Virgins in distress and demons in disguise : a study of gendered Gothic in Shelley and Lewis

Abstract

The aim of this dissertation is to reveal the relations between gender and genre in literary history i.e. how the gothic tradition shapes the concept of power struggles between the sexes. The coming of the Industrial Revolution wrought significant changes in the relationship between men and women. As a result of this, the female was considered to be the weaker sex and were confined to the domestic sphere. The fight/struggle of women’s emancipation has been active for many centuries, however the sprouting of radical activity in the women’s movement finally reached its peak in the Victorian period. The conventions of the Gothic genre frequently includes the oppression and the othering of the female; a woman was either perceived as the Angel of the house or the Madwoman locked in the attic. The first chapter of this study will give a brief overview of the rise of the gothic genre, introducing the reader to certain types of characteristics most commonly found in this style of writing; whereby fantasy and the supernatural predominate over the natural and the mundane. In this study I will explain the characteristics between the Female gothic and the Male gothic and some fundamental differences between these two types of gothic fiction. The Female gothic, a term introduced by Ellen Moers in her eclectic work Literary Women, refers to the writing by women within the gothic tradition, moreover Moers also considers it as a ‘coded’ expression of a woman’s fears of being entrapped within the domestic sphere and within the female body. The Female gothic will be further discussed in Chapter 2 of this study by looking at Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in order to discuss the effects of a patriarchal society has on women. This is followed by an explanation of the Male gothic by using examples from Matthew Gregory Lewis’s The Monk and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the third chapter will focus on the aspect of female sexuality as monstrous and dangerous. In conclusion, this dissertation will prove that ultimately there is an affinity between gothic and gender.