Texts Ranging from Frankenstein to the Splatterpunk Novels of Clive Barker and Poppy Z
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University of Reading Deviant Subjectivities: monstrosity and kinship in the Gothic Imagination Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Literature Evan Hayles Gledhill June 2018 Abstract This thesis posits British and American Gothic as a construction of, and critical engagement with, Enlightenment cultures of embodiment and subjectivity: its monsters are reflections on, and explorations of, those figures excluded from the humanist subject position, as it was constructed by John Locke and later Sentimental philosophers. The concept of heteronormative kinship is central to the philosophical understanding of the subject in the modern era; from scientific ideas about genus and species, to philosophical debates about the structure of the nation state, family is the key term. Interrogating kinship and its relation to normativity in texts ranging from Frankenstein to the splatterpunk novels of Clive Barker and Poppy Z. Brite, and nineteenth-century plantation novels to television crime dramas, I argue, is crucial to understanding the cultural construction of humanity itself. Focusing on representations of the monstrous as a deviation from the norm of an able and reproductive body, I centre my analysis on the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and disability, taking a critical stance informed by critical disability studies and feminist queer theory. Previous studies have read physical anomaly as a metaphor for other minority identities, and so (dis)ability disappears as a question in its own right. In this respect, critical discourse may continue to re-enact Enlightenment structures of domination, hegemony, and universalization, even as they seek to challenge them. Charting Gothic explorations of the relationship between self-subject-citizen and other-object-monster, from their eighteenth century origins to the contemporary era, I examine changing representations of monstrosity and kinship within an historicised context. I argue that what is under consideration in all Gothic art and critique which features the monstrous – no matter its political stance or thematic focus – is the subject itself. These fictions provide a space in which monstrous otherness – a deviant subjectivity – can be expressed and explored as an embodied identity and lived experience. Acknowledgements I must thank a number of humans and monsters, queers and crips, for their assistance, support, and patience without which this thesis could not have been completed. Andrew Mangham is the most supportive, engaged, and kind supervisor that a candidate could ask for. His endless patience is some kind of superpower. My second supervisor, Stephen Thompson, is distractingly good company as well as an excellent scholar, which leads to wonderfully productive tangents. Special thanks to the whole wonderful Hayles family and McDiarmid clan; the most supportive and loving people to whom anyone could hope to be related. To Gothic Valley, the House of Cake, and residents of Kimberley Gardens: you exhibit a disturbingly high tolerance for extensive diatribes about French critical theory, drag queens, and immortals. I owe you. Many more thanks are also due to my wonderful mentors, peers, and beta-readers – the Gothicists, fan scholars, feminists, punks, poets, and pirates in the murky waters of early career research and post-academia: Stacey Abbott, Xavier Aldana Reyes, Simon Bacon, Joolz Barry, Bronwyn Calvert, John Carter McKnight, Verity Darke, Sasha Garwood Lloyd, Emily Garside, Dan Hassler-Forrest, Bethan Jones, Rhian E. Jones, Lorna Jowett, JSA Lowe, Lori Morimoto, Samira Nadkarmi, E. J. Neilsen, Thomas Newton, Madeline Pearce, Jordan Philips, Philip Roberts. And the PhDdy Buddies Reading Group for making me a Victorianist almost by default: Anna Maria Barry, Kayleigh Betterton, Alison Moulds, Claire Stainthorpe, Rosie White, et al. May your fics receive much kudos, and may you always be the second reviewer you wish to see in the world. This work is dedicated to Ellie Keggin, with all my love. We care a lot! Declaration: I confirm that this is my own work and the use of all material from other sources has been properly and fully acknowledged: Evan Hayles Gledhill June 2018 Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 Bringing up the bodies: normativity, disability, and critical queerness .................................. 2 Generic Genealogies of the Gothic ......................................................................................... 8 The articulating of you, or the bones of the argument .......................................................... 11 Subjective Distinctions: first-wave Gothic and the modern self ........................ 13 Sentimental Heterosexuality: normativity for the modern age ............................................. 14 Contested Terms: friendship and love in The Old English Baron ........................................ 21 Things as They Are: Godwin’s defence of the effeminate ................................................... 28 Frankenstein: the sentimental archetype destroyed ............................................................... 33 Frontiers of the Self: emerging American Gothic ................................................................. 42 Conclusion............................................................................................................................. 50 The Demon of the House: The Mid-Nineteenth Century ................................... 53 A Man’s Home is his Castle: the British gentleman as Gothic subject ................................ 56 Disrupting the Domestic Ideal: monstrous women ............................................................... 64 Old Maids and Confirmed Bachelors – sensational queerness ............................................. 71 ‘This Nauseous Brood’ – children of empire ........................................................................ 77 Conclusion............................................................................................................................. 90 (De)Generation: from the fin de siècle to the First World War .......................... 93 Degeneration in the fin-de-siècle body ................................................................................. 95 Blood for Seed: the monstrousness of the generative body ................................................ 102 M. R. James and Haunted Masculinity ............................................................................... 114 Modern Romantics: the fragmented soldier of the First World War .................................. 121 Gothic Modernism: mechanised bodies and the dark side of efficiency ............................ 128 Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 135 Pulp Fiction and the Post-war Gothic ............................................................... 138 War Gothic: rationality versus the shudder ......................................................................... 138 ‘Hans, are we the bad guys?’ – normativity, national identity, and the Nazis .................... 143 The ‘Flagrantly Misnamed’: comic books, communists, and cultural unity ....................... 148 Horrifying Normality: the Modernist Gothic of pulp fiction .............................................. 155 Imitation of Life: monstrosity, romance, and domesticity .................................................. 160 Monsters and Masculinities for the Modern Era ................................................................. 169 Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 176 Culture Wars: the resistant spaces of Gothic queerness ................................... 179 New Romantics: the Gothic becomes big box office .......................................................... 182 Gay for Pay: queer narratives for straight audiences .......................................................... 183 The Mary Whitehouse Project: narratives of harm and the ‘video nasties’ ........................ 190 Victim Blaming: the politics of survival in the horror film ................................................ 196 Monstrous Families: queer communities in Gothic horror ................................................. 204 Frontiers of the self: queer racial otherness ........................................................................ 212 Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 217 Murder Husbands: the serial killer as family man in the 21st century .............. 219 Bright Lights and Ceramic Tiles – setting a new scene in the Gothic ................................ 221 High Concept on the Small Screen: gender and genre ........................................................ 227 Your Friendly Neighbourhood Serial Killer, Dexter Morgan ............................................. 231 A Forensic Fairytale: Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal .................................................................. 245 Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 258 Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 260 Bibliography .....................................................................................................