The Bronte Muse - Essay 2
Women writers have long drawn inspiration from the work and lives of the Bronte family. In this series of posts, headed The Bronte Muse, are three academic essays that explore aspects of their work and also related writings by other authors.
The Gothic Heroine
From a modern twenty-first century perspective it might appear that the heroines who populate early Gothic texts are passive and hyperbolic in the extreme, with their penchant for excessive displays of emotion, brain fevers and swooning in moments of adversity. Indeed it could well be argued that “their business is to experience difficulty…not get out of it.” They do not seem to present much of a challenge to the male villain (be he evil aristocrat or domineering father) as he pursues them through dramatic landscapes and labyrinthine dwellings. Certainly there is no overt resistance to the patriarchal forces that oppress and control these women’s lives. However, the notion that the first wave of Female Gothic merely serves up a regurgitation of the dominant discourse has been challenged by feminist readings over the past forty years. These critics argue that the representation of the heroine in such novels was a response to the cultural anxieties of the time. Wallace and Smith claim that Female Gothic was “a politically subversive genre articulating women’s dissatisfactions with patriarchal structures.” (Wallace & Smith, 2009, p 2). This perspective insists upon the radical nature of Gothic, however more recently it has been argued that Gothic does indeed reinforce a conservative bourgeois ideology. This essay will examine three classic Gothic texts: Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance, Shelley’s Frankenstein and Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and explore the ways in which the Gothic heroine has been constructed and interpreted. Is she, indeed, victim or revolutionary?
Placing the Gothic Heroine construct within its historical context certainly helps to clarify our understanding. From the mid 18th century onwards there was a redefinition of the notion of female identity from fallen Eve to fledgling seraphim. The newly industrialised and urban landscape was perceived to be a hostile, unnatural environment and the bourgeois home, presided over by the new feminine ideal (the nurturing, gentle and virtuous ‘Angel of the Hearth’) was an antidote to the dirt and corruption of the outside world. However, as Kate Ferguson Ellis points out in her book The Contested Castle, by defining the home as a feminine space it became the only legitimate sphere for women. Wives had virtually no legal, social or economic rights and, as Ferguson Ellis states, “with the home increasingly viewed as a private place where people could do as they wished without interference, the middle class woman was not … safe from male anger.” (Ferguson Ellis, p 9) The bourgeois home of capitalist, industrial society was becoming like a gothic prison in the way it controlled and contained women.
Is it feasible then that the Female Gothic of an author such as Ann Radcliffe, with its explained supernatural and wholesome heroines, was able to “articulate women’s dissatisfactions with patriarchal structures”? (Wallace & Smith p2) Radcliffe is widely acknowledged as the primary architect of the Gothic novel plot. Julia, the protagonist of A Sicilian Romance, typifies the Radcliffian heroine in that she is young, innocent and possessed of a delicate, artistic temperament. She has,
“an extreme sensibility…to a reproof, however gentle, she would often weep…her imagination was ardent and her mind exhibited symptoms of genius.” (Radcliffe 2008 p 4)
Here Radcliffe draws upon the 18th century “Cult of Sensibility” where a deeply sensitive response to life and art, including tears, blushes and fainting, signifies what has been termed a “virtuous sympathy”. Indeed to modern eyes the sensibility of Radcliffe’s female protagonists can appear excessive. They may be accomplished lute players or highly skilled in capturing the likeness of a sublime mountainscape, but what good are such gifts if every crisis sees them collapsing in a paroxysm of terror onto the nearest chaise longue?
“Julia, who had hung weeping upon [the Marquis’] knees, fell prostrate upon the floor, the violence of the fall completed the effect of her distress, and she fainted.” (Radcliffe p 56)
Indeed Hoeveler argues that the female Gothic novelists have “…constructed themselves as victims in their own literature and that they have frequently depicted themselves as …passive-aggressive [and] masochistic…” (Hoeveler 1998 p4) and Syndey Cogan acknowledges that “submissiveness is a key personality trait of the persecuted Gothic maiden.” (Cogan/Fleenor p93). It seems that the only claim to efficacy such heroines can make is in their flight from wicked pursuers. Avril Horner, on the other hand, rejects the assertion that Radcliffe’s heroines are passive and ineffectual. She argues that the very act of escape from powerful patriarchs in these novels “indicates a desire [on the part of the author] to subvert a domestic ideology which was beginning to tyrannise the lives of middle class women.” (Horner/Mulvey-Roberts p181).
