whole issue appears to be a red herring in the end, addiction, drug dealing and its dangers are stressed. Further, there is the issue of racism and male chauvinism. On of many examples is D.S. Goldsmith and Battacharya‟s visit to a possible witness, Henry Nash.

When interrogating him, it was Hannah who asked questions but it was only Bal whom

Nash agreed to answer. As Hannah said, she could clearly see that “he was torn between racism and male chauvinism, but finally decided that talking to an Asian man was preferable to talking to a white woman.” (ET 39) Finally, there is the fear of new world, visible predominantly in Wexford. He is puzzled by modern life, by using new technologies, by the changes happening to the countryside, or by the way young people go clubbing where they do everything but dancing. According to De Vore et al., the

Gothic tradition includes the “fears that we face in life.” All of the horrors stated above

51 are caused and supported by fear, being it the fear of the unknown, the fear of the impossibility to change certain conditions or the fear of the new.

Going Wrong concentrates on drug abuse, stalking and male chauvinism. As it was already mentioned before, Guy suffers from an obsessive idea of getting married his teenage love and does not want to accept any other option. He becomes lost in his compulsion to phone Leonora and loses control over his mind. His obsession robs Guy of his freedom; the only thing he is capable of is thinking about Leonora. Further, drug distribution is discussed. Guy is a former drug dealer. His business earned him enough to have a luxurious house and car at an early age, yet it also indirectly caused death of

Con Mulvanney. The accident of Mulvanney using a class A drug and subsequently getting bitten by bees chases Guy. It is his past, as Guy thinks, this was used to turn

Leonora against him. Male chauvinism is the last horror, to be discussed. It seems it is among popular topics of Rendell, since it appears in most of her books. Guy‟s chauvinism is apparent when thinking about his relationship with Leonora. He takes their separation for a temporary matter and as such, he is allowed to have oher girls for sex:

“(…) a man can‟t be expected to live celibate and there were other girls.

Naturally, there were. There wouldn‟t have been if she hadn‟t withheld

herself. (…) He had taken it for granted that though he had to have a

girlfriend, he was a man, she didn‟t have to have a boyfriend, she could

live without sex. so had had another girls, but she was a girl, she could

live without sex.” (GW 44)

His meditations over the male/female relationships continue. In a similar way, Guy reflects on marriage and the fashion of unmarried young women. From his point of view, “all women want to get married. (GW 45) If a girl does not want to get married, it

52 is only because she wants to make herself believe she is equal to men: “These days a girl wanted to prove herself, show she could be as self-reliant as a man.” (ibid).

Furthermore, Guy draws conclusions even from clothes Leonora wears. When Guy accompanied by Celeste meet Leonora with her fiancé William, Leonora‟s dress does not correspond to the standards Guy has. “A woman who dressed like that to go out with a man couldn‟t care much about him.” (GW 67, 68) His captivity in stereotypical clusters makes him believe that the dress Leonora wears has nothing to do with her own choice, but with her reluctance towards William. The relevance to the Gothic tradition in this novel emerges, similarly to the previous novel examined, from the constant presence of topics evoking discussion based on health and safety concerns and equality of the genders in contemporary England.

The Gothic horrors transform to the issues of domestic violence and its effects on family, especially on the development of children in Harm Done. The modern horrors and their possible ramifications are depicted mainly on the Devenish‟s children

– Sanchia, who after witnessing numerous occasions of her father beating brutally her mother did not speak at the age of 34 months, and her ten-year old brother Robert, unable to concentrate and express himself. Another of the modern horrors originating in the Gothic tradition to be mentioned is male chauvinism, the representative of which is

Stephen Devenish. His attitude towards gender equality has been discussed in the previous section. The Devenishes are not the only characters which might be put in connection with domestic violence. There are also the sub-plots of women living in the

Hide, a shelter for victims of domestic violence. In connection with them, through the mouth and mind of police officer Barry Vine, Rendell asks the question of why do people marry a villain if they do not want to be victims, The answer Wexford suggests is as follows:

53 “It‟s a mystery. But I doubt if many people choose to be victims unless

they are masochists and masochists are few. The thing is people want to

be part of a couple, what they call these days „being in a relationship”.

And most of them would rather have a bad one than non at all. It‟s

nature.” (HD 69)

Rendell thus highlights the natural need of people to live in a community of people, especially in its smallest unit – partnership. In some individuals the need is so powerful, that it wins over other desires and forces them into passivity and hopelessness.

Paedophilia stands for another of the horrors mentioned. Tommy Smith released from prison causes that everybody in Kingsmarkham makes their standpoint clear. Wexford, tries to understand this man, but as a father and grandfather, he cannot accept Smith‟s behaviour towards children.

In the Lord‟s Prayer (…) there was a bit about forgiving us our

trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us. Against us, not

against other people. He [Wexford] couldn‟t forgive those offences

against others, and God, if here was a God, ought not to either. Maybe

religious people would call that blasphemy. (72)

Paedophilia and the fear it causes function as a trigger to mob hysteria, and the inhabitants of Kingsmarkham long to become law enforcers. Their deeds are based on gossip spreading, which could possibly be also regarded as a new form of the horror, in the following manner:

So Maria phoned Rochelle Keenan and because she couldn‟t remember

the name Tanseem had given her, told her a child called Shawna or

Shana or something was missing and the police weren‟t doing a thing

about it. After she had rung off, Rochelle phoned Brenda Bosworth,

54 embellishing her story to make it more acceptable to that sensation-

loving woman‟s ears, and telling her Tommy Smith had snatched a baby

from its own cot in its own bedroom and taken it away in a stolen car.

(HD 181)

The Kingsmarkham inhabitants, despite not knowing the real situation, call themselves the doers who unlike the police take action, They are not interested in facts and act on the basis of impulse, they are provoked by the fear. They are as if in a trance in which they are not interested in effects and consequences of their aggressive demonstrations,

As a consequence, in the heat of their anti-Smith battle, they fatally injure a police inspector.

The focus of The Secret House in connection with the modern forms of Gothic horrors is aimed at adultery. As it was stated in the introduction to this sub-chapter, horrors of the Gothic are revealed through fears. The fear of adultery in contemporary society is prominent. In The Secret House, adultery is presented as the reason for Susan

Townsend‟s marital breakdown, the cause of which was her husband Julian meeting a younger woman. The novel offers one of the possible reasons for adultery. Based on

Doris, a tactless neighbour “it didn‟t matter how good-looking a person‟s husband or wife was. It must be variety and excitement the Julians ant the Louises of this world wanted.” (SHD 15) In several places it is presented as the result of need for change.

Adultery appears also in the manuscripts Susan rewrites. It is the main topic of at least three of the books she had worked on. Further, it shows the double standards in British society concerning the opinion on the deceiver/deceived. According to the novel, when the deceiver is a man, everybody takes it for a normal thing, yet when it is a woman, she is immediately condemned. Adultery is also the most popular topic for gossip. Someone else‟s private affairs are the only free time activity Doris Winter is engaged in.

55 The modern horrors which appear in Rendell‟s novels selected are the phenomena common in contemporary western society. What links them to the horrors of the Gothic tradition is the fear underlying them. Rendell offers an insight into the minds of people who have to face these horrors. She also presents possible reasons for their existence. By doing so, she attempts the readers to understand, accept and not judge without further information. The modern horrors discussed permeate the novels examined. Multiple of them are present in each of the book, even though the main concern is one only. This contributes to complexity and higher plausibility of Rendell‟s stories.

3.6 Mental disorder

One of the classical elements typical of Gothic novels is a mad person. Madness belongs among “the most recognisable concepts in Gothic literature. The most common association with madness is with that of a mental condition where one is deemed to be irrational.” (nus.edu). The „mad‟ characters, also, tend to defend their deeds and motives by rationalisation of their actions, Similar characters appear in the novels selected, yet each of them differs significantly. Also, the term “madness,” clearly referred to in the Gothic tradition, is at present substituted by mental illness or disturbance caused by serious happenings. All the characters examined suffer from more or less serious mental disorders. The rationalisation process is, in some of them, used in order to make their perception of the world, closer to the reader.

56 The first of the characters discussed in connection with the area explored, could be Jerry, appearing in Harm Done. Jerry does nor offer much space to analyze his life experience. It is the company of Vicki who approximates what it is like to live with a mentally disturbed person. He corresponds with the Gothic tradition in all aspects, since in the Gothic “„madness‟ is conceived as a form of illness or disease, a condition not to be found in one of a sound constitution.” (nus.edu) Jerry is depicted as a constantly staring man whose unblinking eyes „seemed to have more white round their irises than most people‟s, and his silence (…) made [Lynn] doubtful if he was able to speak.” (HD

274) To make his description a more complete one, Rendell displays a scene from the imprisonment of Lynn Fancourt:

Jerry got up and began walking about the room, picking things up and

putting them down again (…) from an arrangement of flowers in a basket

he took a blue iris, brought it to his nose, sniffed it, dropped it on the

floor and trod on it. Not a simple treading underfoot, but a concentrated

maniac stamping and crushing. Then he passed on to the window and

stood there with his back to the room, although the curtains were drawn.

