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Fatal Attraction: the Fetishized Image of the Fatal Woman As Gothic Double

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Fatal Attraction: the Fetishized Image of the Fatal Woman As Gothic Double Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 12-10-2014 12:00 AM Fatal Attraction: The Fetishized Image of the Fatal Woman as Gothic Double Margaret Anne Young The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr. Steven Bruhm The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Margaret Anne Young 2014 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Young, Margaret Anne, "Fatal Attraction: The Fetishized Image of the Fatal Woman as Gothic Double" (2014). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 2604. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/2604 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FATAL ATTRACTION: THE FETISHIZED IMAGE OF THE FATAL WOMAN AS GOTHIC DOUBLE (Thesis format: Monograph) by M. Anne Young Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Anne Young 2014 Abstract The Gothic heroine is often doubled by an image – a painting, statue, costume, drawing, projection, or mental image – that is preternaturally powerful and endowed with an antagonistic sexual presence. This image of the fatal woman, unlike portraits of the heroine, is a representation without a referent: a fetish object, both for fictional characters and critics. I argue that the simulacrum of dangerous femininity is a shifting signifier rather than a one-dimensional representation of – as previous critics have argued – ‘male fears and desires’ or female empowerment. Following the work of sociologist Bruno Latour and narratologist Mieke Bal, I read this figure as a polyvalent fetish. Rather than a representation of an intrinsic, decodable significance, this image reveals her fetishists – including critics – instead of herself or a cultural, social, or biological truth lurking behind her. I also argue that criticism of this image is as productive of cultural values as the fiction it critiques. The introduction lays out my methodology and theoretical direction, which is primarily Actor-Network-Theory, as outlined by Bruno Latour, and Narratology, particularly as it is employed by Mieke Bal. Chapter two surveys Romantic era Gothic (or the ‘golden age’ of Gothic), and compares visual culture and portraiture of the period with literary and dramatic representations of the fatal women, particularly as it pertains to the Gothic theme of ‘the unspeakable.’ In this chapter, I also compare Romantic and Gothic aesthetics. Chapter three considers Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s cult classic, Carmilla, as a serial published in the textual context of The Dark Blue journal and the eponymous vampire as a simulacral entity. The fourth chapter examines the discourse of late nineteenth-century degeneration theory in terms of artistic reproduction, with special attention to Oscar Wilde’s description of Dorian Gray’s maternal inheritance in The Picture of Dorian Gray. Looking at the ways that ii Victorian visual and literary tropes continue into the Twentieth Century, chapter six offers a reading of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca as an ironic camp novel in which identity is a charade and the central figure, Rebecca, is in fact a fetish image. Keywords Actor-Network-Theory, “Amour Dure,” Ann Radcliffe, Bram Stoker, Bruno Latour Carmilla, Confessions of an English Opium Eater, counterfeit, Daphne du Maurier, E.T.A Hoffmann, Fatal Woman, Fantasmagoriana, feminism, femme fatale, fetish, Fritz Leiber Gothic, Horace Walpole, image, Matthew Gregory Lewis, Narratology, “Olalla,” Oscar Wilde, Percey Bysshe Shelley, portrait, Rebecca, Robert Louis Stevenson, simulacra, Suspiria de Profundis, Tales of the Dead, The Castle of Otranto, The Castle Spectre, The Cenci, The Dark Blue, The Jewel of Seven Stars, The Monk, The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Rose and the Key, “The Sandman,” Thomas de Quincey, uncanny, vamp, vampire, Vernon Lee, Walter Benjamin, women, Wylder’s Hand iii Acknowledgments Thank you, firstly, to all those who have fed me during the completion of my doctoral work, as “one cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well”1: Adrian, Brad, Dayna & Mike, Erik, Kathryn, Mohammad, Mom, Steve, Wells, and most especially, Zeinab. To my friends (even those geographically removed and without culinary inclinations) – they know who they are – thank you for still being there through all the years, whether or not I had a phone, internet, money, or a shred of sanity. I owe a lot to my first teachers, Mom and Dad. Thanks to Dr. Steven Bruhm, Dr. Christopher Keep and Dr. Matthew Rowlinson for introducing me to the theoretical concepts that inform this work and for their patience and care; especially Dr. Bruhm, who, in addition to being the gentle guide of my oftentimes slow thought process, was always willing to go “‘which’ hunting and looking out for other errors”).2 Dr. Joel Faflak and Dr. Mark McDayter have also provided much inspiration and cheer. I must also congratulate my cohort, especially those still standing, and thank them for challenging and supporting me. I am also grateful for the patience and assistance provided by Western’s library staff and the English department secretaries – Leanne, Vivian, and Beth – who have made this journey so much smoother. I would also like to thank the Victorian Reading Group at Western and the Society of Graduate Students (SOGS). However, to the ‘brand’ under which I am required to publish this thesis, I am not particularly grateful.3 1 Woolf 2 Fowler 699 3 No ‘body’ could be more soundly accused of “know[ing] the price of everything, and the value of nothing” (Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray 42). iv Finally, I would like to thank myself for my fortitude and perseverance. “I write all this you suppose with composure. But far from it; I cannot think of it without agitation. Nothing but your earnest desire so repeatedly expressed, could have induced me to sit down to a task that has unstrung my nerves for months to come, and reintroduced a shadow of the unspeakable horror which years after my deliverance continued to make my days and nights dreadful, and solitude insupportably terrific.”4 “After years of labour, after years of toiling and groping in the dark, after days and nights of disappointment and sometimes of despair, in which I used now and then to tremble and grow cold with the thought that perhaps there were others seeking for what I sought, at last, after so long, a pang of sudden joy thrilled my soul, and I knew the long journey was at an end.”5 4 Le Fanu, Carmilla 339 5 Machen 184 v Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments.............................................................................................................. iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... vi List of Figures .................................................................................................................. viii Chapter 1 ............................................................................................................................. 1 1 “Passages from the Diary of Spiridion Trepka” ............................................................. 1 1.1 PART I: Method and Madness ............................................................................... 1 1.2 Critic as Fetishist..................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Freud’s Fetish, Theory as Fetish, and the Return of Hoffmann’s Fatal Women .... 9 1.4 Critical Approaches to the Fatal Woman .............................................................. 17 1.5 Beyond Duality ..................................................................................................... 32 1.6 Ambiguous Ambiguity.......................................................................................... 38 1.7 Enchantment and Paranoia .................................................................................... 41 1.8 PART II: Spectral Images and Uncanny Portraits ................................................ 47 1.9 The Fetish as Image/Image as Fetish .................................................................... 47 1.10 The Fatal Woman as Uncanny Portrait ................................................................. 51 Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................................... 61 2 (Unspeakable) .............................................................................................................. 61 2.1 Representation as Theme in Romantic Literature ................................................. 64 2.2 Romanticism and Portraiture ................................................................................ 75 2.3 Mistress of Udolpho .............................................................................................
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