This notion of subversion is explored further by Ferguson Ellis. Radcliffe, she argues, might utilise the Romance genre with its emphasis on virtue, but her female protagonists use both reason and initiative when confronted with obstacles. Julia, fleeing from an enforced marriage with the odious Duke Luovo, relates an example of such pragmatism,
“About a quarter of a league from the walls we stopped and I assumed the habit in which you now see me. My own dress was fastened to some heavy stones and [thrown] into the stream…My mind was so occupied by the danger I was avoiding that… lesser evils were disregarded.” (Radcliffe p108)
This subtle form of resistance enables the heroines to “expand the domain of virtue while seeming not to insist that the whole social order must be modified to accommodate it.” (Ferguson Ellis. P100) In short they bring about change whilst not posing an overt threat to the system. Julia chooses flight, not once, but several times within the course of the narrative; from castle, to monastery, to cave and back again escaping from a series of threatening father figures. Ferguson Ellis maintains that escaping from the evil patriarch is a defining moment for the Radcliffian heroine. It illustrates a morality that takes precedence over obedience to one’s father or patriarch. “Fly…from the authority of a father who abuses his power, and assert the liberty of choice, which nature assigned you,” (Radcliffe. P61) urges her noble beloved, Hippolitus; a decidedly progressive attitude. Ferguson Ellis, furthermore, draws attention to the subplot of the novel. Here Julia’s mother, Louisa, fails to act in just such a moment of crisis. Louisa does not reveal her feelings to her true love. Failure to act leads to separation, grief and misery. As Ferguson Ellis states “Radcliffe shows passivity to be a greater contribution to female unhappiness than an excess of initiative.” (F-Ellis p105)
However an alternative reading is given by Hoevlar. She sees the Gothic Heroine as essentially paradoxical; a virtuous innocent who constructs herself as “professional victim” and is obsessed by “parricide, matricide, incest and fantasies of multiple rape.” (Hoeveler p58) She insists that a straight reading of their exploits becomes virtually impossible without provoking the desire “to dismiss them or ridicule their absurdities.” (Hoeveler p58). Julia, she observes, is,
“an early embodiment of the bourgeois ideology. She is “good”, that is, professionally feminine and victimised; self effacing, obedient, loving, passive, silent and long-suffering.” (Hoeveler p60)
The irony, according to Hoeveler, is that by the end of the novel Julia comes to see how such behaviour is rewarded. Julia’s good and virtuous mother has been incarcerated, by her wicked husband, in the castle dungeons, for fifteen long years. Nevertheless, far from being an active and resourceful agent of her own deliverance, Julia is so desperate to aspire to moral perfection and to preserve her “reputation” that she is repeatedly frozen into a state of psychological stasis,
“She would escape the dreadful destiny awaiting her, but must, perhaps, sully the purity of that reputation, which was dearer to her than existence. In a mind like hers…this fear was able to counteract every other consideration and to keep her intentions in a state of painful suspense,” (Radcliffe. p 62)
Indeed it takes the constant urging of the two heroes, Hippolitus and Ferdinand, to convince Julia that she has the right to decide “a choice which involves the happiness or misery of your whole life.” (Radcliffe. p63) And this male approbation appears to be a confirmation of the new cultural ideology - liberal and anti-aristocratic, rather than a clear assertion of female autonomy. Hoeveler goes on to point out that Radcliffian Gothic texts set up an opposition between heroine and anti-heroine splitting female identity into the whore/virgin dichotomy. Anti-heroines possess all those traits reviled in women by the prevailing bourgeois ideology. They are sexually passionate, adulterous, ambitious and assertive. The evil stepmother in Sicilian, Maria de Vellomo, is a “woman of infinite art, devoted to pleasure and of an unconquerable spirit.” (Radcliffe p3) Jealous, fickle, licentious, her fate is sealed. By the end of the novel such women must be destroyed. Only she who is passive and virtuous may assume the crown of the true gothic heroine.
