From Dolls to Demons Exploring Categorisations of the Female Figure
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From Dolls to Demons Exploring Categorisations of the Female Figure in Gothic Literature through a Selection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Texts Donna Mitchell Ph.D. Thesis Mary Immaculate College University of Limerick Supervisor: Dr Eugene O’Brien Submitted to Mary Immaculate College: ___________ i Declaration of Originality Declaration: I hereby declare that this thesis is the result of my own original research and does not contain the work of any other individual. All sources that have been consulted have been identified and acknowledged in the appropriate way. Signature of Candidate: ___________________________________ Donna Mitchell Signature of Supervisor: ___________________________________ Dr Eugene O’Brien ii Acknowledgements I would like to start by thanking Dr Eugene O’Brien for his immeasurable help and support with my thesis. His guidance from the very beginning of this process has been instrumental in its completion, and I am deeply grateful to him and to the Department of English Language and Literature in Mary Immaculate College for funding my research and for providing me with the wonderful experience of tutoring over the last three years. I would also like to express my gratitude to members of the Postgraduate Contemporary Women’s Writing Network and the Sibéal Irish Postgraduate Feminist & Gender Studies Network for their feedback and interest in my work, and for the publishing and presenting opportunities that they have offered me over the course of my PhD programme. Special thanks to Dr Barbara Brodman and Dr James E. Doan for giving me the personal literary treasure of my first print publication, and also to ‘Otherness: Essays and Studies’ for the pleasure of having my work included their journal. I want to thank Dr Trish Ferguson, Dr Maria Beville, Dr Susan Yi Sencindiver, as well as my many fellow MIC researchers, for their opinions and advice on my research topic. I’m so grateful to my lovely family and friends for their immeasurable support during my studies as well as for their continuous encouragement and interest in my work. And on a final note, I can’t forget to thank my furry friends Ruby and Hendrix, for allowing me to join them on their walkies every morning which made the start of every work day a happy one. iii Dedication I like to think that my love of stories comes from my earliest memories of my Dad who was my first storyteller. He always made sure to skip the scary parts so I would like to dedicate this thesis to him as thanks for his efforts in making sure that those tales were always happy ones. iv Segments of this thesis have been disseminated in the following conference presentations and publications: Conference Papers “Do you want me to be a doll forever?’: The Gothic Female’s Resistance to Patriarchy’ Conference Name: Department of English Language & Literature Postgraduate/Postdoctoral Conference Conference Organisers: Department of English Language & Literature, Mary Immaculate College Conference Location: Mary Immaculate College, Limerick Conference Date: 6th December 2011 ‘From Dolls to Demons: Constructions of Femininity in the Gothic Female’s Evolution’ Conference Name: Queer Sisterhood in Contemporary Women’s Writing: A Postgraduate Symposium Conference Organisers: Postgraduate Contemporary Women’s Writing Network Conference Location: Queens University Belfast Conference Date: 29th February 2012 ‘Damsels, Doppelgangers and the Death of the Natural Mother: How Fairy Tale Ideology Inspired the Gothic Literary Tradition’ Conference Name: Folklore and Fantasy Conference Conference Organisers: Sussex Centre for Folklore, Fairy Tales and Fantasy. Conference Location: University of Chichester Conference Dates: 13th – 15th April 2012 v ‘Strained Sisterhoods: A Critique of Femininity and Female Sexuality in Gothic Literature’ Conference Name: Current Research in Speculative Fiction (CRSF) Conference Conference Organisers: Current Research in Speculative Fiction Conference Location: University of Liverpool Conference Date: 18th June 2012 ‘Constructions of the ‘Other’ Half in Irish Gothic Literature: Female Representation and Sexuality in Woman’s Role as Wife and Lover’ Conference Name: ‘The Gender Question’: A Mary Immaculate College and University of Limerick Sibéal Postgraduate Symposium Conference Organisers: Mary Immaculate College and Sibéal Conference Location: Mary Immaculate College, Limerick Conference Date: 15th May 2013 Forthcoming Conference Papers ‘Damsels in Distress? The Importance of Illusion to the ‘Monstrous Feminine’ in Irish Gothic Literature’ Conference Name: 3rd Annual Limerick Postgraduate Research Conference Conference Organisers: LIT PRS, MIC SU, and UL PSU Conference Location: Limerick Institute of Technology Conference Date: 29th May 2014 “She was colder than