Other Gothic texts

Pathologisation of female illness

The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) by Charlotte Perkins: the narrator, likely suffering postpartum depression, is confined to an old nursery room for three months (enforced ‘rest cure’) by her husband who exercises his authority as a doctor – it is arguably the ensuing isolation that induces psychosis.

Attraction/repulsion

Carmilla (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu: the protagonist Laura is in a homoerotic relationship with female vampire Carmilla –> feels compelled to intimacy whilst feeling an antipathy towards her -> dangerous ambivalence.

Virgin whore dichotomy

Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Bronte: Bertha is the literalised Victorian nightmare of unbridled female sexuality (and is thus confined as the madwoman in the attic), whereas Jane is the sanitised, unthreatening New Woman – educated governess, but plain, virtuous and loyal to Rochester. Externalised and separated into two characters, arguably also the case with Lucy and Mina.

The horror within vs the horror without

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson: the threat is the (repressed) primal id that threatens the civilised self – literalised through the effects of Jekyll’s potion, a self-induced regression. Dracula grapples with similar anxieties, albeit shown through an externalised threat (foreign actor).

The dangers of scientific modernity

Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley: warns of unchecked hubris/scientific progression of the Enlightenment/man playing God. The threat is manufactured as opposed to organic and archaic (forces of antiquity returning in Dracula)

Sublime (landscape)

Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley: Victor encountering the creature on the Mer de Glace. The vast, indifferent, terrifying beauty of the Alpine glacier dramatises the confrontation between creator and creation. The Transylvanian Carpathians evoke similar feelings that Johnathan registers but fails to comprehend, forewarning him of the threat that lies ahead.

The pursued heroine and the threat of male tyranny

Isabella fleeing from Manfred through the subterranean vaults: The Castle of Otranto (1764) by Horace Waldpole. A vulnerable woman, pursued by a powerful/lustful aristocrat, navigating a claustrophobic, underground maze. Female vulnerability against patriarchal and political oppression.

The doppelgänger and splitting

Dorian Gray witnessing the first change in his portrait: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) by Oscar Wilde. The portrait becomes the externalized, hidden self that bears the marks of sin and decay, while the physical body remains young.

The return of the repressed

The return of the ghost of Catherine at the window: Wuthering Heights (1847) by Emily Bronte. Brontë transforms the ghost from a plot device into a manifestation of unresolved passion and trauma. Catherine's spirit haunts Heathcliff not as a spectre of revenge for murder, but as an expression of a love so violent it cannot be contained by death or the grave - quintessential expression of liebestod.