DEVIANCE AND DESIRE: EMBODIMENTS OF FEMALE MONSTROSITY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FEMALE GOTHIC A Thesis Presented to The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Maya Cope-Crisford May, 2016 DEVIANCE AND DESIRE: EMBODIMENTS OF FEMALE MONSTROSITY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FEMALE GOTHIC Maya Cope-Crisford Thesis Accepted: Approved: _______________________________ _______________________________ Advisor Interim Dean of the College Dr. Heather Braun Dr. John Green _______________________________ _______________________________ Faculty Reader Dean of the Graduate School Dr. Hillary Nunn Dr. Chand Midha _______________________________ _______________________________ Faculty Reader Date Dr. Joseph Ceccio _______________________________ Interim Department Chair Dr. Sheldon Wrice ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wasn’t going to do an acknowledgements page. I was going to leave the profuse thanking for private interactions, followed by lots of flowers and copious amounts of wine. For those of you who have been at all involved in helping me over the last few months, you have this to look forward to. Then I realized the real importance of those who have helped me over the course of this process, and found an all-too-relevant connection between those most directly involved. THEY’RE ALL LADIES. I am surrounded by amazing, intelligent, strong women who continue to inspire me in all of my endeavors— this thesis included. I would not be the woman that I am without their constant support. To my best ladies, Sarah, Marcy, and Holly— you are some of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Each of you has been a sounding board throughout this process, and have helped me through the lows with grace and understanding, despite my frantic late-night calls and at times absentee friendship. I know you’re all just as invested as I am at this point, and that means so much— I’m honored to have you all in my life. To my mother, Debi— thank you for always inspiring me to do more, to BE more, and to always keep pushing myself despite my doubts or misgivings. I love you more than words can say, and I have no doubt that your influence is what has made me the strong, independent, loving, and (mostly) competent woman that I am. Thank you, I will carry that with me always. iii Finally, to my advisor, Dr. Heather Braun— thank you for having faith in me despite all of my shortcomings, and for helping me to get back on track any time I strayed. I appreciate your guidance and support more than you know, and could not have come this far without your knowledge and expertise on the subject as well as your interest in what I have to say. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for being a part of this journey with me. I have learned so much not only about the time period, its literary merits, and its scholarship with your help— but also about myself as a writer and scholar. While I have a long way to go to, I am better prepared for my academic future because of you, and I very much appreciate that. See? Lady power. Powerhouse ladies. And hey, we might act like monsters according to nineteenth-century definitions, but at least we have fun doing it. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………….…. 1 II. EMBODIED FEMALE MONSTROSITY: MARY SHELLEY’S FRANKENSTEIN AND CATHERINE SMITH’S CALEDONIAN BANDIT..……..………………..….. 17 The ‘Bride’ as Embodied Social Fear……..……………………….…21 The Audacity of the Monstrous Female…..………………….……… 28 III. THE SUBVERSIVE SUPERNATURAL: FEMALE MONSTERS IN ANNE BANNERMAN’S “THE DARK LADIE” AND “THE MERMAID”.……….............45 Mermaid as Monster: Supernatural Female Agency…..…………..….55 The Embodied and Affective Spectre…….…………………….…… 60 IV. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………….…….…… 70 WORKS CITED AND CONSULTED…..………………………………….….…….78 v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION British Gothic literature of the early nineteenth-century offers multitudes of representations of monstrous females, often depicted as subversive, transgressive, seductive, and even supernatural. Making use of Gothic tropes, monstrous forms and actions, doubling, fractured or fragmented imagination, and scenery of ruin and decay, as well as grotesque bodies, Gothic texts presented anxiety in ways that struck terror into readers’ hearts. These anxieties arguably came forward after larger traumatic social events such as the French Revolution, but the Gothic handled these anxieties in new and exciting ways. Of the central anxieties presented in these Gothic texts, monstrous females remain a lesser-examined figure. In an attempt to examine the importance of the commonly used trope of a monstrous female in nineteenth-century Gothic literary and cultural imagination, I will include examinations of central female figures in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) as well as Catherine Smith’s novel The Caledonian Bandit; or, the Heir of Duncaethal (1811), alongside ballads by Anne Bannerman from her Poems (1800) and Tales of Superstition and