The Female Gothic, a feminist reinvention of literature

Masculinity in ruins: the Gothic woman through the male gaze

The term “gothic” conjures up images of dyed black hair, cross necklaces and post-punk rock music. However, the gothic that we know of today is not the original Gothic, namely the subgenre of Romantic fiction that emerged in the late 18th century and was centered around horror and mystery. It drew upon medieval aesthetics and societal fears through tropes and characters such as the rescuing of a beautiful damsel in distress by the handsome protagonist from the claws of a monster or the descent into madness of a complex, morally gray protagonist. Famous works of Gothic literature include Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1765), Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and the horrific novellas of Edgar Allan Poe.

We can apply Judith Butler’s theory of masculinity to the representation of masculinity in Gothic fiction, as one that is steeped in “anxiety” and consumed by a “sense of the war within,” warning readers of what happens when social norms collapse. The Gothic man is rarely stable: he is often haunted, melancholic, monstrous, or all of the above. The woman, presented as the great Other, is only ever perceived through the eyes of the man, through what the modern reader would call the “male gaze.” She often assumes either the role of the pursued maiden, or of the crazed madwoman, defined entirely by how she reflects or disturbs the male psyche.

Take Oscar Wilde’s iconic 1890 Gothic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Wilde writes remarkably few female characters; the most memorable one, Dorian’s fiancée and theater actress, Sybil Vane, ends up committing suicide halfway through the book after Dorian cruelly leaves her. She is only relevant to the plot to convey the extent of Dorian’s unkindness, dying neatly on cue so that he can spiral further into self-destruction. Still, she loves him deeply, completely, and perhaps a little irresponsibly. She is a one-dimensional martyr, sacrificed on the altar of love; she is fragility and vulnerability personified. This tragedy isn’t hers, it’s his.

In his long, lyrical poem La Belle Dame Sans Merci, John Keats evokes the figure of the sorceress, portraying a Circe-like “belle dame” who preys on a helpless wounded knight, luring him to her witch’s lair, where she kills him. In her, Keats resurrects the old trope of woman as temptation: by sparking sexual desire and leading the man to his ruin, she becomes a quasi-Biblical figure of female depravity, akin to Eve in the garden of Eden.

The Gothic woman, then, is trapped in a double bind. If she’s pure, she’s punished, but if she’s powerful, she’s monstrous. The Gothic woman rarely speaks for herself: she is nothing but the mirror in which man’s fears are endlessly reflected.

The Female Gothic: violence, eroticism and rebellion

Enter the Female Gothic, a distinct, modern literary genre that dares to flip the script on Gothic conventions by portraying a – how shocking! – female protagonist, often both the heroine and the victim, but always on her own terms. Gone are the trembling damsels and monstrous villains; in their place stands the far more chilling spectre of patriarchy itself.

©The Guardian, Angela Carter

The term “Female Gothic” was coined by Ellen Moers in her 1976 book Literary Women, and brought to life by British author Angela Carter in her seminal 1979 short story collection The Bloody Chamber. Carter’s book is a reimagining of traditional fairy tales, peeling back their genteel façades to expose what she calls their “latent content”, namely all the violence, horror, and eroticism lurking between the lines.

Carter’s work does not adhere to the typical Gothic genre’s views of women as either heroic fighters against, or passive victims of, (patriarchal) dominance; her heroines escape the straitjackets of ideology, history and biological essentialism. As she puts it in her other book The Sadeian Woman – named after the infamous Marquis de Sade, in case her penchant for provocation wasn’t already clear –, “to be the object of desire is to be defined in the passive case (…) to exist in the passive case is to die in the passive case – that is, to be killed”.

The opening story of The Bloody Chamber, which shares its title with the collection, reworks Bluebeard in a way that leans even more into the violence and sexual depravity of the original plot. The short story opens with two – almost comically – stereotypical characters: the virginal, naive, inexperienced, white-dress-wearing heroine, married off to the Marquis, a monocle-wearing caricature of male decadence who reeks of leather and occasionally tortures and kills his wives – for this poor girl is not the first – in sadistic sex rituals.

Yet, as the story progresses, the reader discovers that this heroine, seemingly doomed from the start, is not exactly what the Gothic conventions would have her be: she does not love the Marquis, but marries him nonetheless, choosing wealth and opportunity over romance. Not only that, but she feels no fear. Not when she discovers the bloodied corpses of the ones who came before, not when the Marquis is holding the sword over her head. Instead, she expresses curiosity, driven by excitement towards the unknown rather than terror. Even her relationship with the Marquis defies moral simplicity: despite the fact that his character would make any reader wrinkle their nose in disgust, or perhaps because of it, she admits to a perverse attraction. “I lay in bed alone. And I longed for him. And he disgusted me.” In that paradox lies the essence of the Female Gothic: a modern, unflinching genre unafraid to linger in uncomfortable intersections of fear, power, and desire – but always by women, for women.

The final scene of the short story is surprisingly abrupt, cutting through Carter’s tentacular prose to deliver an almost humorous, uncomplicated end: the main character’s mother, as if called hither by divine providence, arrives on horseback on the to-be crime scene and stopping the sword-wielding Marquis in his tracks, takes out her gun and puts a “single, irreproachable bullet” through his head. This very bullet carries with it enormous symbolic charges, and this assassination is one of revenge, for all the Marquis’ previous victims, and one of allegory, because the woman here is putting a righteous end to a patriarchal reign of terror.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

« Gothic Novel | Definition, Elements, Authors, Examples, Meaning, & Facts | Britannica ». https://www.britannica.com/art/Gothic-novel.

Butler, Judith. « Melancholy Gender—Refused Identification ». Psychoanalytic Dialogues 5, n^o 2 (1995): 165‑80. https://doi.org/10.1080/10481889509539059.

Więckowska, Katarzyna. The Gothic: Studies in History, Identity and Space. BRILL, 2020.