(ibid)

Jerry, as described, is not dangerous, yet he sometimes has excesses and needs to be under constant medication. Vicki, who devotedly takes care of him realizes the complexity of assistance he requires. That, together with her liking of Jerry, is the motive of the kidnaps she, in good faith, performs. Wexford feels pity for both Vicki and Jerry and realizes the tragic and ludicrous character of this case. However, Jerry is not the only person who could be labelled as mentally disturbed. His care-taker, Vicki, under the pressure of her constant assistance to Jerry and as a consequence of her fatal illness becomes affected as well. Also Vicki can be placed within the Gothic tradition,

57 where “Madness is also often portrayed as a hereditary disease, insidiously affecting a character‟s psychological and mental health without him/her realizing it.” (nus.edu)

Vicki loses her ability to realise consequences of her deeds. Observations concerning

Vicki made by Wexford look as follows:

Her delusive state grew more and more apparent as she talked.

Schizophrenia can be genetic, Wexford knew, perhaps always is. Back in

the sixties and seventies those Victorian theories of inherited madness, of

whole families afflicted, had been derided. Today it was seen that the

nineteenth-century writers were not so far wrong. (HD 288)

Herby Rendell makes a clear reference to the Gothic novels and their elements. In the characters of Vicki and Jerry, Rendell shows the extreme to which a mental disturbance may lead. It shows the uneasy position of the person responsible for a mentally ill.

Another representative of a person suffering from mental disorder is the protagonist of Going Wrong, Guy. Though not officially recognised as mentally ill,

Guy‟s condition is serious and dangerous to the others. After the discovery that Leonora is soon getting married, Guy refuses to accept her choice. He tries to find a culprit instead. Among the suspects are Leonora‟s parents, her brother and friends. Guy acts on an impulse and asks his old friend Danilo to „get someone out of way (…) fix things.”

(GW 49) His compulsive states do not allow him to see possible consequences. A parallel can be drawn to the Gothic tradition here, due to the presence of

“uncontrollable passions and extreme irrationality” (nus.edu) in Guy. However, there are moments when Guy realizes the ambivalence of his thoughts. When looking at his lover, Celeste, and presupposing her opinion on their relationship, Guy suddenly realises that what he thinks might not be true: “Perhaps it wasn‟t like that though, perhaps he [Guy] was only projecting his own feelings on to her, judging her by

58 himself.” (GW 53) He accepts the possibility of reality being different from what he thinks it is. Also this correlates with the Gothic tradition where “characters question their own sanity” (nus.edu) Interestingly, Guy is not capable of such a reflection when in contact with Leonora. Guy also becomes aware of the danger of his rising anger.

Later, he watches the effects of anger on his organism:

“Anger began to rise inside him in that uncontrollable way it had. … it

would start in the way nausea started, a stifling feeling that worked its

way up to his throat where it settled and needed not to be vomited but

screamed out. Only he had never yet screamed it out.” (GW 137)

The suppression of his anger only cumulates the inner pressure Guy is subjected to.

This attitude is not sustainable and leads to a minor incident which opens a new perspective for Guy. After breaking a vase in an amok, he becomes afraid of himself and starts asking: „Why had he done it and without thought?” and answers his question promptly: “he had simply done it on an impulse.” (GW 138) Guy continues in thinking about why he has been so confused recently and at the same time realizes the effect

Leonora has over him: “It was as if he had two levels of feeling about her [Leonora], the upper in which he was optimistic, cheerful, confident and the lower where fear was and doubt.” (GW 150, 151) Despite the enlightened moments which enable Guy to see the reality, he is trapped in his obsession and is unable to change this state. The character of

Guy serves as the object of an interesting study of an originally innocent love turning into a blinding obsession and provides thus the reader with the opportunity to follow the reasoning and rationalizing processes of an unstable mind.

Vicki, Jerry and Guy are the most severely mentally disturbed characters in the novels discussed. Yet they are not the only ones suffering from distress. There are other cases, though not that serious. Mr Marshalson appearing in End in Tears becomes

59 devastated after the death of his daughter. His psyche is very affected by his loss. After the initial shock, Mr Marshalson seems to be trapped in constant sorrow over his loss, and continually mourns over his daughter. His condition is getting worse with time. One of Wexford‟s observations serves as a suitable illustration:

What had happened to Marshalson he [Wexford] had seen happening to

bereaved parents again and again. Following the initial terrible shock,

they seem to adjust, to resign, themselves and to come to terms with their

loss. But after a while, weeks or even months, realisation of the full

extent of what they had suffered reached and enveloped them. A

sorrowful depression, dull, indifferent, bitter and beyond hope of relief,

took them in its relentless grip, a hold from which some of them never

unloosed themselves their whole life long. People who hadn‟t cried since

they were children broke down in tears at the mention of the lost one‟s

name. (ET 337, 338)

Mr Marshalson represents an exemplary portrayal of a parent, whose grief and deprivation over the loss of their children ruin their lives. He loses interest in the happenings of the outer world and becomes enclosed in his own shell of sorrow. Tragic and sorrowful deaths of close relatives, in particular children, are frequently found in the Gothic tradition. These are usually mysterious and seemingly accidental, however, they may be later clarified. The sorrow caused by death is immense, since “in Gothic literature, death is horrific because it is often not quite the end.” (nus.edu) In Rendell‟s perspective it is the beginning of the life without the dead person, the beginning of one‟s own journey towards the acceptance of the unpleasant reality.

Further representatives of some kind of mental deprivation are Lizzie Cromwell and Stephen Devenish from Harm Done, Rick Samphire from End in Tears and Bob

60 North from The Secret House of Death. Neither of these can be regarded as retarded.

With some of them it is also questionable, whether they can be regarded as mentally challenged at all. Lizzie is a slow thinker. Her simplicity and naivety make her a child in the body of a young woman and her limited knowledge of the world makes her vulnerable to insensitive, often reckless behaviour originating in her family and close neighbourhood. Lizzie does not often realize the impact of her deeds and thus is easily manipulated by others. Her backwardness does not make her directly dangerous to the others, yet the lack of awareness of the possible impact of her actions might be. Lizzie stands for a pure soul who under the influence of the inconsiderate may get harmed. Yet it is not clear if she would realize that. To a certain degree, Lizzie could also be linked with “the damsel in distress,” one of the obviously Gothic aspects of the novel. Her backwardness imprisons her within a life of limited possibilities. At the same time, her backwardness may be associated with pure innocence, commonly used in the Gothic tradition. Rick Samphire, accused of and sentenced for violence, shows how devastating a stay in prison might turn. After his divorce and prison experience, Rick is nothing but a desperate creature struggling for his living. Out of gratitude, he obeys all of his brother‟s wishes, no matter what they are. Rick, from his perspective, has nothing to lose, therefore he fulfils everything he is asked to do. Bob North, who contrives a scenario in which his wife cheats on him, creates conditions under which the rumour spreads effortlessly and eventually murders his wife and the alleged lover of hers.

Stephen Devenish abuses his wife both physically and mentally in order to make her a better wife and a better person. It is questionable whether the aggressive behaviour of these three male figures can be regarded as a form of mental disturbance. Their motives differ, beginning with gratitude, over the compulsion to control, to the tendency to

61 control. They all might claim good intentions as their main motive. Yet they all lack the basic skill of recognizing the freedom of life of each individual.

The variety of mental disturbances appearing throughout Rendell‟s texts examined proves their Gothic character, since mental disturbance is one of the underlying elements of the Gothic tradition. Furthermore, it contributes to Rendell‟s attempt to make the readers try and experience, and consequently understand and accept the lives of those directly affected by any form of them.

3.7 Dark Side / Hidden Reality

The dark side, or the hidden reality, also belongs among the traditional Gothic elements. When drawing a parallel to the Gothic tradition, dark secrets helper “in creating a sense of suspense, hinging on a scandal or mystery and subsequently lead to a shocking revelation at the end.” (nus.edu) Although the significance of both of the terms slightly differs, in context or Rendell‟s writings these two merge into a complex unit, where hidden reality covers the dark side. It is debatable, whether the elements of hidden reality in Rendell novels selected have a deeper meaning then those in Gothic novels, nevertheless, unlike the eighteenth – and - nineteenth-century writings, they are elaborated more in detail, which offers the possibility of a closer analysis. Concealed facts go hand in hand with the human psyche. Similarly to the Gothic tradition, the dark side sometimes equals “a dark family history.” (nus.edu)Rendell writes about hidden realities affecting mundane life and hidden faces of people. She elaborates on the psychology of these people, their influence on their families, employees and people

62 surrounding them. The dark side or hidden reality often stands for the cause of all the nuisance and problems, usually unknown to the neighbourhood. In Rendell‟s novels the dark side or secret equals a mental illness, mistaken or fatal diagnosis or family disaster.

An unknown fact which changes the whole perspective, helps thus to understand individual motives and the individual character behaviour. Elements of the hidden reality or dark secret have already been discussed in the previous sections in connection with heroes, anti-heroes, villains and mental illnesses. This section only summarizes them and adds several further observations.

Components, which might be assessed as elements of the dark side and/or hidden reality appear in all of the novels discussed. In Harm Done, it is clearly the family situation of the Devenishes. Similarly to the Gothic tradition, the dark side as presented in Rendell novels selected sometimes equals “a dark family history,”

(nus.edu) though it no longer entails an ancestral curse. The Devenishes at first sight appear as a happy, financially secure family living in a lovely house in superb condition. Everything looks ideal. The furniture, the decorations, fresh flowers in vases,

Stephen – a gentle, polite and loving husband and father. Yet the sight of his strained wife, the behaviour of their sons and developmental difficulties their daughter has suggest that something is utterly wrong. It needs Sylvia, a skilled social service worker, to recognise Fay as a victim thanks to her everyday experience:.

