The Consciousness of Damnation : a Hermeneutical Phenomenology of the Fall of the Self in Matthew Lewis's "The Monk"
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University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 12-2008 The consciousness of damnation : A hermeneutical phenomenology of the fall of the self in Matthew Lewis's "The Monk". Becky Lee Meadows University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Recommended Citation Meadows, Becky Lee, "The consciousness of damnation : A hermeneutical phenomenology of the fall of the self in Matthew Lewis's "The Monk"." (2008). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 956. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/956 This Doctoral Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF DAMNATION: A I-IER.-"MENEUTICAL PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE FALL OF THE SELF IN MATTHEW LEWIS'S THE MONK By Becky Lee Meadows R.I., University of Missouri-Columbia, 1991 M.A, University of Louisville, 2002 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Humanities University of Louisville Louisville, Ky. December 2008 Copyright 2008 by Becky Lee Meadows All rights reserved THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF DAMNATION: A HERMENEUTICAL PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE FALL OF THE SELF IN MATTHEW LEWIS'S THE MONK By Becky Lee Meadows B.1., University of Missouri-Columbia, 1991 M.A, University of Louisville, 2002 A Dissertation Approved on November 25,2008 by the following Dissertation Committee: Dissertation DIrector ii DEDICATION I offer special thanks to the members of my dissertation committee: Dr. Glynis Ridley, professor of English at the University of Louisville, who directed this work; Dr. Annette Allen, professor of Humanities; Dr. Osborne Wiggins, professor of Philosophy; Dr. Robert S1. Clair, professor of Communications; and Dr. Karen Hadley, professor of English. I also extend love and heartfelt thanks to those who seemed to understand when I was "dissertating" and unavailable for social calls, especially my husband, Larry Wilson; my son, Michael Wilson; my mother and stepfather, Joyce and William Harmon; my father and stepmother, Larry and Sarah Meadows; my sister, Shelley Moore, and my brothers, Steve Meadows and Billy and Shane Harmon; my grandparents, Mary Meeks and the late John Meeks and the late T.e. and Della Burgess; and my sisters-at-heart, Mikki Tatum, a colleague in the study and teaching of Humanities who counseled me numerous times throughout this work, and Gayle Coulter, my journalism fellow and lifelong friend. I also dedicate this to my cats, Boo-Boo (Shakespeare), Baby Girl, and Happy Cat, for understanding why Mommy wasn't always available to play but always made lap-time. Perhaps it is bold, but in light of the recent death of my older brother, Steve Meadows, who was always interested in my progress on this work, it certainly seems fitting to borrow from Mary Shelley's introduction to the 1831 edition of Frankenstein: "And now, once again, I bid my hideous progeny go forth and prosper. I have an affection for it, for it was the offspring of happy days, when death and grief were but words, which found no true echo in my heart" (Shelley 25). Happy reading! iii ABSTRACT THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF DAMNATION: A HERMENEUTICAL PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE FALL OF THE SELF IN MATTHEW LEWIS'S THE MONK Becky Lee Meadows November 25, 2008 \¥hen Ambrosio in Matthew Lewis's 1796 gothic masterpiece, .The Monk, signs a contract relegating his soul to Satan and eternal damnation, he has reached the culmination of 442 pages of mental anguish, of his self wrestling with his conscience to overcome what philosopher Paul Ricoeur terms the "servile will" (The Symbolism of Evil 151). In the novel, Ambrosio, a monk the reader discovers has become the pawn of Satan, hurls himself down a path to damnation in consciousness, a phenomenological path that leads to the damnation of his own self The purpose of this dissertation is to explore this path through the rich symbols present at each step. Hermeneutic phenomenology-specifically the work ofRicoeur supplemented by works of other phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl--will provide the foundation for interpretation of the symbols along Ambrosio's phenomenological path to damnation. This will reveal that Ambrosio's self, in effect, damns itself after it progresses down the steps of the path. Ambrosio's conscience acts as the selfs internal mirror, striving to present a "true" picture of his self, which resists this truth as it is defined and shaped through false intersubjective constitution with the characters, events, and settings in the iv text, which leads to Ambrosio's existence in what philosopher Jean Paul Sartre terms "bad faith." This work will also trace how Ambrosio's conscience, as it struggles to present "truth" to Ambrosio's self, evolves from Ricoeur's idea of the "unhappy conscience" to the "accused" and "condemned" consciences to what I deem the "damned conscience" as Ambrosio's self moves from Ricoeur's objective pole of sin to the subjective pole. I will expand the steps to damnation from Ricoeur's defilement, sin, and guilt in his The Symbolism of Evil to include original sin and the seven deadly sins at the beginning of the path, and punishment as the final step of the phenomenological path to damnation. In addition, this work posits the symbolism and themes in Lewis's work with other works of gothic literature such as Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya: or the Moor (1808), Mary Shelley'S Frankenstein (1818), Edgar Allen Poe's "Ligeia" (1838) and "The Black Cat" (1843), Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). Works of gothic art by Romantic artists such as Henry Fuseli, Francisco de Goya, and William Blake are also analyzed in relation to symbolism and themes in Lewis's work. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE DEDICATION ............................................................................................................. iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. iv LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER I: IN THE BEGINNING: MATTHEW LEWIS, THE MONK, AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN ........... .1 CHAPTER II: THE SYMBOLISM OF OBJECTNE OR ORIGINAL SIN: CHARACTER-SYMBOLS AS PRIMARY FACTORS OF INTERSUBJECTNE CONSTITUTION IN THE MONK ......................................... 28 CHAPTER III: AT THE MOUTH OF THE PATH TO SUBJECTNE SIN: THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS ............... , ..................................................................... 58 CHAPTER IV: THE SYMBOLISM OF DEFILEMENT: THE INITIAL STEP OF THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL PATH TO DAMNATION IN THE MONK ........................................................................... 97 CHAPTER V: MOVEMENT FROM THE "UNHAPPY CONSCIENCE" TO THE "ACCUSED CONSCIENCE": SIN CONSCIOUSNESS AS PROGRESSION ON THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL PATH TO DAMNATION IN THE MONK ......................................................................... 127 CHAPTER VI: SIN-INTERNALIZATION AS GUILT AND PUNISHMENT: MOVEMENT FROM THE "ACCUSED CONSCIENCE" TO THE "CONDEMNED" AND "DAMNED" CONSCIENCES AS THE CULMINATION OF THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL PATH TO DAMNATION IN THE MONK ......................................................................... 155 REFERENCES .......................................................................................................... 181 CURRICULUM VITAE ............................................................................................ 189 vi LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE PAGE 1. "Satan's First Address to Eve," Henry Fuseli ......................................................... 45 2. "French Democrats Surprising Royal Runaways," James Gillray ......................... .49 3. Medieval church wall painting ................................................................................ 61 4. "The Last Judgment," Cathedral of St. Cecelia ...................................................... 62 5. "The Nightmare," Henry Fuseli ............................................................................ 100 6. Proliferation of Gothic Novels, 1770-1800 .......................................................... 129 7. "Satan, Sin, and Death," William Blake ............................................................... 132 8. "The Ancient of Days," William Blake ................................................................ 133 9. "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters," Francisco de Goya .......................... 160 10. "The Scream," Edward Munch ............................................................................. 161 11. "Lucifer and the Pope in Hell," William Blake .................................................... 161 12. "Satan's First Address to Eve," Henry Fuseli ....................................................... 162 vii CHAPTER I: IN THE BEGINNING: MATTHEW LEWIS, THE MONK, AND THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF SIN In this lone Cave, in garments lowly, Alike a Foe to noisy folly, And brow-bent gloomy melancholy