Chivalry (1802) in order to trace gendered social anxieties across literary and cultural borders. By resurrecting these monstrous females, some perhaps for the first time, I hope to show the importance and value of this monstrous female as a marker of changing social bounds. Critics have noted 1 that “lacking adequate symbolization, women exist in a state of ‘dereliction’ or abandonment. They are ‘nowhere, touching everything, but never in touch with each other, lost in the air, like ghosts’”(Irigaray qtd. by Wallace, 37). Rather than allowing these females to become relegated to the fringes of their stories, or to be left in a state of dereliction or abandonment, I wish to put them in conversation with each other and grant them access to ongoing literary conversations. In short, this thesis seeks to explore depictions of monstrous femininity, whether they be females in human or supernatural form. To be a monstrous female does not always require that the female actually be a ‘monster’ or creature, but rather denotes the female’s transgressive, deviant, even subversive nature as it appears through body or behavior, though usually a combination of both. I will examine these females according to several levels of understanding; some are simply monstrous in behavior, some are non- human or supernatural monsters, and others become monstrous as they change in status from human to something lesser or more animalistic, often through their socially deviant actions. To be considered monstrous, the female must refuse or be unable to conform to the prescribed social conventions of her given time and culture. This can be depicted as transgression against understandings of the ‘natural’ capabilities of the human body, sexual impropriety (both within and outside of marriage), and/or violent attitudes or actions that work in some fashion to subvert or complicate the patriarchal structures of the society of which she is a part. This often comes across as a combination of monstrous behavioral and physical traits, which together instigate feelings of anxiety and fear in those that encounter her. 2 All cultures have a conception of the monstrous female, whether in body or behavior, and each depiction represents an exploration of what it is about a woman that is shocking, terrifying, horrifying, or abject.1 In many ways, these adjectives can also be used to describe the atmospheric tendencies of Gothic writing, seeking to terrify and shock, and perhaps subvert. Because of this overlap, the Gothic offers the perfect mode through which to explore notions of the female monster, as both seek to explore the crossing of boundaries according to what is real/imagined, natural/unnatural, masculine/feminine, and even dead/undead. The monstrous female becomes a site of confusion within these false dichotomies as her body and behaviors often complicate what each of these polarized terms actually mean, just as the Gothic genre has done to complicate and explore notions of societal propriety. By moving outside of what is deemed normal or natural for the female, in body or behavior, the female monster (or monstrous female) brings into question the ideological and social concepts of what the female body and feminine behavior should be. Examining these texts, all written within 18 years of each other, will reveal the underlying social anxieties as they were according to British cultural ideals of the nineteenth-century and further illuminate the study of females within a Gothic context. Due largely to the resurgence of Gothic imagery in literature, film, and popular culture of the last few decades, foundational Gothic texts such as Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho have been repeatedly re-examined using increasingly complex literary theory. Scholarship on the genre offers a 1 See Barbara Creed, The Monstrous-Feminine (1993) 3 good base from which to examine this thesis’ primary texts, as it tends to center around blurred distinctions between binaries and the confrontation of anxiety, especially when elements of the supernatural are introduced. According to Monica Germaná, Gothic literature retains a focus on “liminal borderlands and conditions: life/death, animate/inanimate, man/woman, kin/lover,” and it is the “interstitial spaces that [. .] are designed to unsettle the reader” (13-14). The uncomfortable transgression or blurring of these liminal and interstitial spaces as performed by the female characters of this study highlights the expected gender roles of both male and female society as they existed in British literature of the nineteenth-century, and subsequently examines the associated roles of social identity that are performed by both author and character. Growing concern over femininity potentially infiltrating the public sphere was often externalized, or identified outside of England, in an attempt to relegate it to the fringes of society. By placing these anxieties and transgressions outside the bounds of centralized and proper society, English authors could effectively displace and project their fears onto an imagined, often marginalized, Other.