Sample Student Research Project, fall 2004
LITR
4232: American Renaissance
Sample Student Research Project, fall 2004
Bryan Peterson
November 16, 2004
The Psychological Gothic
The Monstrous Creation:
Stories that contain “Gothic” elements unexplainably seem to become lasting element in our society. So much so that the Gothic has taken on a life of its own and expanding beyond its boundaries of a purely literary tool. So that we now have gothic stories such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or Bram Stocker’s Dracula, being made into Blockbuster movies. If not the story themselves, the elements that the stories use (such as the union of light and dark for example) have even been borrowed to make other movies, from sci-fi romances like “Star Wars” to scary horror flicks like “Jason”. In many ways the Gothic literary movement is much like Frankenstein’s monster. It has taken on a life of its own, and it chooses where it wants to go, even if that is beyond a purely literary use. Consider the subculture know as the Goth’s, with there characteristic dark eye liner, contrasting with the whites of there eyes, and there dark cloths against there pale skin. Unknowingly, these youth, who are trying to be a part of some new cultural movement, are really practicing techniques that have been explored in Literature for almost two hundred years. The reason for this is that the Gothic is a strongly psychologically driven literary movement. All of the many themes associated with the Gothic, relate to us on a psychological level, which is why it is so easy to reflect these things onto other aspects of our existence, like our fashion and our movies. More importantly, however, no gothic element that exists today in our mainstream lives, is untouched by the Gothic literary movement that preceded it. It is with a study of this literary movement, know as the “Gothic,” that can reveal much about our culture. Which brings us to the purpose of this journal; that being, to introduce a number of themes associated with the Gothic and show how they relate to us on a psychological level.
Architecture of the Mind:
It is important to realize that the Gothic began as an Architecture style long before it was ever a literary form. It wasn’t until this architecture was no longer created, and only the remnants of its existence, the old relics of castles and cathedrals remained, did people start trying to attempt to replicate the emotion that it creates in a literary form. A man by the name of Horace Walpole seems to be the first man who associated the term “Gothic” with this attempt. With his book “Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story” he affectively kicked started the romantic movement by inspiring authors such as Byron, Keats, Hugo, and Chateaubriand (xi) as well as created the gothic movement by generating a number of authors who would mimic his work. But Horace Walpole had his inspiration as well, which was the gothic architecture and other romantic art in general. What he saw in this art was something that aroused strangeness, wonder, and surprise, and he used his castle, with its towers, cloisters, trapdoors and underground vaults, to evoke such emotions in his book. Soon, other similar architectural devices such as labyrinths, prisons and monasteries, would be added to this list, as other authors would imitate his work.
It is the architectural space that is fundamental to the gothic emotion, because it creates a correspondence between the environment of the book and the mind set of the hero. So that, when the narrator is describing the architecture he is also describing the emotion or mind set of the hero, and vise versa, at which point the environment and the hero become indistinguishable. In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story William Wilson the hero is recalling what it was like to walk through one of his school houses where he lived.
How quant an old building was this!—to me how variably a place of enchantment!— There was really no end to its winding—to its incomprehensible subdivisions. It was difficult at any given time, to say with certainty upon which of its two stories one happened to be on… our most exact ideas regard to the whole mansion were not very far different from those host which we pondered upon infinity. (158)
The strangeness of this passage is with out a doubt apparent. The structure of the building is described almost in terms of the impossible, sounding more like an optical illusion drawing by Escher, than a real house one could live in. There are two possibilities why the narrator describes his living quarters the way he does. The first is that the impression of the building with its “enchantment” and its “old” qualities has left such an impression on his imagination that it causes him to describe it in such terms. Or a second possibility could be that the narrator’s current state of mind is in such a fluster or confusion, that the narrator is projecting this confusion onto his environment. The first possibility implies that his perspective of the environment caused his confusion, and the second possibility implies that his confusion caused his perspective of his environment. Either way it is impossible to distinguish what is the narrator’s recollection or his environment and what is his actual environment. This is typical of the Gothic’s ability to blur the line between external environment and internal thought.
