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This blog is for use by students in Anjuli Raza Kolb's "Legacies of the Gothic Novel" course at Columbia University.
Course Description
The gothic novel is a genre of 18th and 19th century fiction that concerns itself with fear, mystery, the supernatural, violence, purity, otherness, and the impact of these conceits on its largely female protagonists. Much maligned as a popular or 'low' genre at its inception, the form has nevertheless persisted in its popularity as well as crossed into 'higher' forms of modernism and postmodernism. This course will read three key texts in the gothic mode-Frankenstein, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights-and follow the ways they are revisited and rewritten by contemporary American and Caribbean novelists. We will look at how these texts subvert the realist leanings of 18th century narrative prose in English-and its assumptions of enlightenment rationalism-by way of two main processes: narrative hypertrophy and feminist versions of horror. Additionally, we will take up select contemporary criticism on the gothic in literature, film, and art.
There are no prerequisites.
Followers
Blog Archive
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2009
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June
(15)
- Guerillas/No Telephone to Heaven
- Guerillas II
- Guerillas
- Sylvia Plath reads Purdah
- Wuthering Heights III
- Wuthering Heights II/Sedgwick/Kristeva
- Wuthering Heights I
- Wide Sargasso Sea II/ Caribbean Gothic
- Wide Sargasso Sea
- Jane Eyre II
- The Other Side of A Mirror
- Jane Eyre I
- Beloved III/ Modern Medea/ Black Frankenstein
- Beloved II
- Whitman "A Boston Ballad"
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June
(15)
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ReplyDeleteOK, I am at a complete loss when I try to understand the relationship between Jane, Jimmy and Bryant. Bryant is described as a “very black” young man born into poverty. He seems to be particularly emotionally needy and prone to fits of aggression. His perpetual agitation culminates in the scene of Jane’s murder which is preceded by Jimmy’s insistence on Jane’s need to get her dollar back to Bryant and Bryant’s want to give it back to her. Jimmy and Bryant reserve a special role for Jane and their intentions can be traced in different names they give her as the drama unfolds itself. At first Bryant refers to her as a “sister” and “white lady”. After Jimmy’s sexual encounter with Jane, Bryant starts to call her “the white rat”. Immediately before her slaughter, Jimmy seems to allude that Jane smells of “old cunt”. Why do they insist on her being a “rotten meat”? There is a lot of talk in the book about Jane’s sexual encounters with men. She seems to freely exercise her right for “easy lay”, but Jimmy harbors extremely critical views of female sexual behavior: “The things women do and can do they have no shame and thought for the children who come after them who will have to endure all that they did, women don’t know how men can hate them for the things they do…” (223). This strange account of women is followed by the scene in which he forces Jane to engage into anal sex only to subsequently call her “rotten meat” and “give her” to Bryant for slaughtering. Is that his way to feed his personal demons? Her murder looks more like a sacrifice than an impulse. What is she sacrificed for?
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ReplyDelete“Without Adela the house was empty. Adela had been the link for the last day and a half between Roche and herself. Without Adela the house had no meaning. Jane could feel the thinness of its walls, the brittleness of the louvers, the breakability of its glass, the exposed position of the house on the Ridge So that even in the dark of her bedroom she no longer felt protected or confined” (179). Adela’s sense of boundary -- they way she doesn’t allow Roche and Jane to speak to her on Sundays – seems to be the opposite of the porousness the other characters show. She sets limits, circumscribes her own life and in this way makes meaning on the chaotic island for herself and others like Jane who needs Adela as a point of orientation.
ReplyDeleteThere’s a sense that Adela’s religiosity is ridiculous yet it demonstrates Adela’s yearning for tradition, for a sense of the sacred. In The Rebel, Camus wonders if we can find value outside the sphere of religion: “If in a world where things are held sacred the problem of rebellion does not arise, it is because no real problems are to be found in such a world, all the answers having been given simultaneously. Metaphysic is replaced by myth. There are no more questions, only answers and commentaries, which may be metaphysical… The present interest of the problem of rebellion only springs from the fact that nowadays whole societies have wanted to discard the sacred. We live in an unsacrosanct moment in history” (21). Does it seem that Adela believes values can be only found within the “absolute terms” religion provides, especially in light of the historical shifts and dramas she has experienced? It’s likely she might share something in common with Christophine in Wide Sargasso Sea, who is certain, solid, and powerful in the way Adela is. Perhaps they know the Camus line “I rebel – therefore we exist” and maybe that’s why they hold the religious beliefs they do. Their beliefs may appear to defy the logic of rational thinkers but maybe rationalism is the problem that led to the very conditions they endure. Wouldn’t it be fun to read a rewriting of Wide Sargasso Sea and/or Guerrillas with Adela or Christophine as the main character?
There is an underlying tone of anger or rage in Guerillas. Rage, as a demonstration of Western oppressions influence on the East, is seen in almiost of the boys working on the commune. The idea of purification of a country only comes from a complete evacuation of the oppresser. This is very similar to the ideas of Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth. The notion that freedom can only be truly achieved through violence and the complete anihilation of the colonizer; the only way for the colonized to "de-Other" themselves was to destroy the oppressive figure. With the loss of unique culture, the Other deveoloped a rage, which was meant to be a warning against the West. No longer was the West an entity to be idolizes, no longer was the West an enchanted place. It was now a place where overpowering and persecuting the "less fortunate" is right.
