The Future is Gothic: Elements of Gothic in Dystopian Novels Amy Cartwright PhD Submission Submitted to Faculty of Arts University of Glasgow Department of English Literature August 2005 © Amy Cartwright August 2005 Abstract This thesis explores the relationship between the Gothic tradition and Dystopian novels in order to illuminate new perspectives on the body in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915), Aldous Huxley's Brave New World(] 932), George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty- Four (1949), Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange (1962), Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and Michel Houellebecq's Atomised (1999). The key concerns are those of the Labyrinth, Dark Places, Connectedness and the Loss of the Individual, Live Burials, Monsters and Fragmented Flesh. A thematic approach allows for the novels to be brought together under common Gothic themes in order to show not only that they have such tendencies, but that they share common ground as Gothic Dystopias. While the focus is on bodily concerns in these novels, it is also pertinent to offer a discussion of past critical perspectives on the Dystopia and this is undertaken in Chapter One: `Unearthing the Past'. Chapter Two, `Labyrinths of Time and Bodies', looks at the narrative structure of the novels and finds similarities in presentation to Gothic novels, which leads to exploration of the position of the body in such a narrative of the unseen. 'Dark Places' is the third chapter of this thesis and looks to the spaces inhabited by characters in the novels to examine their impact on the threat faced by these individuals. The Gothic convention of doubling is the focus of Chapter Four, `Connectedness and the Loss of the Individual', which finds not only doubling operating in Dystopian novels, but the more complex relationship of triangles of doubling holding characters, fixing them in relation to those around at the expense of selfhood. Chapter Five, `Live Burials and the Waking Dead', takes Eve Kosofsky 11 Sedgwick's musings on the Gothic as its point of departure and finds that Dystopian bodies occupy a very similarly trapped position. `Monsters and Monstrosity' is Chapter Six and it identifies two types of monsters that inhabit the Gothic Dystopian space: those people who transform between the human and the monstrous, and those individuals who form a larger monster based on power that lives parasitically on transgressive bodies. The final chapter displays the impact of the Gothic Dystopia on individual bodies: `Fragmented Flesh'. The destruction of a coherent whole, a body with defined and sustainable boundaries, is the outcome of the novels where fear, repression, and the hidden combine to leave little space for cohesion and identification in the Gothic Dystopia. 111 THE FUTURE IS GOTHIC Contents Page Introduction " Dystopias and the Gothic 2 " Boundaries of Gothic 5 " Gothic History 7 " Dystopian History 10 " Modern Myths 12 " Gothic Dystopias 16 Chapter One - Unearthing the Past 25 " Herland as Dystopia 25 " Brave New World and Gothic Bodies 33 " Nineteen Eighty-Four as Gothic Nightmare 37 " Darkness and Terror in A Clockwork Orange 40 " Unnatural Bodies in The Handmaid's Tale 44 " Atomised and Future Fears 47 Labyrinths Body 52 Chapter Two - The of the " Framing the Future 54 " Inescapable Narratives 56 iv " Degeneration as a Future 58 " Narrative Bodies 61 " Labyrinths of Memory 63 " Mysteries and Secrets 66 " Labyrinths and Bodies 75 " End of the Labyrinth? 79 Chapter Three - Dark Places 82 " Technological Liminality 83 " The Threshold of Violence 89 " Supposed Safe Havens 91 " Detachment and Danger 95 " City Spaces and Home 99 " Bodies and Spaces 107 " Hidden Threats 110 " Inner Darkness 115 116 Chapter Four - Connectedness and the Loss of the Individual " Triangles of Doubling 118 " Ambiguous Connections 120 " Chance Encounters 126 " Dilution of Selfhood 133 " Sibling Rivalry 139 V " Doubling of Experiences 141 " Free Will, Guilt and Apologies 144 Chapter Five - Live Burials and the Waking Dead 146 " Unspeakable Games 148 " Dreams and Burials 150 " Re-birth 155 " Nightmare Awakenings 159 " Prophetic Dreaming 161 " Horrorshow Surfacing 164 " Unearthing of Dead Love 170 " Walking Dead 172 " Living Death 175 " Burial and Repression 177 Chapter Six - Monsters and Monstrosity 179 " Monstrosities 182 " Mutability 184 " Liminal Monsters 188 " Future Transformations 196 " Reproductive Monstrosity 201 " Fearful Monstrosities 204 vi Chapter 207 Seven - Fragmented Flesh " Genetic Fragments 208 " Fragmented Families 210 " Failed Flesh 216 " Veiled Flesh 219 " Unbodies 226 " Fetishised Flesh 228 " Destruction 236 " Final Fragments 239 Bibliography 242 vii Acknowledgments This thesis would not have been possible without the generous