Where Edgar Allan Poe in his story William Wilson used a “labyrinth” like structure to create an atmosphere of confusion, correspondence can also be used to create emotions of fear and dread, as well. For instance, in Washington Irving’s short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow the hero of the story Ichabod Crane is continually freighted by the things in his environment. One passage in particular, Ichabod had just finished reading a book, about witchcraft, until dark. Then on his way back Ichabod has some scary experiences:
Then, as he wended his way, by swamp and stream, and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination. (2097)
Although Ichabod crane has taken this path many times before, this time the path is described as, an “awful woodland.” Another interesting note is how refers to the time as the “witching hour,” immediately bringing to mind the book about witchcraft he had just previously read. To the reader, it is immediately clear that it is this book that was mentioned just before this passage that is the root of all his unnatural fears. This book causes his imagination, to turn every innocent “sound of nature” into such things as “moans,” “boding” cries, and “dreary” hootings. Later Ichabod Crane decides to sing hymns, “either to drown thought or drive away evil spirits.” (2097) If you notice the narrator does not distinguish between Ichabod’s “thoughts,” or actual “evil spirits.” This passage perfectly illustrates the Gothic’s ability to blur the two together, and make thought and the environment indistinguishable.
The transportation of the Gothic:
As mentioned before the Gothic once created, took on a life of its own.
It expanded expanding across Europe and it didn’t take long before it made its
way across the Pacific Ocean to the shores of America. In America however the
Gothic movement had to take on a new shape and form, separate from its European
counterpart. It was inevitable this would happen in one respect because it was
placed in a new environment, the more open landscape and untouched land of
America, rather than the more historical and developed European landscape. The
American gothic took on a new shape, where the gothic of European descent was
often placed in the "haunted house," in America the forest and other
such confining wilderness become the setting of the Gothic.
Consider
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving, who places the
setting of the story not in the “Haunted House” but in a different
constricting location. The haunting story is set in a "valley" known
as Sleep Hollow; it is not a "plane", or a "mountain side",
nor a "prairie" or any other form of open space. It is this
constricting nature of the valley that allows for it to be “haunted”.
Something must be confining to contain something such as a "witching
influence of the air," which this valley does (2095). You can see Irving
has replaced the "haunted house" with the haunted woods. Yet Irving
takes this haunting to even more constricting levels. As Ichabod crane moves
into the forest he comes across an “enormous tulip tree.” Interestingly this
tree works as a gothic element in two ways. First it works as a Gothic monster,
whose mere size and looks are so deviated from the norm that it evokes fear. It
is described as having limbs the size of trunks of “ordinary trees.” This
tree is anything but ordinary and the description of it, with its “gnarled”
and “twisted” limbs almost mimicking a labyrinth type structure, which
brings us to second way it works as a gothic element. Not only is it monstrous,
but like the “haunted house” it seems to be a harbinger of spirits. It was
associated with a “tragic story,” that of a man who supposedly faced a
tragic fate near the tree. Like that “haunted house” of Europe’s gothic,
this tree is looks strange and it is old, but even more important than being old
it has a history.
This is noticeable in the work of Irving as well as Cooper's book The
"Last of the Mohicans." As with Cooper, the characters in this story
travel into a forest. Yet, they will travel into an even more confining place,
the cave that is "forever a secret from all mortal man" (53). The fact
that Chingacook describes the cave as being "forever" a secret implies
some kind of history is present. To say that, men will come and go but the cave
will last forever-- or perhaps even more important, the cave has lasted forever.
In order for something to be haunted, it has to have a history and Cooper is
setting up the history of this cave early, before it is even inhabited by the
characters, and long before the exploration of its hidden passages and twisted
tunnels. With Irving’s use of a giant tree in side a valley and Cooper’s use
of a hidden cave inside a wilderness both authors are able to achieve a gothic
atmosphere through a new kind of landscape, separate from the "Haunted
Houses” of the European Gothic.
Not only has the gothic successfully been relocated to the wilderness, but Hermann Melville has been able to relocate it in a totally different place altogether. Just as the gothic made it across the Pacific to America, Melville took it back to the sea and made a new home for it their, on the ships that sail the ocean. Perhaps this is the most radical transformation the Gothic has ever encountered, and so also requires the most genius to effectively pull off. It appears in a very subtle form, almost imperceptible unless one knows what to look for. Consider the passage when Claggart accuses Billy Budd of mutiny: “Not at first did Billy take it in. When he did, the rose-tan of his cheek looked struck as by white leprosy. He stood like one impaled and gagged” (2692). The contrast of light and dark often associated with the Gothic is seen in Billy’s face, as his complexion changes from its “rose-tan” color to the white color of “leprosy.” Notice how Billy takes the form of death, as his color turns pale and he assumes a posture as of being “impaled.” It is as if Billy has already died. This is more than a reaction of shock due to a mere accusation. The Gothic color scheme of light and dark makes it much more bazaar. It is as if Billy can see into the future, and his reaction is really the reaction to the doom he knows he is to face, foreshadowing his inevitable death.