“(…) the woman is a victim of domestic violence. Oh, you can‟t see any

bruises, you can‟t see healed fractures, but that‟s what she is and no

doubt that grinning idiot [Stephen Devenish] is what you‟d call the

perpetrator. (…) how can I say? I just can. You get to know when you‟re

always meeting women in her situation. There‟s a vulnerable look, a

cowed look and something worn that comes into these women‟s faces,

63 especially when the abuse is sustained over a long period” (HD 311,

312)

On the Devenish case, Rendell stresses domestic violence as a serious matter, which can be successfully hidden to the eyes of neighbours or friends, and which can cause a serious damage in the psyche of the victim and immediate witnesses.

Diana Marshalson, one of the characters in End in Tears, also belongs to the

Gothic category of dark family sectets. She, realistically, pretends to be indifferent to the child she has to take care of. What is more, she gives the impression of what an inconvenience the child is. When Brand was born, Diana had to terminate her business activities and gave her full attention to upbringing of the boy. „Diana put up a very good show of finding Brand a nuisance, a bit of a pain to have around.” (ET 375) All details fit the necessary image. In fact, the ending of the story reveals that everything was reversed. It is true that Diana finished her job, but her attitude was quite the contrary of what she presented. “No one would have guessed how she really felt (…)

Diana may have found caring for Brand a chore at first. Not for long. She soon came to love him. She loved him, she adored him, as if he were her own. (…) Brand was virtually hers.” (375) Diana loved Brand so much that the thought of losing him after

Amber moved away showed what Diana was capable of – i.e. hiring a murderer.

Bob North and Magdalene Heller are another dark secret keepers which correspond with the Gothic tradition as stated in the introduction to this sub-chapter.

Bob North and in the female-mutation also Magdalene Heller both correspond with the element of the Gothic tradition, according to which the “seemingly upright life led by

Victorian men in the day is coupled with a lurid secret life at night.” (nus.edu) As

Rendell tells their story in The Secret House of Death, they live seemingly normal lives, but their marriages are not happy. Their partners are lovers. Everybody believes the

64 story and feels sympathy for them. But Magdalene and Bob share a secret, which completely changes the story. In fact it is them who are lovers, not their spouses. They met at a holiday, fell in love and produced an evil plan. They pretend not knowing each other; they have first met only after the tragic „suicide‟ of their spouses; Bob helps

Magdalene financially. Their deceit gets slowly revealed through David Chadwick. His personal interest to figure out the real circumstances of his friends‟ death gradually uncovers how:

they had invented a love affair between two mild and gentle people who

had never harmed them except by existing; how they spread upon their

characters so much filth that their friends and neighbours and his twin

brother had vilified them; how they had done it simply because Louise

North could not divorce her husband and Heller was going to take his

wife away to Switzerland. (SHD 184)

Even in this novel, seemingly irreproachable characters, Bob North especially, hide their second faces, which shows how far is a person able to go in their passion.

Also Going Wrong gives the reader an opportunity to look at a dark secret from various angles. Guy Curran, is also one of the characters covering a hidden reality. Yet his case is a bit different. Guy attempts to prevent Leonora from knowing about his past business and the connection with Con Mulvanney‟s death. In particular, the initiative

Mulvanney‟s friend, Poppy Vasari, takes, makes Guy worried. Poppy threatens Guy to tell everybody about how he killed Con, though his death was a matter of misfortune.

Guy develops a paranoia in which it is the dark secret about Con Mulvanney‟s death which served Leonora‟s family as a tool to keep her away from Guy. He repeatedly confides: “they ganged up against me. (…) they set out to turn her against me and they succeeded.” (GW 244) Guy strictly rejects the possibility of Leonora having her own

65 choice of a partner, without including him. Unlike the other hidden realities and dark secrets mentioned, this paranoia does not have a destructive effect on the witnesses, but primarily on its keeper – Guy. It is important to mention that Leonora and her family share a hidden reality as well. It is the date and place of Leonora‟s wedding. They thoroughly conceive a plan how to delude Guy and avoid thus possible inconveniences during the real wedding. To use the same measures for all the characters, they too deceive Guy and their trick is initiated by good intentions, similarly to the previous dark secrets discussed above.

Similarly to their Gothic predecessors, all of the dark mysteries appearing in the novels analysed reveal hidden realities of violence, adultery, and mainly of obsessive love. Rendell captures here the hypocrisy and selfishness, however, showing various angles and standpoints, which would seemingly justify the individual characters‟ actions derived out of their best intentions.

3.8 The forbidden, crime and death

Forbidden activities, behaviour or simply the forbidden are affiliated with the

Gothic as well. In the Gothic tradition, the term „forbidden‟ was mainly used in connection with forbidden desires which filled the gaps in which “the Gothic narratives sometimes called for the uncanny,” (nus.edu) In Rendell‟s novels selected, similarly to the contemporary society, nothing is really forbidden, yet there are phenomena perceived as inappropriate since they contrast with the standard or accepted conventions. Though these are not prohibited now, some of them used to be a taboo in

66 the past and are therefore still viewed as a peculiarity, frequently with contempt. The peculiarities include namely feminist issues, human right activism, eco activism, cross- cultural/racial partnerships, drug abuse, and also adultery. An element which goes much further as far as the forbidden is concerned is the crime, the murder in particular. Crime and death might stand as an independent Gothic element, since they are commonly present in Gothic novels, which, as it was already stated earlier in the text, “replete with the problems of urbanity” including the crime. (nus.edu) As far as death is concerned, traditional “Gothic literature is obsessed with death. We find portents of death, unnatural deaths and series of deaths all of which contribute to an atmosphere of horror.” (nus.edu) Both crime and death create fear, uneasy feeling, sadness or a wish for revenge, as well as possible liberation. All of the four novels discussed touch upon the issues listed. Neither do they condemn, nor do they support any of the aspects mentioned. They present sample situations, not uncommon in everyday reality, providing multiple points of view to each of them. Rendell‟s novels have the ability to show that it is not possible to judge based on a single perspective, since they are complex in their motives and causes. At the same time they try to wake common sense and the ability to differentiate where are the natural borders of human behaviour.

As it was already mentioned, the notion of the forbidden does not carry the meaning of something being actually prohibited, apart from the crime, of course. In

Rendell‟s writing the notion shifts to something existing, and in some cases it may even be approved of, yet perceived with a hint of suspicion, causing a need to keep distance and avoid talking about the issues in question. Since all of the issues were already covered in previous sections, this one is going to be rather brief, listing mainly examples of individual issues and their relevance to the sub-topic of the forbidden, crime and death. In The Secret House of Death the forbidden element, bringing in the

67 Gothic notion of the forbidden desires, is obviously adultery. Except for reasons for adultery, it examines the attitude towards the persons who themselves experienced it.

As it already appeared in the section called Modern Horrors, this narrative reveals the presence of double standards as far as the opinion on the initiator of adultery is concerned. Further, it also focuses on the relationship of the couple affected by adultery and obstacles in their communication. In End in Tears we can talk about the interracial relationship of Hannah Goldsmitn and Balbir Battacharya, which is perceived with racial awareness by some of the Kingsmarkham inhabitants and most importantly, by

Hannah herself. Racism is also discussed as an individual topic. Damon Coleman, aged twenty-five, reflects on the changing behaviour of the white majority towards black minority in a small British town. He remembers times:

“when black people, however accepted, were never considered good

looking in the eyes of whites. Then came the years when black men and

women were attractive enough when they had Caucasian features. That

was gone now and West Africans of pure lineage found favour in whites‟

eyes – unless the white was a member of BNP or extremely right-wing.”

(ET 275)

Thus Damon highlights the ever present change of human judgements. The amount of feelings concerning the black community within only a twenty-five-year long period stresses the transience of human preferences and thus stresses the absurdity of prejudice. The racial difference mentioned could be seen as the Gothic representation of the unknown and uncanny or even occult, which, in Gothic tradition, would be associated with evil, wickedness and malice.

End in Tears as well as Harm Done and Going Wrong also focus on feminist issues, which might be equalled to the forbidden desires of the Gothic tradition.

68 Hannah, Sylvia and Leonora are all interested in this area, in particular in gender equality and political correctness in still prevailingly male society. Hannah relates these to the actions of everybody in her vicinity and mainly to her personal life, constantly questioning whether her thoughts are supporting her feminist beliefs or vice versa.

Sylvia applies her feminist views mainly on the situations she experiences at work and firmly establishes them in her family life, especially in her relationship toward her husband and father. Leonora is one of the characters who remain slightly mysterious to the readers, since not much is known about her, and what is revealed is reproduced by

Guy, whose perception of real happenings is considerably distorted. Yet from what is known about her, Leonora lives a socially and politically engaged life and is interested in feminism, eco-activism and philosophy, which is perceived by Guy as a craze and need to prove something to herself.

