The house as Gothic element in Anglo-American fiction (18th - 20th century) E-Book

David Ronneburg

• Herausgeber: GRIN Verlag
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2005

Beschreibung

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Leipzig (Anglistik), course: The Gothic Inheritance, language: English, abstract: Diese in englischer Sprache verfasste Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit verschiedenen Erscheinungsformen und Funktionen, in denen das "Haus-Motiv" als "gothic element" in der Angloamerikanischen Literatur auftritt. Zu diesem Zweck werden zahlreiche Prosatexte von Autoren wie F.H. Burnett, A.C. Doyle, B. Stoker, C. Brontë, C. Dickens, D. du Maurier, O. Wilde, J.K. Rowling, N. Hawthorne, M. Twain, W. Faulkner und C.P. Gilman auf das Haus-Motiv hin untersucht, analysiert und im Gothic-Kontext interpretiert.

Leseprobe

Table of Content

1. Introduction

2. Gothic Fiction

2.1. Definition

2.2. Roots, Developments, Impact

2.2.1. Britain

2.2.2. USA

3. Aspects of the Gothic House

3.2. Looking-Glass House or (Gateway to) the Other World

3.3. The House of Bluebeard

3.4. The House as a Tomb

3.5. Culture Clashes and the House

4. Conclusion

5. Bibliography

5.1. Primary Sources

5.2. Secondary Sources

Page 1

Page 2

1. Introduction

Throughout literary historythe househas played an important role as a setting, a symbol or even semi-character. Drawing on British and American prose writing that ranges from Horace Walpole to Toni Morrison, this paper will investigate a specific aspect of the house - namely its use as a Gothic element.

It was not the author’s intention to undertake an extensive diachronic survey of the element, although chapter 2.2. is an attempt to give some insight into the rich heritage that can be discovered if one approaches the subject in this way. Instead, this paper will look into different types and functions of the house as a Gothic element. Since the author considers it a central theme in literature - also suggested by the latent pun of ‘house’ meaning either the building or the family line - this paper’s main focus will be on various forms of interaction between the house and the people who live in it. Walpole’sThe Castle of Otranto,N. Hawthorne’sThe House of the Seven Gables,E.A. Poe’sThe Fall of the House of Usherand T. Morrison’sBelovedwill provide the textual basis for this investigation. After that a discussion of other aspects of the house will follow, including the house as a junction on ‘Reality Road’ leading to forbidden tracks and hidden paths (ch. 3.2.), the House of Bluebeard (ch. 3.3.), the house as a tomb (ch. 3.4.) and the house as a stage for culture clashes (ch. 3.5.). As an in-depth study of every single text would have unduly exceeded the commonly accepted length of a seminar paper, these chapters, however, will only highlight certain aspects, using appropriate examples from a variety of texts by British authors, such as F.H. Burnett, A.C. Doyle, B. Stoker, C. Brontë, C. Dickens, D. du Maurier, O. Wilde and J.K. Rowling, and American authors, like N. Hawthorne, M. Twain, W. Faulkner and C.P. Gilman. Although the author is aware of the fact that very few houses in fiction can be assigned to only one of the categories mentioned above and that they often - and maybe ideally - simultaneously function in many different ways, this approach was chosen for pragmatic reasons.

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2. Gothic Fiction

2.1. Definition

Some elaboration on the latter term might be necessary, especially since no clear definition of the term exists that would be commonly accepted by all scholars of literature. As Bissett states, „the term [...] proves endlessly mobile and endlessly anti-generic.“1The reason for this is that in the genesis and development of the term Gothic came to signify different things: a Germanic barbarian tribe (the Goths), an - in the eyes of Renaissance architectssimilarly barbaric architectural style, the period of the Middle Ages, and also a literary style that became popular in the 18th century and which developed numerous different facets in the course of time.2Whether a definition of the Gothic that tried to incorporate all these elements would still be practicable remains doubtful. However, the same holds true for an approach as strict and narrow as Lovecraft’s, who claims:

The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain - a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of3unplumbed space.

For the purpose of this paper, Gray’s flexible definition appears to be a better starting point:

Any work concentrating on the bizarre, the macabre or aberrant psychological states may be called Gothic. In this sense, Gothic elements are common in much4nineteenth- and twentieth-century fiction.

Since in the understanding of this paper the house in fiction does not necessarily have to show characteristics of Gothic architecture in order to be Gothic in a literary sense - even though the two might coincide -, a house is considered a Gothic element if it gives expression to ‘the bizarre, the macabre or aberrant psychological states’ and thereby contributes to the creation of an atmosphere of suspense, uncertainty, terror or horror.5In

1Bissett (2001), p. 3.

2On the different meanings of ‘Gothic’ cf.: Kliger (1945), 115-130; Stevens (2000), p. 8-21.3Lovecraft (1973), p. 15.4Gray (1993), p. 129.

5Since this is not a paper on the general nature of the Gothic, the term cannot be discussed in depth.

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this context, it is of no consequence whether ‘explained’ or ‘true’ supernatural horror prevails or whether the supernatural is employed at all.

2.2. Roots, Developments, Impact

2.2.1. Britain

As will be illustrated in chapter 2.2. the Gothic inheritance reaches far back in time and builds on various traditions including folklore, Medieval romance, Jacobean tragedy and so forth. Gothic fiction as a genre6in its own right, however, is a relatively recent development7, the emergence of which can be interpreted as a countermovement to Enlightenment, the dominant philosophy of the 18th century. Gothic became interested in ‘the other’, in the supernatural, the human psyche, the past. It thus explored spheres that, tackled with reason and empirical methods alone, would not yield entirely satisfactory results. Horace Walpole’sThe Castle of Otranto(first published in 1764) is commonly considered as the first Gothic novel in Britain, although Tobias Smollett’s novelThe Adventures of Ferdinand, Count Fathom(1753), with violence and terror at the core of its plot, would be a possible candidate to hold this place too. Numerous successful Gothic novels by authors such as Clara Reeves, Ann Radcliffe or Matthew Gregory Lewis followed throughout the late 18th century.