Sample Student Research Project 2018: Essay
LITR
4328 American Renaissance / Model Assignments
Sample Student Research Project 2018:
Essay
Breanna Runnels
12/2/18
Role of Women in Gothic Literature
Within gothic literature there are often
only two kinds of women represented: the predator and the victim. There is the
powerful and attractive woman that brings the pleasure and pain that is needed
for the gothic ideals and the frail and vulnerable one that allows the heroes to
have something to rescue. (Clamp) The often-forgotten woman in the gothic pieces
are the ones behind them. Women authors in gothic literature bring a different
perspective to the male-dominated genre and allow for different character
developments to occur.
In order to discuss the effects of women
within and writing gothic literature, we must understand what makes a literature
piece gothic. The gothic is a genre or style of literature that appears
throughout Western literary history and of often called horror, terror, or
thriller. It is often defined by many symbols that are symbolic in horror movies
even today. Things like mazes, light and dark, blood, and death and decay are
often present in gothic pieces and their characters. The biggest symbols that
this paper will focus on are ones that are centralized around women. While men
have the Byronic hero, like Brad Pitt vs. Dracula (thanks for the example, Dr.
White), the types of women met are the fair lady and the dark lady. This symbol
is quite similar to the light versus dark that is often used for nature, but
instead is used to symbolize the physical characteristics and personality of
these two different women. This archetype is potentially racist as fair can be
assumed to mean lighter skin brings a more beautiful lady. But the meaning of
fair wasn’t always blurry as it is a cognate of Old Saxon
fagar, meaning beautiful pretty, or
peaceful. Fair could also refer to the weather or even a sound and had no
particular relation to complexion (Domonoske). It is always good to be cautious
with these things when analyzing critical pieces of literature. The fair
lady/dark lady can also have a spiritual connection with the fair lady appearing
as angelic and the dark lady possibly appearing as a temptress.
To first discuss the role of women
within the actual stories, I’d like to bring up the most famous stories
involving the fair and dark woman characters.
Ligeia by Edgar Allan Poe brings to
subject the emotional tolls that are brought on by each different kind of woman.
The two women mentioned in this story have deep roots in their roles as fair and
dark lady and have the actions that back each role of their gothic ideals.
Ligeia was Poe’s portrayal of the dark woman who is the dream of every man. She
was “tall, somewhat slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I
would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor,
or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall. She came and
departed as a shadow.” This short description shows a few pieces of vital
information for the dark woman that is constantly seen throughout the gothic.
When Poe speaks of Ligeia, his words are often dark and in awe of the magical
being that she is to him but still bring to light the differentness and darkness
of her character. She is also very intelligent, another thing that brings a
fearful emotion to men when reading these stories. Stovall states, “He finds,
too, in the “immense” learning of Ligeia a true complement to her great beauty…
Thus she appeals to Poe’s scientific mind as well as to his aesthetic sense. To
these attributes, beauty and intellectuality, he needs only to add supreme love
in order to make his heroine the incarnation of feminine perfection.”
Ligeia is used adjacent to Rowena. His use of these two
opposing characters is the perfect example of the majority of women that are
found through Renaissance gothic literature. Rowena is Poe’s example of the fair
lady who is described as “fair-haired and blue-eyed” – the polar opposite of the
dark Ligeia. We often see Rowena only in comparison of Ligeia as she was the one
that he truly wanted, and he says “I
loathed her [Rowena] with a hatred belonging more to demon than to man. My
memory flew back, (oh, with what intensity of regret!) to Ligeia, the beloved,
the august, the beautiful, the entombed.” Though Poe was on drugs during
most of the writings and the visions in
Ligeia, it is still present that
the characters of Ligeia and Rowena would have had a much smaller impact on the
life of Poe if they were just average female characters.
The other type of woman that is often
forgotten because it is so commonly satirized is the “nagging woman” stereotype.
We get a little bit of this through Rowena in
Ligeia,
but not too much as she dies rather quickly. It is often forgotten to even
divide this woman from any other as it is seen as the common character for many
of the women in literature. In gothic literature, we can often see this woman as
the reason that a journey into nature was completed or why a man ventures away
from home. Women in this stereotype are often described as witches or something
scary to bring terror to their characters and show the reader the personality of
the woman that the man is in a relationship with, usually his wife. In
Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle,
when Rip is headed back home from the village after the sun had set, he thinks
to what he will face when he gets home. When “he saw that it would be dark long
before he could reach the village, (and) he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought
of encountering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle”. Her personality made him fear
coming home and facing her after he does something that she wouldn’t approve of.
This fear is a common characteristic of women when in the perspective of a man.
During the Romantic era, the ability to bear children was considered woman’s
foundational contribution to society, so anything outside of this action brought
fear to men and those around them. (McLeod)
In relevance to fear of women’s power,
it is almost impossible to speak about the role of women in gothic literature
without speaking of the intelligent women that wrote a large number of gothic
pieces. The romantic period encouraged individuals to explore their own personal
world of emotion and express these feelings through writing, art, or music.
Though women were not educated to be experts in a field, they did know about
their emotions and were able to reflect on the world through their feelings.
Some women followed a social code and stayed within the domestic sphere when
writing, but others deviated from the social code to give a very authoritative
and masculine voice. This was not received well by the public, as it was not
right for a woman to be in a man’s position. (Powell) The women that stepped out
of their obligatory comfort zone became the writers that we know as “classic
authors” today. One of these authors we covered in our class was Emily
Dickinson.