Harm Done explores the issue of domestic violence and its victims. It offers the standpoint of the victim, the perpetrator, their children – if there are any, a social worker, an emphatic police also officer and the neighbours or members of their community. The victim often thinks her punishment is adequate and deserved. The perpetrator thinks that his deeds are understandably necessary. Children despise the perpetrator for his brutality and the victim for her incompetence to stop it. The interpretation of the social worker demonstrates the reality in which domestic violence is not uncommon and that the pattern it follows is, unfortunately, exactly the same – the pedantic perpetrator abusing his partner out of „pure love‟, the victim, paralyzed by the fear of the unknown or of possible further assaults, unable to escape and hoping that everything will turn out well in the end. The angle of the police shows empathy with the victim, but also their incapability to do anything without a formal notification. Finally, the perspectives of neighbours, community members or other family members often

69 express the refusal to believe that domestic violence could actually take place in „such a nice family.‟

Going Wrong is concentrated on drugs and their effects on the health and social relations of an individual. It shows the perspective of a drug dealer, not caring about his customers. Further, there are people strictly rejecting and disdaining anything to do with drugs, and on the other hand, there are drug users whose addiction leads them to the life in the streets with no interests except for taking another dose. Going Wrong presents also fatal consequences of drug abuse and reactions on the death caused by drugs of a close person. All of the issues mentioned here represent something generally regarded as not appropriate, yet they all are parts of mundane reality of millions of people.

The elements of crime and death also appear in all of the novels discussed. In each of the texts, death forms the centre around which all sub-stories revolve. The sub- plots which are not directly linked to death serve as a lead, which brings the readers to other series of events and thus interconnects the ultimate crime with happenings of minor importance. Most of the novels discussed develop the traditional Gothic notion that “Gothic literature reflects a wish to overcome one‟s morality.” (nus.edu) The link between death and morality in End in Tears is depicted rather explicitly. Two girls have to die because of Diana Marshalson‟s unhealthy love for her step-grandson. She cannot imagine living without him and therefore decides to secure his constant presence by eliminating his mother. As a matter of coincidence, Megan Bartlow witnesses an unsuccessful attempt to kill Amber. When she accidentally meets Ross Samphire, whom she mistakes for his brother Rick who actually tried to kill her friend, she decides to profit from her discovery. In darkness, the Samphire brothers look alike, yet Ross possesses more brightness than his brother and manages to secure that Rick, and in consequence himself and Diana, are not discovered.

70 In Harm Done it is Stephen Devenish who is found dead. His murder is an effect of the long lasting abuse of his wife, which puts Fay in between two possibilities – kill or be killed. The Secret House of Death reveals the murder of two people whose existence did not suit their spouses. A secret love affair between Magdalene Heller and

Bob North leads to a vicious plan how to get together. In both Harm Done and The

Secret House of Death, the element of death is employed as the tool enabling the Gothic liberation – from a tyrannical husband and faded love subsequently.

Finally, Going Wrong introduces the death of an innocent person, not involved into the tenuous relationship between Guy and Leonora. In one of his paranoid states,

Guy decides that it is Rachel Lingard, who is responsible for him being refused by

Leonora. He asks his friend Danilo for help with hiring an assassin. The description he gives fits not only Rachel, but also Janice, Leonora‟s relative, who was temporarily staying at Rachel‟s place. In her four novels explored, Rendell develops four kinds of murders, originating from the obsessive love, fear of being discovered, and a secret love affair.

Following the Gothic tradition, elements of the forbidden, crime and death penetrate through all of the novels and all sub-plots present in them. Rendell relates thes issues which are looked at with suspicion – with adultery and obsessive passions in particular. By doing so, she, again, offers profound insights into the persons involved for the reader, and thus enables a better observation and understanding of current happenings in contemporary society.

71 3.9 Decay

Decay, not only physical but predominantly related to society and its values, is a

Gothic element which might be regarded as rather typical of Rendell. According to the nus.edu, the Gothic genre “is characterized by ideas of encountering the internal decay of established societal structures.” Drawing a parallel to the Gothic tradition, Rendell continually elaborates on the twisted values and morals and their gradual decay.

Through the words of her characters she often points out the changing values of the young in contrast to those of older generations. This section offers only the strongest issues of decay as depicted in each of the novels. These then partly overlap with issues dealt with above.

Going Wrong suggests the decay concerning to drugs and petty crime. Is shows young people spending their free time using, in better cases, marijuana, and getting involved in activities on the edge of law. In The Secret House of Death the decay intended to be shown is of human relationships. Through the vicious plan of Bob North and Magdalene Heller it points out to selfishness and recklessness accompanying one‟s intentions, with no respect to the values of human lives and emotions, as emphasised above. Decay in Harm Done, spins around children. With this group in the middle of attention, the decay of parental behaviour towards their children is demonstrated.

Parental or adult indifference to their delicate feelings, to the specific aspects of childhood and to their natural need to be free and joyful is powerfully addressed. This is especially visible in connection with Patrick Flay and his daughter Kaylee, who is forced to steal at an early age, and Sanchia Devenish with her brothers who are often the witnesses of domestic violence. Similarly to Harm Done, End in Tears presents the decay in connection with the juvenile. This is represented in the stories of two surrogate

72 mothers to be, Megan Bartlow and Amber Marshalson, where teenage behaviour is discussed. While investigating the death of Amber Marshalson, who arrived late to meet her friends, inspector Barry Vine suggests that the young are “very casual indeed about such matters as forgetfulness, indecisiveness, phoning to explain or apologising when a better prospect for the evening turned up.” (HD 42). In closer relation to Amber and

Megan, their carelessness about so fragile a matter such fragile as pregnancy is presented. It is the frivolity of the two of them to give false chances to desperate infertile couples and elicit money from them to which Rendell writes about in connection with the decay. The deeds of the two lack human respect to each other, to the feelings of those in need, and their only interest is in easily earned money, with no respect to the consequences of their dangerous game with a human fate.

Human relationships and behaviour are what Rendell stresses most in her work.

She offers the picture which reflects the reality of every day present in many households, though it is not the kind of reality many want to face. Decay of human behaviour and old moral structures is topical in the Gothic tradition as well as in all of the novels discussed. It points to recklessness and indifference to each other, to the value the money has for some, and to the eventual results it may lead to.

3.10 Plotting

Plots of the Gothic novels traditionally “focus on finding out why a seemingly inexplicable event occurred.” (nus.edu) The secret, often covering complicated plans and resulting in a murder of an innocent, unsuspecting victim, is one of the elements

73 appearing in traditional Gothic novels. Characters who should be eliminated for a reason which is not apparent at the beginning but gradually comes to light as the story proceeds, tend to fall in a trap from which it is not possible to escape.

The major plot in Going Wrong is connected with the murder of Stephen

Devenish. This case is different from the other ones examined, since it is not about the perpetrator planning to murder his victim, but rather the other way round. After years of both physical and psychological torture, with regard to the future of her children, Fay decides to make and end to the suffering. The extent of the plotting she makes is not clear, yet her intention is. Fay Devenish might be found representing of women suffering daily from domestic violence and reach the point of not being able to bear it anymore. She stands for the women who eventually turn the weapons their perpetrators use for torture against them. Yet she does not do it on impulse. She develops a clever plan making the whole incident look accidental. After a seemingly innocent consultation with Sylvia three months prior the event, she murders her husband. This secret is never revealed, though the reader knows, and her plea of being guilty due to the diminished responsibility is acknowledged by the judge. Through his judgement,

Rendell makes her standpoint concerning similar issues clear:

“Of the dead nothing but good. There must be exceptions to that axiom.

Stephen Devenish was a hard worker, a good provider and, I believe, an

honest man. He was also, in other respects, a monster. The woman lived

a life of unimaginable suffering, abuse and torture at the hands of a

miscreant who used her as a punchbag for his sadistic impulses.” (HD

462)

In the Gothic tradition, the attempts of predominantly female characters “to break free of stereotypical constraints” enable the author to “create obscurity and suspense within

74 a plot.” (Clamp) As it appears in all of the novels examined, desperate situations – the loneliness of the victim, the damsel in distress - may provoke a person to desperate deeds. Rendell neither approves of, nor disdains with the deeds done. The author is primarily keen to manifest the cause and effect with all the detail of both of the involved.

End in Tears, following the Gothic tradition where the plot is often “built around (…) parentage” (Harris) shows how far love for a child can go. This aspect to a certain degree appears in Harm Done as well. Nevertheless, instead of a murder committed for the sake of its protection, this novel presents a murder for the sake of obtaining a child. The deep emotional attachment to a child provokes Diana Marshalson to hire an assassin. Diana, having an affair with the man who eventually facilitated the murder of her step daughter, became obsessed by the child: “Diana Marshalson wanted her affair to continue but there was something else she wanted even more. Enough to kill for and pay someone to kill for.” (ET 374) Here Rendell also provides an example of how it is not advisable to judge a seemingly harmonious family, since the view from the outside is always distorted by one‟s own assumptions. An ostensibly happy marriage is interwoven with adultery, and a woman who gives the impression of despising her step grandson, in fact cannot bear her own childlessness and loves him more than anything. Rendell thus demonstrates to which ends unfulfilled maternal instincts mixed with a strong obsession and high intelligence may lead.

Going Wrong, similarly to End in Tears, presents a case of an unhealthy attachment to a person which leads to murder. This builds on the Gothic tradition where

“the plot itself mirrors the ruined world in its dealings with a protagonist's fall from grace as she succumbs to temptation” (De Vore et al.) As it was already mentioned several times before, the character of Guy Curran offers a thorough representation of a

75 disturbed person, whose mind continuously creates bizarre theories. What he decides for is the murder of his arch enemy, yet the identity of the arch enemy is not known for sure. As the suspects change with time, so does Guy‟s desire to have them killed.

