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Cassandra Waggett
Variations of the Gothic: Exploring Morality, Gender and Grief
Gothic elements have both popular and classic appeal. While they provide
entertaining horror and suspense, the gothic can also be adapted to serious
moral and spiritual issues. Originally inspired by religious prototypes, the
gothic is a way of externalizing internal conflicts so that they can be explored
and is inherently psychological. Hawthorne, Davis and Poe adapt the gothic to
explore issues of morality, gender and grief.
In
Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorne uses
the gothic to depict a struggle with suspicion and hypocrisy. The narrative
details Goodman Brown’s loss of Faith, who is set apart from the gothic color
scheme by her pink ribbons (Hawthorne 4). Even after the trial in the woods is
over and Goodman Brown returns home to find his wife, he has lost his figurative
faith in god, in himself, and most importantly, in the potential for good in his
fellow human beings. Hawthorne turns the most “grave, reputable and pious
people” of the town into demonic worshippers who stood alongside “wretches given
all over to all mean and filthy vice” and says that “It was strange to see that
the good shrank not from the wicked” (Hawthorne 56). This transformation
satirizes the pretensions of the Puritan elect and of everyone who professes to
be wholly virtuous and looks down on others. Although this gothic transformation
from the best to the worst is extreme, it points out that everyone has inner
demons and the potential to commit sin. Beyond providing fantastical spectacle,
the campfire is an equalizing event where sin has an equal claim all, regardless
of class, gender, or place in society.
After
attending the campfire, Goodman Brown becomes “a stern, sad, darkly meditative,
distrustful” man fixated on the potential for evil in the human soul and blind
to earthly good (Hawthorne 72). This is the extreme moralistic inverse of the
elect’s claim to absolute virtue, and this in turn is mocked. Goodman Brown’s
rumination on mortality and morality proves to be a waste of an otherwise
fortune life (Hawthorne 72). Hawthorne seems to imply that people should be
humble and accept that humankind has the potential for both good and evil
without obsessing over it or oversimplifying it.
Davis
does just that in Life in the Iron Mills
while adapting the gothic to industrialization. Kirby, the owner of the mill, is
told that his works looks “like Dante’s Inferno”, and its “engines sob and
shriek like “gods in pain”’ (Davis 65, 41). Industrialization has created an
indoor hell in which poor laborers perpetually toil like tormented souls. In
contrast, the romantic, natural landscape of the Quaker settlement is a
spiritual paradise (Davis 289). Rather than moralizing poverty and making the
workers themselves demonic and wicked, as is commonly done in early tragic
works, Davis depicts the workers as the victims of the industrial system. She
also refrains from wholly villainizing the wealthy, instead attributing poverty
and misery to a systemic problem. The Doctor asks ‘“Who is responsible?”’, and
there is no definite answer (Davis 131). What is established is that one
person’s charity and one person’s salvation will not eliminate the problem. The
Doctor tells Hugh “Why
should one be raised, when myriads are left?—I have not the money, boy," (Davis
151). While this is a cop-out on his part, there is truth to it. Davis asserts
that responsibility for social problems cannot be assigned to any one person or
even any one class. She uses the gothic style to compare the suffering brought
about by poverty and industrialization to spiritual torment; however, she does
not give her Hell a definitive ruler.
Davis
also uses the gothic style to explore gender and self-image. Deb assumes the
gothic role of the “witch dwarf” (Davis 192), a Faustian figure. This is her
personal choice to expand upon her disfigurement, of which she is constantly
conscious. Despite her “passionate love” for Hugh, or rather because of it, Deb
sets aside her own desires to be with him and relegates herself to a mystical
servant (Davis 55). She tells Hugh “Wud hur take me out o' this place wid hur
and Janey? I wud not come into the gran' house hur wud build, to vex hur wid t'
hunch,—only at night, when t' shadows were dark, stand far off to see hur" (Davis
192). Deb acknowledges that in this scenario Janey would live in the house with
Hugh, presumably as his wife, and she herself would be merely a gothic specter.
Deb’s love for Hugh drives her to embrace a gothic identity that empowers her to
remain a part of his life. Deb transforms an attribute that would label her
grotesque into a power more becoming of a dark lady figure, a rival in some
respects to the fair Janey.
Deb’s
selfless dedication to Hugh gives her the strength to endure the gothic
“clicking” sounds of his suicide in silence (Davis 273). Recognizing Hugh’s
“passion for whatever was beautiful and pure,” Deb does not attempt to prevent
his death by speaking out (Davis 56). Because Hugh’s death is transcendent, he
stands to lose nothing from it while gaining peace. In contrast, Deb’s decision
to abstain from preventing it is an assumption of great grief and pain. Her
silence is, in every way, evidence of her strength of will rather than gendered
submission to his will. Davis’ tale does not begin and conclude with Hugh, but
with Deb, who is empowered by every instance of the gothic.
Poe also uses the gothic to explore grief in his poem “The Raven”. The
raven, “Perched upon a bust of Pallas”, is symbolic of the speaker’s grief for
“the lost Lenore” (Poe 7.5, 2.4). Pallas is the Roman goddess of wisdom and is
also associated with reason. In perching on the bust, the raven signifies that
grief overrules reason. Practically and biologically speaking, grief is not a
productive emotion, in fact, it cripples the mind, making survival less likely.
However, in spite of all reason it persists. This is precisely what Poe
demonstrates when the speaker says “And my soul from out
that shadow that lies floating on the floor / Shall be lifted—nevermore!” (Poe
18.5-6). Poe uses the shadow, a gothic image and an extension of the raven, a
gothic creature, as a metaphor for the weight of grief. The speaker will always
remain in the shadow of grief, which never fades.
The prevalence of gothic themes and figures in popular culture evidences
that the gothic style is entertaining. While the gothic can easily become cliché
or pure spectacle, its adaptability lends it classic value. The gothic style
allows an author to create a metaphorical world that projects the inner turmoil
of the human mind and has endless potential for psychological and spiritual
exploration.