In her novel Frankenstein, where she combined Radcliffian Female Gothic with Lewisite Male Gothic, Mary Shelley goes some way towards revising the notion of the Gothic Heroine. Her main protagonists are all transgressive males and her female characters are almost all versions of the feminine ideal. Ferguson Ellis argues that Frankenstein is a critique of domestic affection in the bourgeois family. Middle class ideology demanded the separation of space, role and function into male and female spheres, to ensure the sanctity of family life. What in fact it created, she claims, were divided selves; experienced males who, tainted by the outside world, became alienated from domestic affection, and females who, denied knowledge of the world, were incarcerated in a space of infantile and trifling occupations, where they were theoretically, but not actually, safe from male aggression.
Elizabeth Lavenza, a direct descendent of the Radcliffian heroine, is the embodiment of the ‘Angel of the Hearth’. Indeed Victor describes her in clearly angelic terms,
“The saintly soul of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home. Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of her celestial eyes…” (Shelley. p82)
The only distinction between Elizabeth and Julia is that the former is wholly subservient to bourgeois patriarchy. Her life’s purpose is to anticipate and minister to the needs of the male members of the Frankenstein family. Victor admits he can be “rough” and “sullen”, and that his “temper is sometimes violent,” but Elizabeth is there “to subdue [him] to a semblance of her own gentleness.” (Shelley. p83) As children they are educated together but Elizabeth’s interest is suitably aesthetic and tasteful “the aerial creations of the poets…the sublime shapes of the mountains…the magnificent appearance of things.” (Shelley p81) Nothing about Elizabeth’s upbringing prepares her for a life outside the home. There is no sense of autonomy, ambition or self-sufficiency about her role. Indeed Mary Shelley makes it quite clear that Elizabeth’s function is to serve the needs of others, whilst remaining dependent on the bourgeois family structure which contains her,
“She…strove to act as comforter to us all…she devoted herself to those…she called uncle and cousins.” (p 88)
But this dichotomy of roles, this separation of spheres harms both the female and male. As Ferguson Ellis argues,
“Since women are cut off from any active engagement in life, men are deprived of a real companion. Women’s supposed perfection only deepens the male protagonist’s guilt and intensifies his isolation.” (F-Ellis p 196)
Elizabeth remains imprisoned within the family, but Victor is cast out from it. This leads to a monstrous resentment which, in the novel, becomes literally murderous,
“I considered the being…in the light of my own vampire…let loose from the grave and forced to destroy all that was dear to me.” (Shelley. p120)
Elizabeth “the purest creature on earth” (p235) is not merely unprotected from male aggression, she is destroyed by it.
Shelley appears to be arguing for a redefined notion of domestic affection which can only be achieved by a democratisation of gender roles. She outlines this alternative through the De Lacey family and in particular the character of Safie. The De Laceys may present an idealistic vision of family life, “I looked upon them as superior beings,” (p 156), but at least it is a radical idealisation, where role distinctions are minimal – brother and sister work and learn side by side. Yet it is Safie who represents something truly revolutionary in the development of the gothic heroine. She is the daughter of a Christian woman who had been seized and enslaved by Turks and who “born in freedom, spurned the bondage to which she was now reduced.” (p165) Safie’s mother brings up her daughter to be independent, spirited and educated. Safie resolutely refuses to be “immured within the walls of a harem” (p166) She determines to stay in a country “where women are allowed to take rank in society.” (p166.) Safie’s behaviour contrasts sharply with that of Elizabeth. She resists her father’s tyrannical dictates to abandon Felix, indeed she is “outraged” by them. Nor does she wait passively to be rescued by her lover, rather she “resolves in her own mind the plan…” (p168) discovers where Felix has gone, packs jewels and money, and departs for Germany, with only a maid for company. Ferguson Ellis argues that the character of Safie, in actively rebelling against the most patriarchal of cultures, Islam, “holds out a vision of domestic affection that is not endangered by knowledge of evil in the world,” (F-Ellis p203) and thus becomes symbolic of a truly egalitarian family. However, it still raises the question: Why did Mary Shelly choose an outsider, a Moslem Turk, to represent such qualities? Surely it is unthinkable that Elizabeth Lavenza or indeed any of the European women depicted in the novel, could act in the way Saffie acts. Did her status as the exotic ‘other’ “raven black hair” and “dark eyes” create enough distance to enable such a radical representation, or was the stark contrast an ironic ploy on Shelley’s part to illuminate the all-pervasive nature of Western bourgeois patriarchy?