support of my parents and the timely rise in the property market which allowed me to pay the University of Glasgow for the privilege of undertaking my research at this very special institution. Thanks are also due to Pat Baxter, for all her help in creating a wonderfully professional thesis, and to my supervisor John Coyle. I was also fortunate to work with some wonderful TopUp tutors during the course of my research and to learn something from all of them because of all the hard work of Fiona Black and her team. I am also grateful for the opportunity to work with the udecide and ad-dition projects alongside Helen Cormack and Kenny Anderson, ý\ ho offered support and biscuits at exactly the right moments. Special thanks go to Alison Phipps, whose influence extends beyond the pages of this thesis, and to all the many people I worked with at eSharp and the Magic conference for the fun and the chance to learn about my own shortcomings. Very special thanks also go to the many friends who were there to share the journey and to offer directions: Kirsty Jardine, Ronnie Scott, Katy Turton, Steph McKendry, Monica Germana, Sarah McLellan and many, many others with whom I shared the laughs and the tears. The space in which these ideas grew was provided by many people but in particular by Eddy and my parents, without whose love and support the following pages would have remained blank. I must also be thankful for the companionship of Silvi who was there on all of the good days and disappeared out to bite mice on the bad days. viii Introduction The Future is Gothic Dystopian literature generally constitutes a critique of existing social conditions or political systems, either through the critical examination of the Utopian premises upon which these conditions and systems are based, or through the imaginative extension of those conditions and systems into different contexts that more clearly reveal their flaws and contradictions... Dystopian literature is not so much a specific genre as a particular kind of oppositional and critical energy or spirit... the principal literary strategy of Dystopian [is] defamiliarization: by focusing their critiques of society on imaginatively distant settings, Dystopian fictions provide fresh perspectives on problematic social and political practices that might otherwise be taken for granted or considered natural and inevitable. ' Gothic is understood in two fundamental ways: first, as a fictional genre, encompassing the strands of historical romance, horror and tales of psychological obsession and haunting, ranging from the eighteenth century to the present; and second, as a discourse of wider resonance, Booker, Dystopian Literature, Theory Guide, (Westport CT: Greenwood Press_ 1994), 3-4 1M Keith .4 and 1ze,earch pp utilising images of disorder and monstrosity that embody cultural anxieties about the disintegration of traditional western values and social formations. A fascination with the transgression of cultural limits and with the fears and fantasies bred by transgression is, arguably, the Gothic's most pervasive motif across time and space. 2 The crossing of boundaries into darkness... throughout the twentieth century is frequent and emphatic. The refusal of conventional limits and the critical questioning of cultural attitudes often proceed within a Gothic structuring of elements with a Gothic inflection. The transformations, adaptations, and other prominent traces of the Gothic in modern writing indicate the persistence of a cluster of cultural anxieties to which Gothic writing and literary modernism... continue to respond. The dark side of the discourse and experience of modernity is evident in all these cultural forms. 3 Dystopias and the Gothic This thesis aims to explore the insights to be gained by looking at six Dystopian texts in the light of the Gothic literary tradition. Such an endeavour requires not only an 2 Dani Cavallaro, Cvberpunk and cvherculture, (London: Athlone Press. 2000), p. 161-165 3 John Paul Riquelme, 'Toward a History of Gothic and Modernism: Dark Modernity from Bram Stoker to Samuel Beckett', Modern Fiction Studies, 46-3, (Fall 2000), pp. 585-63 1, p. 589 2 exploration of the characteristics which define Dystopian texts but also necessitates an attempt to elucidate the boundaries of Gothic literary theory, finding common ground in the nightmare visions provided by Dystopias, and in the Gothic tropes which give meaning to such spectres of terror. The Dystopian texts in question are Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915), Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932). George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange (1962), Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and Michel Houellebecq's. 1iomised (1999). In Chapter One I will look more closely at their