Emily Dickinson was a very private woman
who spent most of her childhood and youth schooling, reading, explorations of
nature, religious activities, significant friendships, and several key
encounters with poetry. She used her late 20s and early 30s mostly to write, but
never truthfully attempted to publish her work as most of her poetry remained
unpublished until after she died on May 15, 1886. Her writings are commonly
placed in the gothic genre as they generally refer to things like death,
darkness, and other things of mysterious nature. Dickinson is such a well known
poet and author of the romantic period due to her gender in combination with the
type of genre she wrote for. It is not often that women embrace death and
darkness so easily and gracefully to write poems to only keep them to themselves
after death, as Emily did. We also do not often get the women’s viewpoint on
dark subjects as these, and it is easy to distinguish the differences between a
poem between a man or woman.
The gothic poem of Dickinson’s that we
covered was “I felt a funeral in my brain”, a truthfully dark and question
bringing piece. This poem has many different gothic symbols throughout; almost
every line has a feeling of darkness or eeriness. What is different between the
writings of Dickinson and maybe Poe, her poems do not often use the fair
lady/dark lady symbol or any of the Byronic hero. Her writings seem to focus on
her surroundings rather than creating stock characters and use them for one
purpose. She brings purpose to objects around her and brings them to life her
own way, rather than following a pattern. She has used her identity as a woman
to stand out from others and make her own type of gothic, rather than following
the set path that the previous male authors had laid out for her. Her poem uses
great bouts of gothic symbols to describe the things that the narrator is
feeling in her own mind. Many have analyzed this poem to be about depression and
anxiety disorders, which were not often recognized or spoken of at this time.
She opened a door for other women and authors in general to speak about things
happening in their own mind openly and without fear of being ridiculed.
Emily Dickinson’s works are still taught
today, at the same level as the men of the time. There are no distinguishing
factors between men’s and women’s writings today, as one being inferior to the
other and it took the work of many women for this time to finally come about.
Another great gothic, female author is Mary Shelley. Though we did not discuss
her in this course, it is almost impossible to speak of women and the gothic and
not mention the woman who has made a horror symbol that has withstood the ages.
The famous Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
is a classic novel that is not only written by a woman but also has a main
protagonist, Elizabeth, that is curious and headstrong. According to Haddad the
female character is, “usually for the sake of teaching a male character a lesson
or sparking an emotion within him.” In many other gothic novels by women, we
usually see strong and fearless characters, but it seems that Shelley digresses
the power of a woman and leaves them to be the playthings of men. Again, Haddad
says, “Elizabeth has become another inert victim in this game of insanity and
male-centered mayhem. She has been demeaned and reduced to a simple tool of
revenge, along with the other female characters appearing in Frankenstein”
(Haddad). So, though this is one of the best gothic novels in general, that also
happens to be written as a woman, many may attribute its success to the fact
that Shelley used her characters in their stock roles and did not push too hard
for the adversity and diversity of the main female character.
Though in today’s classrooms, the
writings of males and females are often lumped together in a general genre it is
important to realize the distinct differences in perspective and voice between
the works of a male and female. The symbols used, characters, and personalities
featured in these different writings allow for readers to pinpoint direct
differences between the different styles as well.
The role of women is important in almost
every genre of writing, as they play a main part in the storyline and
progression of the male characters they are placed next to. The difference in
other genres and genres of the romantic period (specifically gothic) is that
women were finally able to express their own thoughts and opinions and introduce
their own female characters from the minds of actual women, rather than what men
thought women should be like. The fair lady and dark lady characters play a main
role in the vast majority of gothic writings as their symbolism and role in the
hero’s life is necessary for the development of the story that is trying to be
told. The role of these women is vital within the stories of the gothic era, as
many stories like The Raven,
Ligeia, and
The Last of the Mohicans, would not
survive or even be thought of without the role of women within them. An even
bigger role that the women of this era played is the actual creation of gothic
writings like Frankenstein, The Snow
Child, and I felt a funeral in my
brain. Without these brave women to create these writings we would have
never been introduced to the witty Elizabeth that many schools even today still
analyze and use as a strong female character. It is hard to imagine what gothic
literature would be like without the role of women within the works and behind
the works, but it is glorious thing that we don’t have to imagine it.
Works Cited
Clamp, Rachel. “The Significance of Female Identity
Within Gothic Literature.” Owlcation.
(February 27, 2018)
https://owlcation.com/humanities/femaleidentity
Domonoske, Camila. “Mirror, Mirror: Does ‘Fairest’ Mean
Most Beautiful or Most White?” National
Public Radio. (May 18, 2014)
https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/05/16/313154674/mirror-mirror-does-fairest-mean-most-beautiful-or-most-white
Haddad, Stephanie S. "Women as the Submissive Sex in Mary
Shelley's 'Frankenstein'." Inquiries Journal/Student Pulse 2.01 (2010). http://www.inquiriesjournal.com/a?id=139
Mcleod, Julia. “A
Woman’s Power: Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Romantic Era.” Romantic
Politics- University of Tennessee Dept. of English.
http://web.utk.edu/~gerard/romanticpolitics/womanspower.html
Powell, Kat. “Women’s Writing.”
Romantic Politics- University of
Tennessee Dept. of English.
http://web.utk.edu/~gerard/romanticpolitics/womenwriters.html
Stovall, Floyd. “THE WOMEN OF
POE'S POEMS AND TALES.” Studies in English, no. 5, 1925, pp. 197–209. www.jstor.org/stable/20779365.
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