Yet in the same paragraph, we change perspectives from ounce looking at the accused to now looking at the accuser, mister Claggart. Now we see an all too different face, yet the Gothic element is still used to add to the strangeness: “Those lights of human intelligence, losing human expression, were gelidly protruding like the alien eyes of certain uncatalogued creatures of the deep” (2692). First we notice a change in his face much like we did in Billy’s but different; the “light of human intelligence” the only thing that associates him with humanity is fading. The next thing Melville does is use a reference to the “uncatalogued creatures” in the sea, to evoke an atmosphere of strangeness and that of the unknown. So that, what we have, is a man losing his humanity and fading into something that it strange. If mere “oddness” was a category that qualified something as Gothic, Melville would certainly be considered Gothic, hands down. But Melville is not Gothic purely because his writings are odd. It is Melville’s use of light and dark, in his new and exceptional way that evokes evoking mystery, making his work stand out as Gothic.
The Double:
The ‘double’ is literary element that seems to permeate most of the romantic literary movement and is not simply limited to the gothic. The double often divulges itself in many forms; it can reveal itself as two characters, which are often similar in appearance; other times the ‘double’ reveals itself as two states of minds or two ways of looking at something. A ‘double’ is usually two, seemingly opposing elements, but in reality the elements are interconnected – one being unable to exist without the other. For instance, in the Romantic poems Songs of Innocence and Experience, Blake illustrates the world through two seemingly opposing perspectives. Yet when reading either one (lets say the “Song of Innocence”) one requires a knowledge of the other (that of the “Songs of Experience”) to understand it appropriately. So instead of being two separate and contrary points of perspectives on life, they often over lap and at some points are even dependent upon the other. I only bring up this non-gothic use of the double in order to illustrate the vast array of possibilities that a double can present itself. It would do an injustice to suggest that the “double” is an element solely used to evoke fear; although it is very good at doing that as well.
Washington Irving’s short story “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” is one such story that uses the “double” to inflict fear. Actually to say there is only one “double” in this story would be an oversimplification. Immediately, there are two “doubles” that comes to ones mind. The first double would be Ichabod Crane and his “formidable rival” Brom Bones (2101). At first glance these two characters seem very different and should be considered as two opposite ends of the spectrum, however there relationship is not that simple. Each character depends on the other. Ichabod is for example the tree that “bends” but never breaks, but with out Brom Bones to “bend” his character, Ichabod would not be the same insecure character we grow to love. Like wise, Brom Bones is the tough, arrogant man who gains his confidence at the cost of Ichabod’s. In which case, Brom Bones is also dependent on Ichabod, as well, in order to maintain his character as the overbearing bully.
But these two seemingly opposite characters are not the only “double” in this story. The Other obvious pair is that of “Brom Bones” and the Headless Horseman. This double is much easier to comprehend and easier to elaborate on, because instead of being two characters that are opposites in many ways, these are in fact one in the same people. Irving first gives us a clue to this double when we first here of Ichabod’s rival and we first learn of his name, Brom Bones. It is interesting to pay attention to his name; his first and his last name are virtually the same, which is a reference to the double aspect of his character. However possibly coincidental, it is still interesting to point out that even the title “Headless Horseman” has a similar quality to it names. The next clue to this “double” is when the narrator describes Brom Bones as a “dexterous” and skilled house man (2100). At the end of the story, the narrator pretty much tells us that “Brom Bones” is responsible for the incident, because everyone suspected that “he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell,” yet this is not a let down for the read (2111). In this story the reader is expected suspend his disbelief and enter the realm of imagination that Ichabod lives in. If it would not be for the use of the “double,” the reader would not have been able to go on this emotion rollercoaster, along with Ichabod.