Therefore the plotting is changing continuously in dependence on the illusion Guy is currently having. For that reason even here Rendell gives the opportunity to follow the flow of thoughts and constructions an ill mind may produce.

Finally, The Secret House of Death presents a clever, cruel kind of plotting in order to follow one‟s heart. The murder plan is created for months, supported by false evidence and gossip based on human love for sensation. Rendell here presents the cleverness and cold bloodedness of the instigator, who took into account all details, including the general behaviour of his neighbourhood, creating a perfect alibi and preparations for the attitude to take in imminent months after the murder and setting a crime scene no one would have any doubts about.

Plotting, in many cases a very careful and detailed one, appears in all of the novels discussed. Similarly to traditional Gothic novels, as claimed by Rendell and discussed above shows how the determination to achieve the desired goal, usually supported by strong emotions and possibly even by a certain degree of mental disturbance give an individual the power to act, with no respect or mercy to the lives of his victims.

76 3.11 Emotions and elements of love

As Harris states about traditional Gothic novels, they tend to be “highly sentimental, and the characters are often overcome by anger, sorrow, surprise, and especially, terror. Characters suffer from raw nerves and a feeling of impending doom.”

"The same elements apply for Rendell‟s writings discussed. Heightened emotions create an integral part of her novels. Rowland assesses the relationships created by Rendell as follows: “Rendell is interested in intense relationships that do not fit traditional social patterns. Pure emotions transform into obsessive states with uncontrolled deeds, having fatal consequences.” (160)

Emotions, emotional strain or emotional outbursts in Rendell help to uncover the real personalities of her characters. They unravel the fears, anxieties and frustrations, and clarify their standpoints and preferences. As one of the main characteristics of Gothic novels in modern years has been the interest in psychology, the presence of emotions supplies a valuable source for discussion of human psychology. A factor contributing to the escalation of emotions is the element of romance, which also occurs in an almost unchanged form in Rendell‟s writings. Harris suggests several elements of romance present in Gothic novels, including “powerful love, uncertainty of reciprocation, unreturned love, lovers parted, illicit love or lust threatening the virtuous one, and rival lovers.” All of them might be identified in the novels discussed and create the basis for future emotional distress.

Harm Done incorporates elements of powerful love of a mother for her child and emotional tensions resulting from a difficult family situation. The same aspects appear in two main plots of the novel –one with Fay Devenish, the other with Vicki and

Jerry. In both cases, also the element of fear is strongly felt. As inspector Wexford

77 states in one place: “Fear, when it is lived with daily, abates only to a certain extent and then not for long, eats up its victim, ages her and wears her out, may drive her mad, kills her before her time.” (HD 258) The fear of being beaten every day, fear of the influence of the violence on children, fear of putting the beloved nephew to a mental ward. Rendell illustrates that the constant exposure to fear and stressful situations affects a person severely. It might lead them to a certain degree of mental disruption and/or to deeds they would not even consider otherwise.

The element of powerful parental love connected with a high degree of stress can be also found in End in Tears, and also displayed on two cases – of Mr Marshalson and his wife. Each of them is emotionally bound to a child and the vision of a loss of the child brings elements of emotions so strong, that they lead to a nervous breakdown. Mr.

Marshalson‟s attachment to his daughter encompasses constant worries about her security which cause him severe anxiety and sleeplessness. The eventual death of his daughter makes his life empty and meaningless. Similarly, his wife affixes unhealthy importance to her step grandson, which invokes possessive tendencies in her. Also the idea of being detached from the child becomes unbearable for her. Both of these characters are used to represent the destructive effect of excessive fixation to a child.

Rendell does not by any means suggest not to love children, yet her characters show the importance of the realisation of children having their own lives they are responsible for.

The Secret House of Death, again, presents the Gothic element of powerful love between Bob North and Magdalene Heller, which invokes emotions of contempt, disgust and hatred on the verge of loathing towards their official spouses. The double nature of love is significantly shown here, pointing at love as the source of warmth, tenderness and gentleness on the one hand and coldness, bitterness and malice on the

78 other. With her psychological insights into the depths of human mind Rendell depicts the ambivalence one feeling may invoke in an individual.

Going Wrong includes a whole scale of emotions and elements of love which might be identified, reaching from the first innocent love, through the separation of lovers, to doubts concerning reciprocation, unreturned love, disbelief and jealousy threatening love, and rival partners. Emotions elevated to a high level of obsession represent the central motive, which is obvious on every page of the novel. Guy Curran‟s love for Leonora, Leonora‟s preference for William, Guy‟s disgust of William, the unrequited love of Celeste for Guy, these are only a few examples of relations present in the novel. Each of these is surrounded by a cluster of additional emotions of anticipation, sadness, jealousy, tenderness, enmity and dozens of others. This novel offers a valuable study of the interdependence of emotions and perception of the world of those dealing with the emotions in question.

3.12 Punishment and liberation

Punishment is an inevitable part of crime novels. In original Gothic novels there usually appears a sort of divine punishment (De Vore et al.) – fall from a horse, shipwrecking due to a storm or falling stones ending the lives of the villains, or at least permanently crippling them. In Rendell‟s texts examined this Gothic element is to be found as well. The punishment comes not from the divine source though, but is performed by the police, family members, close people or comes from the inside of the punished person. The forms it takes include imprisonment, exclusion, or murder. The

79 aspect of liberation has to be mentioned in this place as well, since it is usually closely related to the one of punishment. In some cases the traditional and current forms of liberation overlap, with almost no change – an imprisoned/kidnapped person escapes or is liberated. In Rendell‟s novels there is a further form of liberation – a kind of personal liberation allowing the characters to grow and live their own lives in accordance with their preferences, or to express their own minds and free will.

The punishment in Going Wrong is present almost always, in the form of stress and discomfort Guy causes to himself due to the constant speculations over the nature of his relationship with Leonora. Rendell shows how efficiently people are able to punish themselves on the basis of their thoughts. The ultimate punishment comes after the moment of self-liberation:

“Then he said to himself, you‟re playing games, stop playing games (…) I

don‟t want to die, he thought. I don‟t want to be imprisoned. I want to be

free. He was free. By what Leonora had done she had freed him. There

would be no more enslavement to the phone, no more Saturday lunches

that brought as much suffering as pleasure. (…) He wouldn‟t stop loving

her, he couldn‟t. He would always love her. In a cool, sane, very grown-

up way …” (GW 245)

The awakening from a dream, from the land of illusions and foolishness brings Guy, and consequently also Leonora, Celeste and others involved, the feeling of immediate relaxation, freedom and inner peace and tranquillity. The punishment, which occurs shortly after the self liberation, follows the Gothic style of the villain being forced to pay for his deeds in the end, with no regard to his eventual rectification.

End in Tears offers the punishment element, in which the divine force, typical of

Gothic novels, might be recognized. The story of Hannah Goldsmith follows the line of

80 a heroine being imprisoned, later liberated, and her perpetrator, or at least one of them, punished as a matter of what might seem to be a coincidence. The circumstances of the punishment of Rick might as well be written in a traditional Gothic novel:

“He fell backwards across the parapet, whimpered something, cried out

something and struggled to get back on his feet. But his heels slipped on

the wet ice, his arms rose and windmilled in the air and he went over

with a scream, thirty feet down to the road below.” (ET 355)

The divine force, the accident taking place in an dangerous environment, accompanied by darkness and snow, and the liberation of a damsel in distress, clearly carry the spirit of the Gothic and thus creates an obvious connection between contemporary writings by

Rendell and novels regarded as Gothic.

Harm Done presents the ultimate punishment for the perpetrator in the form of a revenge. The element of punishment in this novel is directly related with the one of liberation, since it is the victim who kills the wrongdoer and thus gains her freedom.

The liberation not only puts an end to physical torture, it also allows the heroine to start enjoying the beauties of the world and incorporate liveliness to her everyday life which once had circulated almost exclusively around dusting, cleaning and other household chores. The notion of finding the courage to resist and win one‟s own voice and space interconnects the Gothic element of liberation with the equality of both the genders, typical of the latest decades.

In the last of the novels discussed, The Secret House of Death, the punishment is merely suggested and it is up to the reader to imagine the supposed retribution. What is known are the implications of future punishment in relation to the disclosure of all facts necessary for creating the final image of plotting and all murderous circumstances, the rest leaves a free, open space for the readers to create their own ending, The

81 punishment, or the clarification of the whole murder plot brings the liberation to those murdered and falsely accused of adultery, thus the Gothic notion, connecting the worlds of the alive and dead, is reinforced.

The elements of punishment and liberation, similarly to those of emotions and romance discussed in the previous sub-chapter, follow their Gothic predecessors.

Rendell uses the punishment of villains through the liberation of the tormented, including an intervention of the divine force and connection to the dead. Despite the fact that the form and content of elements of punishment and liberation do not differ from their Gothic antecedents, they fit the contemporary social and cultural situation, and carry the notion of almost unearthly laws of correlations, where every deed is compensated with what the originator deserves, which as well might be associated with the Gothic tradition.