By the time the Brontes were writing their novels (an innovative blend of Gothic and Realism) the first wave of Gothic was at an end. Yet, in Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte returns to the central issue of the Female Gothic: how patriarchy and issues of power affect the lives of women. Bronte presents us with a heroine who struggles to wrest control of interior spaces from patriarchal authority. However, unlike the Radcliffian heroine, Catherine Earnshaw is spirited, wilful and disobedient. Indeed Syndey McMillan Conger argues that Bronte, dissatisfied with “contemporary fictional definitions of femininity and feminine happiness” (Conger/Fleenor p92) set out to construct a completely new kind of Gothic heroine.
Catherine Earnshaw could be viewed as the antithesis of the Victorian Ideal. Not only is this rebel heroine full of imperfections: proud, angry, domineering and egotistical, but she is psychologically complex, articulate and analytical, possessing the kind of multifaceted interiority never before seen in the Gothic female. This is illustrated by oppositional qualities within Catherine’s character. In childhood she is described by Nelly Dean as having “the bonniest eye and the sweetest smile,” (Bronte. p83), yet also as “a wild, wick slip… never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once and she defying us with her bold, saucy look.” (p 83). As a young woman she is “haughty and headstrong” (p 106) with a “fiery temper” (p 128), and yet “had a wondrous constancy to old attachments.” (p 106.) Moreover Catherine is active and assertive with traits that might be termed as masculine. She can “ride any horse in the stable” (p77), prefers the outside world where she is free to “ramble at liberty” (p88) and is determined to grow up “rude as [a] savage.” (p87). She speaks her mind freely, whether for good or bad; at the Christmas party she berates young Linton for teasing Heathcliff, “He’ll be flogged – I hate him to be flogged! I can’t eat my dinner. Why did you speak to him, Edgar?” (p99) Yet she is also capable of spite, as when she criticises Heathcliff for his ignorance “You might be dumb, or a baby, for anything you say to amuse me.” (p110) Catherine is prey to contradictory impulses, can be both kind and unkind, expresses herself freely, but is also able to reflect on the consequences of her thoughts and actions. Syndey Conger shows how, Cathy’s “character gains breadth and depth and credibility as she shares not only surface responses…but sentiments from the dark…corners of her mind.” (Conger/Fleenor p101) She explores and analyses her own motivation and behaviour, “Nelly, I see now you think me a selfish wretch…” (Bronte. P122) “I want to cheat my uncomfortable conscience…” (P121) In numerous ways Catherine is like one of Radcliffe’s femme fatales, yet Bronte refuses to carve up the feminine psyche into pure and impure; angelic and demonic, rather she embodies these qualities within one integrated nature.
