The Dynamics of Terror: or. The Grotesque Character of Gothic Fiction David Dalgleish A Thesis in The Department of English Presented in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada Q David Dalgleish, 1997 Nanonai uurary DIUIIUU I~UCII Iauw UUG of Canada du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services services bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395. rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 0- ON K1A ON4 canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accordé une licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distri'buer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de microfiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or othewise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author' s ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY School of Gradnate Studies This is to certify that the thesis prepared B y: David Dalgleish Entitled: The Dynamics of Terror. or. The Grotesque Character of Goihic Fiction and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Engiish) complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with respect to originality and quality. Signed by the final examining cornmittee: Chair Examiner Examiner Supervisor Approved by Chair of Department or Graduate Pro,pm Director lm Dean of Faculty ABSTRACT The Dynamics of Terror: or. The Grotesque Character of Gothic Fiction David Dalgleish This essay examines the use of the grotesque to create terror in Gothic fiction in the laie 18th century and throughout the 19th century. After using Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan and Gomenohast to establish the central role of the grotesque in fully successful Gothic texts. the focus then shifts to a survey of Cothic's early period and its 19th century refinements. demonstrating the role of the grotesque in various key works. In the earlier texts. underdeveloped grotesque characten are crucial to the manufacture of temfying moments; in the later texts. fully developed grotesques create an ongoing mood of terror. In either case. an emphasis on the grotesque nature of Gothic fiction enables a better understanding of how these works generate their emotional impact in the reader. ..* Ill TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1: Perceptions of Gothic Chapter 2: The Apotheosis of Gothic Chapter 3: Explaining the Gothic Chapterl: Refining the Gothic Bi bliography Fi lmograph y 1. Perceptions of Gothic "With Melmoth we wdk the corridors of Otnnto," writes Neil Gaiman in his comic book The Sandman (Doll's House: Part Six 6). The Sandman is probably the most highly acclaimed comic book of the 1990s. or. for that matter. of any other decade. The quote is taken from a drearn sequence in issue 15: the drearner is narned Zelda. S he lives with her lover. Chantal. in a house featuringa number of odd individuals (ayuppie couple called Barbie and Ken: a drag queen: and a man named Gilbert who is also a Dream realrn called Fiddler's Green andfor G. K. Chesterton). Chantal and Zelda Wear wedding dresses à la Miss Havisham and. in very Gothic fashion, collect dead spiders--indeed, they "possess the largest collection of stuffed spiders in private han& on the Eastern seaboard" (Part Two 2). The Sandman is often concerned with Dreams (always capitalized. of course). stories and storyteiling, myths. history. and the other thing which shape human consciousness. which affect our perceptions of who we are. Zelda's drearn is one in a sequence-glimpses into the dreams of al1 the house's inhabitants. With his usual acumen, Gaiman obliquety reveals truths about his characten through these glimpses of dreaming. Zelda's dreamscape features graveyards and skulls and faded wedding dresses and spiders. Among these images. her dreaming mind thinks ( rather ungrammatically ) of her relationship with Chantal: "Chantal cornes along and shows me she's rny sou1 sister me and her true Gothic heroines secret brides of the faceless slaves of the forbidden house of the nameless night of the castle of dread desire" (6).And then: "With Melmoth we walk the comdors of Otranto . ." I think that little eight-word phrase can tell us al1 sorts of interestinp things about Gothic fiction. if we extrapolate a little. Melmoth and Otranto refer to Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer and Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto-the generally accepted endpoint and starting point, respectively. of classic Gothic fiction. Meimoth never walked the comdon of Otranto; they are two separate novels. Gaiman is collapsing the fint phase of the Gothic genre into one phrase. the implicit idea being that Otranto and Melmoth were both part of the same literary space. both inhabited the same set of Gothic parameten. and that, in a tlgurative sense. Melmoth does "walk the comdors of Otranto." if we take "the comdors of Otranto" to be representati ve of the conventions of Gothic. establ ished by Walpole in 1764. This seems a reasonable assertion: had there been no Otranto. it is doubtful that Melmoth would ever have walked at al!, Furthermore. Melmoth who walks is opposed to the static castle corridors: walking suggests the range and movement ot'fered by Gothic, while the comdon suggest that this movement has circumscribed limits. One can wander through many rooms of the rnind within the Gothic confines. but one can never go beyond those particular rooms--one can never escape the limits of the castle. Gaiman has managed to sugpst many aspects of the entire Gothic genre--at Ieast. for those familiar with its history-in just a few words. Why'! Why does a reclusive lesbian living in Horida in 1990 Say that she--not to mention "we"--walks wi th a relative1y unknown literary character. over 150 years out of date, through a slightly less unknown literary castle. over 200 yean out of date'? With one throwaway phrase. Gaiman brings a dated set of conventions deep into the consciousness of a thoroughly modem character. The point is. as it often is in The Sandman. that old and half-forgotten stories still shape who we are today: they are still relevant. Melmoth and Otranto still have something to Say. They are not. Gaiman seems to be sayinp. trivial works of marginal interest to literary scholars, but works which on a pmfound levei of the human mind--the level of dreams, desire. the subconscious--are still alive and rneaningful for Zelda. and oot just Zelda. for it is "we" who "with Melmoth walk the corridors of Otranto." 1 have chosen this quotation to begin this essay. then, because it raises a number of related points which 1 want to explore at length: I ) classic works of Gothic fiction utilize a coherent, stable set of conventions which allow us to conflate the first and last novels of Gothic's heyday because both are built on the same fundamental principles. 2) Gothic fiction still has something to say to us about human character, something which keeps it interesting to us 200 years later, and, 3) Gothic's tictional methodolopy has been adapted by conternporary authon, and is a sigificant aspect of important twentieth century works. Aside from alluding to Gofhic fiction. Gaiman also uses some of its fictional tools: the story of The Sandman is woven, quite deliberately. from many strands of literary history: myth. fairy tale. Shakespearean drama. realism. Gothic. ghost story. horror fiction. urban fantasy, and others. 1 would not go so far as to Say that The Sandrnan is a Gothic work. but Gothic is one of the constituent elements. and I would go so far as to Say that it is an important twentieth century work. More than any other work 1 have read. it qualifies as a mythology for the twentieth century. The presence of Gothic can also be found in the writings of those more widely acknowledged as significant twentieth century authors: Shirley Jackson, lsak Dinesen. Umberto Eco. Salman Rushdie. Iain Banks. Angela Carter. There are others. but the point is that Gothic is still alive and kicking and screaming in the pages of conternporary literature. Aside from its influence on, and continuing utility for, today's authon. the relevance of Gothic is also apparent in the ever-growing body of critical work surrounding the genre. Gothic is as hot a topic for critical discussion today as it has ever been. Circular though it may be. we can Say that it's important to talk about Gothic in 1997 because people are talkinp about in 1997. Critical discussion of Gothic seems divided into two camps. The first, much larger. group is composed of those critics who look at Gothic for what could be calied its 'extemal' merits; the second group discusses its 'intemal' merits. It is this division that Manuel Aguirre has in mind when he says: "While it is beyond dispute that social factors are necessary to an understanding of the horror (or any other) genre, they help only in so far as they constitute aspects, not causes of the phenornenon" (&I; Aguirre's emphasis). Aguirre makes a point crucial to the way I want to look at Gothic: Unquestionably. a11 around the literature of terror there is a background--historical, social.