3.13 Setting and atmosphere

Setting is one of the elements helping to create the sinister atmosphere of both

Gothic and crime novels. Traditionally, vast lands, large houses, old castles, leafless trees and stormy seashores supported the notion of terror. According to De Vore, et al., the setting in a Gothic novel is of a great influence:

“It not only evokes the atmosphere of horror and dread, but also portrays

the deterioration of its world. The decaying, ruined scenery implies that

at one time there was a thriving world. At one time the abbey, castle,

82 or landscape was something treasured and appreciated. Now, all that

lasts is the decaying shell of a once thriving dwelling.”

In Rendell‟s work very similar situations can be detected and the setting thus plays an important role too. It supports the notion of uneasiness, danger, or acuteness and the depicted atmosphere contributes to the feelings of horror and terror. Nevertheless, not all of the buildings and places appearing might be regarded as traditionally Gothic, considering the settings in suburban London and British countryside, which are abundant in Gothic places. Kadonaga suggests that:

“Ironically, most of Rendell's stories take place in England, where real

medieval castles exist but (…) are being threatened by urban

encroachment. Rendell acknowledges that this type of historical

appropriation is not a recent fad but has for some time been part of

English culture.”

This statement by Rendell only supports the tendencies visible in her writings – to be unique and not to blindly follow old traditions. Though Rendell lets herself be influenced by them, she creates her own images in her own, fresh new way.

Except for the notion of mystery the setting brings to a story, there are also other aspects it supports in contemporary crime fiction. Kadonaga states the impact of the setting as follows:

“Mystery novels and academic geography have not often intersected.

Yet crime fiction can incorporate spatial relationships and real-life

regional characteristics. In recent decades mysteries have been freed

from the long tradition of presenting elaborate puzzles, and now they

feature human interactions in realistic settings. Writers like Ruth

Rendell integrate place into their character development and plot lines.

83 Rendell depicts changing urban landscapes in late-twentieth-century

England and effectively explores contemporary British culture.”

The depiction of landscape contributes to the notion of diversified society through the range of dwellings varying on the scale reaching from shelters to large country houses.

It stresses the differences. The accommodations, moreover, reveal innumerable details about their inhabitants regarding their education, cultural awareness, religion, or political views. Further it exposes the nature of human relationships and sometimes allows the reader to enter the metaphorical secret chambers revealing, for instance, that a perfectly tidied, furnished and decorated manor is, in fact, run by a pedantic landlord.

The setting intensifies the whole reading experience. Not only the place, but also the weather conditions contribute to the final portrayal of the atmosphere. Excessively hot weather in Harm Done ads to the notion of pressure over an unsolved case. Snowy and icy days in End in Tears strengthen the tension with the impending revelation of the identity of miracle babies‟ mastermind. What is more, the weather conditions written about by Rendell have a realistic background. According to Kadonaga, “concerned with accuracy, she [Rendell] obtained weather information from the meteorological office.”

This accuracy concerning the details makes her novels more realistic and plausible.

In particular, concerning the Wexford series, Rendell has created a whole environment which develops and changes in time. The thesis discusses only two of the

Wexford series novels, yet even in the two of them the interconnection is apparent due to numerous cross references. In both Harm Done and End in Tears the same streets, districts and public places appear and so it is even with the characters. Wexford and

Vine visit the same pub, Barry Vine is Wexford‟s closest associate in both novels, Lynn

Fancourt plays one of the major roles in Harm Done but in End in Tears works as one of many members of the police team. Dr. Akande, who is one of the significant

84 characters of another of Rendell‟s novels – Simisola – is mentioned in Harm Done. The houses seen at the occasion of the Devenish case investigation remind Wexford of places his daughter lived in years ago. The strong sense for detail and overlapping, reoccurring information and places make Rendell‟s fictive city of Kingsmarkham real.

Kadonaga comments the special reality Rendell creates with the following words:

“Frequently, she describes paths that connect locations in the story, contributing to the impression of a whole environment, not merely an assortment of stagelike settings isolated from one another in time and space.” Rendell‟s descriptions of the streets and districts incorporate all the details imaginable, including the public amenities, roads condition, types of trees and plants growing there and also a general characteristics of local inhabitants supplemented by short comments on them. A similarly accurate portrayal of the setting appears in all the other novels discussed.

Returning to Gothic elements in Rendell‟s novels, the concrete representations of Gothic places appear in each of the novels. End in Tears offers multiple possibilities including the ruined house, surrounded by an overgrown garden, in which the dead body of Megan Bartlow is found. The scene of the police discovering the corpse follows a Gothic scenario – the policemen slowly go up the squeaky, flimsy staircase, the first floor is shrouded in darkness, and the penetrating stench, unmistakably indicating the presence of a dead body, is becoming stronger with each step. Also the house in which

Hannah Goldsmith is kept a prisoner reminds a dark Gothic cell. The room she is kept in has all windows and shutters closed, which only strengthens the feeling of captivity.

Harm Done includes similar elements. Rendell creates a ruined building with squeaky floors and the roof leaking – a place where a naïve Lizzie Cromwell became pregnant with a silent foreigner. The Devenish house gives the notion of a golden cage and the study of Stephen Devenish, including all the woodwork and game trophies, suggests the

85 male dominance. In Going Wrong houses of Guy and Leonora, their locations and furnishing present a sharp contrast in their economic status. Furthermore, Guy‟s luxuriant house filled with expensive pieces of artwork which he does not value represent a prison in which Guy is his own captor and captive at the same time, The main reason he keeps the house is to prove Leonora he has changed and is able to secure her financially, far better then her fiancé ever could. Finally, The Secret House of

Death, similarly to End in Tears, presents the situation of a identification of dead bodies after a slow walk up the stairs when the intuition clearly says what is going to happen.

The area in which the story takes place suggests the atmosphere of captivity and detachment in relation to the lifestyles led in their suburban neighbourhood, where everybody observes and discusses the others, yet no real, close relationships develop.

Despite the existence of the notion that all facts concerning the lives of the others are known, nobody knows anything and anyone in reality. The continuous roadworks whose noise disables local inhabitants to communicate only illustrate the already existing communication barrier present there.

4. Conclusion

Rendell is an author continuously developing her characters and settings.

However, it can be claimed, as the present work testifies, that it is largely the motives that create and carry sinister Gothic atmosphere. They correspond with the aspects present in original Gothic novels, yet their content differs significantly. The Gothic

86 elements in Ruth Rendell‟s novels explored closely associate with contemporary social, cultural and political issues and stress their seriousness. Rendell goes into depth of what she writes about and offers psychological analyses of the heroes and heroines, allowing the readers to understand their incentives and thus avoid their one-sided judgements.

The aim of the thesis was to discuss Gothic elements present in some novels by

Rendell and prove their interconnection with the aspects of the Gothic tradition.

According to Harris and De Vore et al., a classic Gothic novel created in the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries contains both hero and anti-hero figures, a damsel in distress and her perpetrator – the villain. Further elements are those of horror, mental illnesses, hidden realities, the crime – usually in the form of a murder, aspects of decay, complex plotting, punishment of the villain connected with the liberation of his victim, heightened emotions and a love romance. What makes a Gothic story complete is then a setting evoking a dark, uneasy atmosphere. Based on the analyses of selected primary texts by Rendell, the thesis has proven that all of the novels discussed contain Gothic elements in a form corresponding contemporary English society. The essential aspects of the Gothic elements remain unchanged, yet their form and implications modify according to the current era.

The hero and anti-hero figures, originating in the Gothic tradition as characters possessing virtuous or admirable qualities, Rendell provides serve as broad-minded, complex portrayals of individuals in society (Kadonaga) and therefore of the society at the same time. The traditional Gothic depiction of a hero encompasses the feeling of seclusion of the protagonists. Similarly to the Gothic tradition, characters by Rendell also suffer from isolation which might be regarded as Gothic. Their isolation takes form of social exclusion, feeling of otherness, or difference in value and belief systems.

Wexford in both Harm Done and End in Tears experiences isolation caused by this

87 tendencies to think too much. He becomes absorbed in his mind processes and thus virtually moves away from his family and colleagues. Fay Devenish (Harm Done) is the victim of her husband‟s physical assaults the fear of which isolates her from the outer world. Guy Curran (Harm Done) suffers from isolation caused by his obsessive ideas about his love life. Susan Townsend (The Secret House of Death) experiences isolation due to her status of being a divorced woman who lives within a neighbourhood filled with prejudice. Due to their problems which commonly correspond with those of the mundane lives of contemporary Britons, the hero figures make it possible for the reader to identify with themselves. As White states, giving the example of Wexford, other crime writers trick out their heroes with all sorts of special personal quirks, effects and flourishes. In Wexford, Rendell has created an ordinary, decent man who struggles with self- doubt. He's likable and believable. Ordinariness and believability are among the basic character traits in figures created by Rendell. The ordinariness is, for example, represented by the concerns over the family relations of the Wexfords in

End in Tears, where Wexford finds himself in the middle of a struggle between his wife and one of his daughter. Wexford tries to keep the Status Quo, be in good terms with both of them, yet is not sure how to achieve this.