Most notably Catherine internalises that classic Gothic predicament; the positioning of the heroine between the “dark seducer” and the “fair lover.” Conger notes that early Gothic heroines “never felt – or admitted they felt – a pull in two directions. Catherine is the first important exception to this pattern…” (Conger/Fleenor p100). Catherine’s sense of being rent apart by her lovers is both culturally and psychologically convincing. It illuminates and explores her socio-economic needs and, moreover, brings a greater complexity and scope to the character. Such complexity is expressed in Catherine’s doubleness. This is represented in several ways; for example, the notion of Heathcliff as Cathy’s alternate self; which supplies the lack created by the experience of growing up female and powerless in a patriarchal culture. “Nelly I am Heathcliff!”(Bronte. P 122). As Gilbert and Gubar state, together they become “a perfect androgyne” (Gilbert & Gubar p265) existing in their own revisionary version of Eden.
However after Cathy’s fall from the wild heaven of Wuthering Heights to the civilised hell of Thrushcross Grange and contamination with the disease of Ladyhood, she must adopt a different kind of double character; that is the masquerade of the passive-aggressive gothic heroine, torn between “her own nature and her own best socio-economic interests.” (Hoeveler p193 ). This is brought to a head, when, like any practical middle class woman, Cathy marries for money not love. She recognises all too clearly that “if Heathcliff and I married we should be beggars.” (Bronte. p122). Afterall, however desirable it might be to roam the moors freely with her soul-mate and equal Heathcliff, in society a lack of status can be as deadly as brain fever.
Perhaps the most telling example of Catherine’s doubleness is her manifestation as a ghost at the beginning of the tale. Here Bronte utilises all the conventions of Gothic horror: the stormy winter’s night, the eerie tapping at the casement, the “little, ice-cold hand”, the ghostly lamentations. Conger draws a distinction between the early heroines who, though terrorised by the supernatural, are never part of it and the anti-heroines who positively embrace the demonic. From the very start Catherine is allied with dark, uncanny powers and during the ‘madness scene’ with Nelly, Cathy comes to recognise herself as the ‘ghost’ in the mirror, “Myself!” she gasped, “and the clock is striking twelve. It’s true then, that’s dreadful!” (Bronte. P161) Conger points out that Bronte allows Catherine “the most sombre insight a Gothic character can have…that the demonic springs from her own imagination…the dark side of her soul.” (Conger/Fleenor p102.) Such recognition, that evil is not superstition but exists as part of the human psyche, is central to the Gothic experience, and thus renders Bronte’s depiction of the Gothic heroine (complex, integrated and credible as any Gothic hero) truly groundbreaking.
Arguably the representation of early Gothic Heroines is formulaic and limited, based on the convention that their job is to be terrorised and nothing more. However feminist criticism has shown how such literary constructs were used to question and subvert the prevailing ideology by expressing resistance to patriarchal figures and institutions. Moreover from the 18th to the 19th centuries there was an undeniable development in the psychological and emotional complexity of the Gothic Heroine, portraying her as a fully realised, integrated character; passionate, intelligent, ambitious and flawed, whose limitations were imposed not by nature but by the inequalities of patriarchal culture.
Bibliography
Bronte, Emily. (1978). Wuthering Heights, ed. David Daiche. Harmondsworth. Penguin.
Ellis, Markman. (2000). The History of Gothic Fiction. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh.
Ferguson Ellis, Kate. (1989). The Contested Castle. University of Illinois Press. Chicago.
Fleenor, J.E. (1983). Female Gothic: (Syndey Cogan – Reconstruction of the Gothic Feminine Ideal). Eden Press. Montreal.
Gilbert, S. & Gubar, S. (1984) The Madwoman in the Attic. Yale University Press. New Haven.
Hoeveler, Diane. (1998) Gothic Feminism. Pennsylvania State University Press. Pennsylvania.
Moers, Ellen. (1976) Literary Women. Doubleday and Co. new York.
Mulvey-Roberts, Marie. (2009). The Handbook of the Gothic. (Avril Horner: Heroine). Palgrave MacMillan. Hampshire.
Radcliffe, Ann. (2008). A Sicilian Romance. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford.
Shelley, Mary. (1986). Frankenstein. Penguin. Harmondsworth.
Wallace, D. & Smith, A. (2009). The Female Gothic: New Directions. Palgrave MacMillan. Hampshire.