The “Uncanny”:
The emotion that one receives when reading literature such as “The Legend of Sleep Hollow” with the use of the Double goes beyond simple definitions of fear or even strangeness. Sigmund Freud believed this odd emotion that the double often evokes stems from some kind of repressed thought, thus it is an emotion far different than that of fear and deserves a name of its own, which is the “Uncanny.” In Freud essay, appropriately titled “The ‘Uncanny’,” he fully elaborates on this emotion that the double can evoke.
Freud associates the experience of the double to the ego’s evolutionary development. Freud’s ideals are based on the ideal that, from mans evolutionary beginnings, the ego has developed in man slowly over historical time and through this evolution the ego at one point has developed the ‘double’ in many forms to protect itself from dieing off. It is interesting to note that point that his essay was written before he solidified his theories on the three layers of conscious, thus one can see the importance that the “double” had on his understanding of these things. Today the “double” could simply be called an alter ego.
Freud further believes that this early-ego stage of psychological evolution was also a stage of overbearing narcissism, calling it the “old surmounted narcissism of earliest times” (940). The ideal being, the ego was in love with itself, thus it created the ‘double’ in a futile denial of the power of death. Thus, in literature, the reason for the use of a mirror to develop the ‘double’ becomes apparent. With the image the mirror creates, it satisfies the soul’s narcissistic cravings for a ‘double’ in order to defend itself from dieing out. However, if the creation of a ‘double’ is such a good thing for the psyche, then why is it often accompanied with such a dreadful and horrific emotion? Because as man evolved, the ‘double’ as assurance from death, reversed itself and became the “harbinger of death” and it is this fear of death that is associated with uncanny feelings (940). However Freud expands this narrow definition, to say that the uncanny is the discovery of some repressed fear.
The use of a mirror to develop narcissistic feelings of uncanny-ness has been used with great effect in Gothic literature. The first one which comes to mind is that of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. At one point the monster looks into his reflection of a pool, in which a fear and “mortification” comes over his body. The monster can not come to grasp that the ugly image is actually his own image; it seems other than himself. Notice the number of times the monster refers to “I”: “At first I started back, unable to believe that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest…” Freud’s idea of the ego (becoming terrified by another aspect of itself) is perfectly represented here, a monster that can not get over the fear of himself. With this horrific “I,” the monster becomes aware of the ‘double,’ which is going to be his demise. In the monster’s case his ‘double’ is his outward appearance and it is the discovery of this “unfamiliar” aspect of himself that threatens him that gives this passage an “uncanny” feeling.
The use of a mirror to developing uncanny feelings was also explored by Edgar Allan Poe, in his short story “William Wilson”. In fact, the similarities in the Frankenstein passage, previously discussed, and the final passage of “William Wilson,” almost make them seem as if they are doubles of one another. William Wilson is also horror stricken by the appearance of his ‘double’ that is revealed to him through a mirror: “That astonishment, that horror which possessed me at the spectacle there presented to view” (170). Like the monster in Frankenstein, William Wilson also views his ‘double’ as something other than himself. Thus he calls his ‘double’ a “Scoundrel! Imposter! Accursed villain!” (170). It is not until William kills his ‘double’ does he realize that his double was not separate from himself. In his “doubles” dieing last breath, it states, “In me didst thou exist-and, in my death, see by this image, which is thine own, how utterly thou has murdered thyself.” William Wilson did not murder an “imposter,” he murdered a part of himself. However this murdering of his double is really a reflection of his repressed fears that his double is going to murder him. Thus it is the discovery of this fear that gives this passage such an ‘Uncanny’ emotion.
Conclusion:
The gothic began as a highly defined and organized literary movement, that worked at exploring aspect of the human mind to illicit certain emotional responses from it readers. Its ability to evoke emotions that no other literary form can is directly due to its close relationship to the human psyche. The purpose of the journal was to discuss the many different elements of the Gothic and how they react with the human mind. Although, this brief introduction has by no means been exhausted, one can begin to see some of these connections that the Gothic makes. In particularly, how the ‘double’ explores altered conscience as well as how it evokes emotions of the “uncanny.” As well as how the Gothic has the ability to reflect the inner thoughts of a character onto the outside environment and even how this environment has changed over its literary use.
Work Cited
Cooper, James Fenimore. The Last of the Mohicans. New York: Signet Classic, 1980.
Horace, Walpole. Castle of Otranto. University of Houston Clear-Lake Library.
Irving, Washington. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Melville, Herman. “Billy Bud, Sailor.” The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “William Wilson.” Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Doubleday.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2003.