Furthermore, the already mentioned self-doubts, uncertainty and lack of stability offer space for psychological elaboration of the characters in question, which Rendell performs proficiently. Rendell‟s interest in psychology and mental settings of human brains shift the concern of her writings from the traditional “whodunit” to a “whydunit” with the focus placed mainly on motives and causes of human behaviour. In an interview with Lawless, Rendell stated: “I want to know why people do what they do --

I want to know why I do what I do.” According to Kadonaga, “Rendell believes that a crime cannot be understood outside the context of the people involved.” Understanding

88 might be achieved only via “sensitivity to physical and social processes” of the characters. This influences also the form her novels take. As Kadanoga continues, the guilty are not singled out by the master detective during a satisfying final scene "with everyone assembled in the drawing room of the country house" (…) Rather, the mystery is in trying to make sense of what happened, imposing retrospective order on the events of an imperfectly observed past. Therefore also the approach towards villains and their crimes differs from the traditional Gothic, often deprecatory, attitude and though highly emotional, Rendell‟s writings do not evoke contempt, and neither do they promote righteous judgements. As suggested by Fletcher, “in Rendell's world, all the players are either predators or victims - sometimes both. Rendell's great trick is never to let us know who the real victim is.” The appeal towards clarification is present in all aspects of her novels. A further stress is placed on the impact of isolation within society. “Rendell refuses to romanticize life in rural England. Instead, she emphasizes the stress imposed by isolation and the potential danger, particularly for women.” (Kadanoga) As an example of the understanding of villainy in the novels examined may serve Vicki appearing in Harm Done. Vicki abducts several young women and forces them to perform housework. The seemingly odd scenario becomes explained by the revelation of her fatal diagnosis, which entails the possibility of placement of her mentally retarded nephew she takes care of into a disreputable psychiatric ward. Similarly,

Louise Sharp, appearing in the same novel, buys a child, which is generally regarded as unacceptable. Yet Rendell explains her motivation revealing that Louise is infertile, longs for a baby and decides to adopt one from a poor country and provide him a happy life full of opportunities.

The contemporary sense of physical and mainly emotional isolation resembles the Gothic notion of imprisonment. The element of the damsel in distress corresponds

89 with what Kadanoga says about isolation and since the times of the Gothic novels it shifts in meaning to represent captivation not only physical, but is mainly connected with limitations of free will and frustrated abilities to act in accordance with one‟s own preferences. To give some examples, Hannah Goldsmith (End in Tears) faces several forms of imprisonment, the most severe of which is the imprisonment caused by her own reasoning, mainly by her excessive awareness of political correctness, which creates large abysses between her and basically everyone in her life. Further, she has to face the physical form of imprisonment when she is held captive as a consequence of her investigating initiative in the case of „miracle babies.‟ Leonora (Going Wrong) is imprisoned, though not physically, by the constant stalking and verbal assaults initiated by Guy in his obsessive states. Louise North (The Secret House of Death) is imprisoned within the „walls‟ of her marriage. Louise is aware of her husband‟s adultery, yet cannot get divorced due to her devotion to the Christian Church.

Traditional Gothic novels carry the elements of horror. Rendell transforms the mysterious phenomena invoking fear, including “terrifying creatures such as monsters, or deviant forms of humans: vampires, zombies, wolfmen” (Harris), into fears connected with social injustice. Rendell‟s novels concentrate on social issues present in contemporary British society, containing domestic violence, abduction, fraud, threats, or gender inequality. The prevailing motive of Harm Done is the horror of domestic violence in the Devenish‟s family and its destructive effects on all of the family members. In The Secret House of Death a form of modern horrors is presented as the issue of adultery of Bob North, which drives him to create a vicious plan to eliminate his wife together with the spouse of his lover. The modern horror present in End in

Tears is represented by the fear of infertility and its effects on the families affected. The infertile women described are then willing to accept any kind of help, being it the

90 possibility of surrogacy or the expensive treatment after which they „give a birth‟ to

African „miracle babies.‟ The horror appearing in Going Wrong is Guy‟s obsession which destroys his life alongside with the lives of those close to him, The novel further stresses the dangerous, often fatal, effects of drug abuse. “Rendell's treatment of issues such as domestic abuse and vigilante justice are perceptive, but issues aren't what drive this novel. Rendell's characters, even her minor creations, are, as always, drawn in insightful detail.” (Adachi) Social issues create only the surface of what Rendell directs attention to. The core of Rendell‟s interests is formed by the reasons for and effects of the already mentioned social phenomena.

One of the elements corresponding with Rendell‟s interest in human psyche is mental illness. Gothic novels traditionally include mentally disturbed characters.

Rendell, similarly, creates figures balancing on the edge of sanity. These would be, for example, Guy (Going Wrong) who gets lost in his obsessive love for Leonora and consequently loses the awareness of what is real and what he only imagines. As reported by Guttridge, “Ruth Rendell has always scored with her delineation of psychotic and pathological states of mind in her stand-alone novels.” Apart from medical diagnoses, Rendell is particularly interested in obsessions, which is visible predominantly in Going Wrong. In an interview, she told Hanlon: “I'm very much interested in obsession, (…) I just find it interesting that people can be so single- minded, so focused about something.” Rendell‟s predilection for obsession sets a foundation stone for the portrayal of unreasonable thought processes with an urge of those concerned to justify and rationalize them. The bets example could be Guy (Going

Wrong), who constantly rationalizes his obsessive ideals about the relationship he, in his mind, has with Leonora. His rationalizations are based on the pas when, as teenagers, they formed a happy couple. Yet Guy remains enclosed in his past memories and rejects

91 the reality of the present. Further there is the obsessive love of Diana Marshalson for her step-grandson. Her absurd rationalization is visible on the plan to kill Amber she creates to get custody of the child.

Following the mental illnesses and obsessions, Rendell continues to use Gothic elements of the dark side, covering a hidden reality. In the selected novels examined,

Rendell, retrospectively, reveals the causes of often appalling matters which cause the feelings of fear to the protagonists involved. In Rendell, the hidden realities mentioned above are mediated through desperate deeds which often equal cries for help. Findings of such realities then incorporate the need to escape stalking, domestic violence or placement into a psychiatric ward. Among these belong the secret love affair Bob North maintains with Magdalene Heller (The Secret house of Death), domestic violence in the

Devenish‟s house which nobody, including Fay‟s parents, knows about (Harm Done), the fatal illness that drives Vicki to abduct young women in order to take care of Jerry

(Harm Done), secret business activities of Amber Marshalson which equal the fraud disguised as a noble intention of becoming a surrogate mother and thus helping the infertile (End in Tears) or the dark secret of Guys relation to the death of one of his former clients to whom he used to sell drugs (Going Wrong) .

The forbidden activities, crime and death are again present in both the Gothic tradition and Rendell novels. The meaning of being forbidden, however, shifts from something not allowed to the phenomena which are not quite socially accepted or cause embarrassment. This is represented as the already mentioned adultery of Bob North in

The Secret House of Death, the inter-racial relationship between Hannah and Bal, or the awareness of the feminist issues in Hannah (End in Tears) and Lynn (Harm Done).

Crime and death do not change significantly in the two forms of writings discussed. Yet in Rendell‟s writings more space is devoted to the motives and mental

92 states of the criminals than to the crimes themselves. Therefore, relating to the Gothic aspects of crime and death, Rendell, again, uses psychological insights into the minds of the characters involved to understand their compulsions to commit crimes. Rendell explains the motives of, for example, Fay Devenish (Harm Done) to kill her husband in an desperate attempt to protect her self as well as her children from the traumas the brutality of her husband has caused them all. Rendell also explains the motivation of

Diana Marshalson to kill her step-daughter in order to become a mother to the child she fell in love with. Also the motives of Bob North and Magdalene Heller to kill their spouses are explained by the powerful love for each other.

Further, the Gothic element of decay represented in changing landscapes and moral values finds its counterpart also in Rendell‟s writings. Typically, her special attention is devoted to the change of human behaviour and values, especially as far as generation clashes are concerned. The concerns over the decay of the contemporary society are presented mainly in Wexford‟s meditations over the reckless, irresponsible behaviour of the youth, who do not respect any form of agreement. (End in Tears)

Similarly, also plotting concentrates on the incentives rather than the murderous plans. The interest in the human psyche, stressing the individual inner thoughts, is present in every aspect of all of the novels discussed. The readers are constantly presented the mind processes of Rendell‟s characters examined, particularly with those of Guy (Going Wrong) who as a consequence of the illusion he suffers from decides to kill the „reason‟ of his troubles, in other words to kill the person who had turned

Leonora against him. He employs the whole of his mental capacity to discover who the person is and plans the elimination of the ultimate culprit.

Emotions and elements of romance traditionally appear in the Gothic tradition.

From the perspective of Harris, Gothic novels include aspects containing, among others,

93 strong love, parted lovers and rival lovers. In Rendell‟s writings all of these can be found in a variation typical of her. Also the characters Rendell depicts experience similar situations. As Rendell is interested in rather intense relationships, her characters usually face the constant stress caused by lack of confidence, abuse, problematic family relations or impacts of an illness. The topics commonly discussed are parental love, adulterous relationship and unreturned love, which provoke the heroes to impulsive actions with no respect to their environment. Among examples of these are Mr

Marshalson‟s grief over the death of his daughter and Diana Marsahlson‟s love for her step-grandson (End in Tears), Guy‟s reckless love for Leonora (Going Wrong). Stephen

Devenish‟s love for his wife which forces him to „make her better‟ through physical punishment (Harm Done) or the powerful love affair of Bob North which does not accept any obstacles in his relationship with Margaret and therefore leads to multiple murder (The Secret House of Death).