ReplyDeleteIn Guerrillas, the racially mixed setting of the Carribbean island is perfect for the perpetuation of this rage. Physically "cut off" from the main land, the island acts as its own patch in the world while there own culture is a patchwork of radicals and revolutionaries. Even though the land is eventually free from the British, the outside forces overwhelm the island. The people of the island feel lost without a sense of cultural identity. Separated from Britain by law, they are still very much trapped by the external forces. Lost, the people of the isalnd liike towards Jimmy as a leader, though he holds many flaws of his own. This sense of loss and uncertainty leads to a mania and craze - looking for action rather than ideology because the power of words are limited.
For Jimmy, who self-proclaims himself a revolutionary, being the leader of a new and better order is ghis only concern. However, as a creation of the media and, in the end, the lies he tells both himslef and his followers, makes him a mere symbol. He represents the aspiratiosna and desires of the oppressed, but nothing more. Jimmy is unfulfilled prophecy of the future. He is the creation of the commune's propoganda.
“Of all the Gothic conventions dealing with the sudden, mysterious, seemingly arbitrary, but massive inaccessibility of those things that should normally be most accessible, the difficulty the story has in getting itself told is of itself the most obvious structural significance.” – Sedgwick
ReplyDeleteI have noticed a trend that I should have noticed before. Throughout all of time, literature has been becoming more and more inaccessible.
Consider Frankenstein, our earliest text. Although there are multiple narrators and chronological shifts, we always know who is speaking and what is going on. The same description applies to Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre has the clearest narrative.
Now consider our later texts: Beloved, Wide Sargasso Sea, and Guerillas. The authors of these novels refuse to tell us who is speaking. As far as the setting, it is mentioned incidentally rather than emphasized (this may not be the best way to describe Guerillas, but still). There are long sections in these novels that are borderline gibberish.
To pick out a specific instance, consider the way that Jimmy’s writings are framed. We read the line, “Jimmy was writing”, but the texts are only marked with italics: no date or signature even though they are in some epistolary format. And the text itself is about as distant as could be; Jimmy takes on a particular persona, only the reader is never told this. And it’s not clear how accurately these writings reflect the physical reality of the island. If it weren’t for the italics, even the most careful reader would have real trouble finding their way.
I think the earlier texts distinguish themselves by their ability to refer to themselves. Walton can refer to Frankenstein, who can refer to his creation. However, in the later texts the frame seems to be removed for the sake of total immersion within the world of the novel. It’s like not being able to see the edge of something.
My personal reaction is, “Author, why are you trying to confuse me?” I really don’t like being disoriented.
Bryant's character is always portrayed as deeply frustrated, potentially ready to explode, and explode he did. The end of the novel sent me into consideration of what is going on with the men in this novel.
ReplyDeleteFirst there is Jimmy and Meredith, both seeking validation for their inadequacies through public power, yet neither of them is really savvy enough to be successful. Roche is almost as passive as Jane; he truly lacks conviction, and for this reason can never be politically influential. At the end of the novel, his character remains completely consistent but suddenly he is cast in a villainous light, completely indifferent to Jane's death, and actually ignoring her disappearance.
I am unsure about pairing Harry and Bryant, because they are very different and have very different roles but both seem aloof (i have no better word) and somewhat pitiable. Both also seem inherently nonviolent, but capable (obviously) of heinous acts at the urging of others or for the maintenance of identity/masculinity.
There seems to be an emphasis on gluttony and appetite within Naipaul’s text. It presents itself, even articulates it existence, in several ways. Female appetite is addressed differently than male appetite: Jane, as the representative of the female within the text, is described as “starved” (page 72); while Meredith, whom Roche (and perhaps Naipaul) upholds as Jane’s misogynist antithesis (page 131), is described as bulging and overfed: Roche describes with repulsion “the bump of Meredith’s waist band below his vest”(page 209). That is to say: The female in Guerillas is starved, while the male sinfully overfed. Immediately Gilbert and Gubar’s analysis of anorexia and female self-denial springs to mind: they uphold anorexia as a sickness instilled upon women by “patriarchal socialization;” they trump the illness as the physical manifestation of a woman’s societal inferiority complex. I believe that Naipaul means to illustrate similar female neuroses by describing Jane as “starved”: Jane is outwardly a sturdy and worldly woman, but her hardened exterior simply masks child-like sensibilities, and an appetite for sexual encounters and companionship that shall never be fully satiated. She attempts to be adventurous and liberal in her lifestyle, when, in truth, Jane latently longs for protection and simplicity in her empty life. Therefore it is particularly significant that she develops a distaste for the seemingly domesticated and “suburban” (page 130) Meredith. Meredith appears to Jane to be “too domesticated and settled…Jane also decided that Meredith was boring; and then she decided that he was ugly “(page 130-131). Meredith is indeed the “Jane antithesis:” his appearance is placid, but his inward ambitions militant and power-hungry, as proven by his sneaky ascent into political prominence. His appetite, as opposed to Jane’s starvation, displays its ravenousness in his round midsection-indicating he is well-fed off of Trinidad’s misfortunes, a male thriving sinfully in a male-dominated society.
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