I. She was better at all of it’: Investigating the Male Construction of the Deadly Female through Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles’ Conference Name: Gender and Transgression in Twentieth Century Britain Conference Conference Organisers: Newcastle University Conference Location: Newcastle University vi Conference Date: Summer 2014 – exact date to be confirmed Conference Papers under Consideration Title: ‘Ladies in the Looking Glass: Exploring the Importance of Mirrors as a Female Space in Angela Carter’s Construction of Identity’ Conference Name: Locating the Gothic Festival and Conference Conference Organisers: Limerick School of Art and Design and Mary Immaculate College Conference Location: Limerick School of Art and Design and Mary Immaculate College Conference Dates: 22nd - 25th October 2014 Title: “People see with different eyes’: Tracing the Subverted Reflections of Female Agency and Identity in Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s The Rose and the Key’ Conference Name: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu Bicentenary Conference Conference Organisers: Trinity College Dublin Conference Location: Trinity College Dublin Conference Dates: 15th – 16th October 2014 Publications ‘The Monstrous Feminine: A Portrait of Female Sexuality in Irish Gothic Literature’ Publisher: Sibéal Irish Postgraduate Feminist & Gender Studies Network Publication Name: Sibéal website Publication Date: 4th August 2013 ‘The Madonna and Child: Re-evaluating Social Conventions through Anne Rice’s Forgotten Females’ Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield vii Publication Name: Images of the Modern Vampire: The Hip and the Atavistic edited by Barbara Brodman and James E. Doan Publication Date: 1st November 2013 ‘Of Monsters and Men: Absent Mothers and Unnatural Children in the Gothic ‘Family Romance’’ Publisher: The Centre of Studies for Otherness Publication Name: Otherness: Essays and Studies 4.2 Publication Date: 23rd April 2014 Forthcoming Publications Title: “If you were less pretty I think I should be very much afraid of you’: A Female Personification of Death in Irish Gothic Literature’ Publisher: Writing From Below Publication Name: Death and the Maiden Issue, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2014) Publication Date: December 2014 Publications under Consideration Title: “It is men who like to play dolls’: Exploring the Masculine Influence on the Creation of Female Identity in Angela Carter’s The Magic Toyshop’ Publisher: The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies Publication Name: Issue #13 (Summer 2014) Publication Date: Summer 2014 Title: ‘One Happy Family? Redefining Gender Roles within the Gothic Family Unit of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire’ Publication Name: Gothic Literature in English on Screen edited by Lorna Fitzsimmons Publication Date: Summer 2015 viii Abstract This thesis will examine various representations of female agency and identity in both classic and contemporary selected Gothic texts. It will use feminist, psychoanalytic and selected aspects of literary theory in order to analyse four different stages of the female condition within this genre of literature. In doing this it will use examples from the literary Gothic that represent how the identity of these female characters is divided into binary oppositions of ‘civilised’ or ‘native women’. The deciding (and usually masculine) agents of this categorisation, as well as the activity that occurs within the divide between these two groups, will be the focus of this thesis that I will use to portray how female identity is more complex than the rigid limitations of these patriarchal classifications. My core objective is to analyse the collective image of women in selected Gothic literary texts in order to illustrate how this particular genre has given a voice to the struggles that women encounter during their search for identity within a society that places so many physical and behavioural demands on them. Originally an offshoot of Romantic literature, the Gothic engages with the supernatural in a deliberate effort to validate what is sublime and terrifying about the unknown. In the face of Enlightenment rationality, it facilitates encounters between reader and text that validate fears and insecurities that science often dismisses. This subversive quality of the Gothic, which still remains an inherent and essential feature of modern texts in the genre today, creates an active space for the uncanny, which thereby allows for the subversion of certain realities and identities in fiction that may or may not be possible in real life, and this is especially true in the area of female agency. This study will examine how these selected Gothic texts imagine, represent and explore women’s socio- cultural and sexual identity within the divide between these ‘civilised’ and ‘native’ women, by offering