Invoking a high level of emotiveness, punishment and liberation are conjoined in the Gothic as well as in Rendell novels. In both cases they present a reaction on the villainy, including vengeance for harmful or abusive behaviour. The elements of punishment, often of the divine origin, enable the liberation of the victim of abusive behaviour, being it, for instance the murder of Stephen Devenish by the victim of his regular assaults – his wife (Harm Done).. In Rendell‟s writings the liberation aspect strongly supports the notion of free will of an individual in all aspects imaginable. As the topics of punishment and liberation mingle in the novels analyzes, the aspect of liberation might be seen in the above mentioned example. Further cases of punishment lined to liberation involve, for instance, Guy, whose arrest by the police punishes him for his murderous plotting and liberates Leonora from the stalking she had to experience.

94 An element which is inevitably visible both in the Gothic and Rendell novels is the one of setting. According to De Vore et al, the influence of setting is great, since it evokes the atmosphere of horror and portrays the deterioration of the world at the same time. Rendell, similarly, uses the setting to support the emotions and thus create a background atmosphere to fit her purpose. Rendell, similarly to the Gothic tradition, uses ruined buildings to evoke the notion of uneasiness. This is most visibly presented in End in Tears where the house wher the dead body of Megan Bartlow was found is depicted as follows:

“The house smelt of rotting wood and urine and something else Peach

said was mice. (…) it was dark, the only light that came from street

lamps on stilts was muted by the sheets of netting, an unearthly

yellowish-green light that lay like a gilt varnish across floors and up

walls. They [Burden and Peach] went on up to the next floor, their

footfalls noisy on the uncarpeted stairs, she smell growing stronger as

they mounted. The stuffy heat was almost intolerable and Burden, a

fastidious man, felt sweat roll down his sides, staining his oyster

coloured shirt. He thought that for ever when he saw that sour lime-

green colour he would associate it with the smell of death.” (ET 142,

143)

Furthermore, Rendell pays much attention to the depiction of the landscape and urban area as the indicators of differences within the society. The depiction of landscape

Rendell provides visibly presents the differences between classes, based on their economic, cultural and educational backgrounds. Considering all the details of the areas she provides, “you feel that she might do the research for each new novel simply by fixing on some locality and then tramping round it, noting those details of topography

95 that can only ever be recorded, never just imagined.” (Mullan 196) Rendell develops landscapes which reoccur and develop over time in multiple of her novels, which contributes to the notion of realness of the areas she has invented. . Rendell depicts the places in the novels examined with a high level of details, involving all aspects of the particular place. Here I present and example of the kind of portrayal she produces in all of the novels analysed:

“No one could have lived in Great Thatto without a car. There was no

public transport. The lane which approached it from Myland was so

narrow that for quite long stretches cars were unable to pass each other.

There was no shop. The church was unlocked only on the first Sunday in

the month when the vicar of St Mary, Myland, came over to take

morning service. Sometimes not one inhabitant of Great Thatto – there

were only sixty-one – attended that service, so the vicar locked up and

went home again.” (ET 65)

The writings of Rendell convey a strong sense of social awareness. She addresses issues present in the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries, including domestic violence, racial and gender inequalities, or feelings of isolation. In depicting various aspects of mundane life, Rendell pays much attention to the study of human psyche and reactions to common stimuli. Her precise psychological portrayals are placed within the frame of a detailed setting the complexity of which causes the fictive places Rendell creates to be almost indistinguishable from real locations. Though a modern author, Rendell frequently uses Gothic elements and ascribes them contemporary dimensions. With easiness, she shifts their original meaning, usually from the physical towards the psychological. According to Lyall, books by Rendell:

96 “often feature uncannily sympathetic portraits of troubled characters

hovering one way or another on the margins of society. Many of them

suffer from delusional romantic obsession, a sense of injustice or a single

misstep that spirals out of control. Some are simply ordinary people

driven to extremes.”

In novels by Rendell, processes of human minds prevail over the individual

Gothic elements. They penetrate each of them, yet without such a detrimental effect, as found in the Gothic tradition. Observations of human psyche and happenings in the stories coexist and support each other in creating a realistic reflection of mundane reality, in which happy endings are rarely found and even the knowable community could be equalled to an oppressive isolation, experienced, for example, Louise North who became socially excluded from her neighbourhood based on the false accusation of adulterous behaviour (The Secret House of Death).

97 Summary

The thesis aims to prove the presence of element originating in the Gothic tradition in some novels by Rendell. The main interest in the novels examined is placed upon the issues of human relationships affected by the constructs of human psyche.

What is further stressed is the isolation, appearing in varying forms, which the protagonists experience. A good deal of attention is devoted to mental disturbances which tend to affect the behaviour and value sets of those secondarily affected. Hidden realities influencing the deeds of the characters analysed also plays an important role in clarifying motives for particular events. What Rendell promotes in the texts selected is understanding over one-sided lacking any knowledge of the situations in question.

As the analysis of the texts shows, elements of the Gothic tradition are present in all possible aspects, including the heroes, plots and settings. They share the original

Gothic qualities, yet at the same time they are adapted by Rendell to fit the current social issues of contemporary Britain.

Key words: Rendell, Gothic tradition, crime, social issues, mundane life, human psyche, obsession, relationships, understanding

98 Resumé

Diplomová práce se snaží prokázat přítomnost prvků vycházejících z Gotické tradice ve vybraných románech Rendellové. Hlavním zájmem zkoumaných textů jsou mezilidské vztahy ovlivněné výplody lidské mysli. Dále je zdůrazňována izolace, vyskytující se se v románech v různých mutacích, Velká část pozornosti je věnována duševním poruchám které mají tendenci ovlivňovat chování a hodnoty jimi druhotně zasažených osob. Důležitou roli hrají také skryté skutečnosti, ovlivňující činy vysvětlující pohnutky analyzovaných postav. V těchto vybraných textech Rendellová upřednostňuje porozumění před jednostrannými soudy, postrádajícími jakoukoliv znalost dané situace.

Jak analýza textů dále ukazuje, prvky Gotické tradice jsou přítomny ve všech možných aspektech, včetně hrdinů, zápletek a scenérií. Sdílejí původní Gotické vlastnosti, a současně jsou Rendellovou přizpůsobeny současným společenským problémům dnešní Británie.

Klíčová slova: Rendellová, Gotická tradice, zločin, sociální témata, každodenní život, lidská psychika, posedlost, vztahy, porozumění

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1485/from-bethlehem-to-bedlam/ http://www.ronaldknoxsociety.com/

102 Appendix

1. Father Knox‟s Then Commandments of the detective story

2. Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole

An explanation to the Father Knox’s Ten Commandments

(Fully adapted from http://www.ronaldknoxsociety.com/)

The Detection Club

Around 1928 a set of prominent English detective novelists began meeting to exchange tricks of the trade, critique the works in progress of their peers, and enjoy jolly good lunches. By 1930 The Detection Club was formed, G.K.Chesterton presiding.

Membership was by invitation only. An oath, written by Dorothy L. Sayers, was administered to all new members.

Ronald Knox was one of the original members and in 1929 wrote the Ten

Commandments for Detective Novelists as a set of by-laws for the club. Eventually the club members collaborated on a series of detective stories in which each member wrote a chapter. Ronald Knox contributed to three of these: Behind the Screen (1930), The

Floating Admiral (1931) and Six Against the Yard (1948).

103 Club Rules: The 10 Commandments for Detective Novelists

1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must

not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.

2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.

3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.

4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will

need a long scientific explanation at the end.

5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.

6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an

unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.

7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.

8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for

the inspection of the reader.

9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts

which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly,

below that of the average reader.

10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly

prepared for them.

104 The Castle of Otranto

(fully adapted from Lake)

The Plot:

Manfred's son, Conrad, is set to marry Isabella, despite an ominous curse rumored to plague the house of Otranto. The curse is mentioned in Chapter

1: "The castle and lordship of Otranto 'should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it.'" On his way to the wedding,

Conrad is crushed by a giant helmet that falls from the sky.

The death of his son and only heir prompts Manfred to divorce his wife,

Hippolita, and to marry Isabella himself, so that he can produce more male heirs.

Isabella, horrified at the prospect of marrying Manfred, escapes from the abbey with the help of a peasant, whom we later discover is really Theodore, the son of Otranto's priest and the rightful heir to the castle of Otranto.

A number of supernatural events happen in the castle. First, various servants catch a glimpse of giant feet and hands. A knight bearing a gigantic sword also shows up at the castle and claims to have received a prophetic and mystical mandate to avenge the rightful heir of Otranto. This knight turns out to be Frederic, Isabella's father. Both he and Theodore fall in love with Matilda, Manfred's daughter. Manfred decides that

Frederic can marry Matilda in return for being allowed to marry Isabella himself.

Frederic, after seeing a ghost and hearing about the giant, decides against the marriage.

Manfred, convinced that Theodore and Isabella are lovers, attacks Theodore and stabs the woman with him, who, it turns out, is Matilda, his own daughter.

The reader then learns that Theodore is the grandson of Alfonso the Good.

Manfred is the grandson of Alfonso's steward, Ricardo, who murdered Alfonso and

105 fabricated a will that allowed Ricardo to inherit Alfonso's estate. Manfred, appalled at his murderous actions, removes himself to a monastery, as does Hippolita. Isabella and

Theodore eventually marry.

106