Gothic critical views (AO5)

TBC: male gaze

“==women alienated from themselves within the male gaze==” Makinen, 1992

TBC: violence and empowerment

“==women troubled by and even empowered by their own violence==” Makinen, 1992

* female violence/rage/strength is 1970s issue; “troubled” vs “empowered” = Gothic explores social anxieties

TBC: fairy tales

“==inherent in the fairy tale… to be the carrier of ideology==” Dunker, 1984

* link w/ Carter’s medieval morality tale influence
* also conveys some of original fairy tale values in Carter’s versions

value systems, insitiution

“the gothic tradition… ignores the value systems of our institutions” Carter

* taboo, transgressions
* or does it function w/in and exploit them?

nature of gothic works

“Gothic works… are not fully achieved works: they are fragmentary, inconsistent, jagged… they deal in psychological areas which… do not come out right” Punter, 1996

* liminality

gothic lens

“The gothic is a distorting lens, a magnifying lens… nonetheless a reality which cannot be apprehended in any other way” Punter, 1996

* extremes
* subconscious/unconscious mind (Freud)
* symbology--not necessarily true to life or literal massages

limits, experience

“Gothic tales seem to satisfy a deep-seated fascination with the limits of human experience” Branagh

* magical realism--extends limits of possible experience
* extremes
* sublime

juxtaposition, gothic genre

“the juxtaposition of the ghastly and the everyday suggests one of the defining characteristics of the gothic genre, that of the uncanny double” Kranzler, 2000

* binary opposition
* terror/suspense
* the everyday ties in w/ societal issues gothics explore

supernatural

“the power of the older Gothic… is to use the supernatural as an image for real and carefully depicted social fears” Punter, 1996

ancestral repetition

“One of the most chilling fears that informs these stories is the threat of ancestral repetition” Kranzler, 2000

* bringing the past into the present (symbolically) plays on this fear

Frankenstein: intertextuality

“Frankenstein and the monster find their actions and fates dictated by narratives… beyond the confines of their own tales” Green, 2005

* idea that intertextuality isn’t just a tool but also influences writing

TBC: reader’s role in fiction

“==I try… to leave the reader to construct her own fiction==” Carter, 1997

F: independent female sexuality

“==What Victor Frankenstein is really afraid of is an independent female sexuality”== Mellor, 2019

F: eliminate female role

* ==“destroy the mother by becoming the mother”== Mellor, 2019