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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
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- 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)
“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliffe resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff!” (102).
ReplyDeleteHeathcliff is consistently described in terms of a savage “other” in the novel, so it makes it utterly surprising that Catherine refuses to recognize him as such and completely self-identifies herself with his wild spirit. On the one hand, she claims Heathcliff is a vital part of her personality and manifests her eternal love for him. On the other hand, she exhibits a dangerous level of emotional dependency on him, sometimes on the verge of psychological illness that eventually drives her to actual death.
It is interesting to see how decidedly she draws a line between her love for Edgar and her love for Heathcliff. Her utilitarian approach toward her marriage with Edgar stems from her ambition to be wealthy and reach a high social position. It is a cold and conscious decision, while her inability to part with Heathcliff seems to be purely instinctive as if coming from deeper layers of her unconsciousness. Catherine ends up breaking her heart because she cannot have both men simultaneously and she cannot make a choice. Her identity seems to disintegrate somewhat as a result and she perishes at the end.
If Gayatri Spivak posits Bertha Mason as the Imperial-ized Other driving the narrative of Jane Eyre - then what would she say about Heathcliff, the "gypsy brat" (46) yoked with the burden of disturbing the notions of race and class up at Wuthering Heights in 1840's England?
ReplyDeleteNelly calls the dirty, ragged little boy "it" and Mr. Earnshaw says "it's as dark as almost as if it came from the devil" (45). Nelly says he was unintelligible to the family -- he "repeated over and over again some gibberish, that nobody could understand" (46). She and Mrs. Earnshaw were frightened by "it" and their xenophobic fear is a testament to their provincialism. It's hard to say that it's his racial ambiguity that makes him a target for Hindley's hatred as much as it is his status as Mr. Earnshaw's favorite, but his dark features are often conflated with his bad behavior. He's "a little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway" (63) or "black villain" (139). It's hard to say HOW he made the transformation from rough ploughboy to rough man of the world in the three years he was gone, but since there seems to be so much riding on family names, class consciousness, inheritance, and entitlement, it's interesting to wonder if he was reunited with his biological family, a perhaps noble, wealthy or titled family while he was gone?
Paravisini-Gebert links Bertha Mason and Heathcliff as "defeated "colonials" othered in their questionable racial provenance, swarthy and un-English" (249). She says the "placid domesticity temporarily shattered by the intrusion of foreign elemental passions, we must remember, lasts only as long as Heathcliff does. His obsessive haunting persists only until his death, when the marriage of the surviving heirs of Earnshaw and Linton restores an illusion of happiness and proper English complacence... the colonial as disturbing agent, a haunting presence, only to dispatch him/her when the time comes for happiness ever-after" (249).
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the dispatching part. It's not really fair to characterize Heathcliff's haunting presence as powerful only to the degree that he physically lives. It's a gothic novel, after all, and there are ghosts. His ghost haunts the landscape when he dies: "But the country folks, if you ask them would swear on the Bible that he WALKS: there are those who speak to having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even within this house." (413). The gothic convention of ghostly haunting allows for the continued presence of Paravisini-Gebert's "disturbing agent" and expands the story's linear landscape dimensionally or vis a vis Sedgwick's "depth" (12). His ghost is substantial and so is his (fictional) live counterpart. Also, characterizing him as "disturbing agent" as opposed to "protagonist" seems like a convenient way to link him with Bertha Mason, who might be read as a "disturbing agent" but not really as a protagonist. Heathcliff does much more heavy lifting in the narrative than Bertha Mason does.
The question of ownership is prominent in Wuthering Heights not only as it refers to character relationships, but also as it refers to the ownership of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. The latter is a legal issue, something that is also important when it comes to the "ownership" of Heathcliff's son, Linton. Both Edgar and Heathcliff feel the need to "own" Linton. As far as the law is concerned, Linton belongs to his father: "my son is prospective owner of your place, and I should not wish him to die till I was vertain of being his successor. Besides, he's mine, and I want the triumph of seeing my descendant fairly lord of their estate" (257). Beyond naming Linton as his own, Heathcliff's declaration proves to be a concern of legality and inheritance. because Linton is Edgar's only male relative, he will be the heir to the Thrushcross Grange manor. With that, Heathcliff's greed to enact revenge on Edgar is a matter of ownership. If he takes Linton back to Wuthering Heights and raises him as his own, then at the time of Edgar's death, Heathcliff will take control of Thrushcross Grange. He even refers to Edgar as "my property" (156). One of the greatest rifts between Edgar and Heathcliff lies in their intention. For Edgar, he believes that Linton will be safer with him rather than with Heathcliff. He is also convinced that his sister, Isabella, "desired him to remain under my guardianship" (251). This brings up the quersiton of a legal guardian: who is more entitled to decide the fate of a child. the mother or the father? As we have discussed in class, women are only as valuable as the last name of the man they attach themselves to. Further, they are always a secondary consideration. What rights do they have, if any? How well were Isabella's desires followed after her death? Unfortunately, the answer is not at all.
ReplyDeleteOnce Heathcliff takes custody of Linton, he plays the role of a proud father. In fact, Linton exhibits many of the characteristics that Heathcliff does in his later life (wheraeas Hareton resembles his younger self): "One is gold...and the other is tin...Mine has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the mreit of making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. His had first rate qualities, and they are lost: rendered worse than unavailing" (270). Heathcliff, once the other, has cast Hareton as the other while somehow also doing so to Linton. This deep selfishness to enact revenge enables Heathcliff to act as a villain and ruin the lives of these two men. The environment in which they will grow up is harsh and unforgiving. This is not only a result of their guardian's behavior, but also the product of the rivalry and cyclical tension between the Lintons and Earnshaws and Heathcliffs.
"One might then view writing, or art in general, not as the only treatment but as the only know-how where phobia is concerned" (Kristeva,page 37).
ReplyDeleteI have to say the exact meaning of this sentence, as well as the entire Kristeva essay, somewhat eluded me and may have very well instilled new “phobias” on my part; any basic understanding I thought I harbored of Freud is now completely gone. Half kidding. However, I think I can eradicate the essence of Kristeva’s passage in relation to the gothic, or, more specifically, in the maturation of the genre: the gothic vein serves as a “treatment” of phobia for the writer because it is linguistic exorcism. To write, according to Kristeva herein, is sort of a perverse name game: conscious and unconscious words linked together, some phonetically, some associatively, that creates a sort of fragmented physicality of the author’s latent fears. If that isn’t perfectly gothic in tone, I don’t know what is! I think I can take this statement one step further, and say that storytelling is the exorcism of personal phobia for the narrator. Are not Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein, and Beloved all attempts to dispel some sort of fearful possession? Therefore, the gothic truly functions as a treatment of the phobic. While it is the treatment, it is also the “know how” (Kristeva): or, to bring in another secondary reading, it is the “infection” as much as it is the treatment. Because, when we NAME phobias, they cease to be latent, they become tangible, their ghostliness dissipates, and our fears become like the dead walking. How duplicitous! To write is to give life and sanctuary to hidden fear.
"I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter- the Eternity they have entered- where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its sympathy and joy in its fullness." (205)
ReplyDeleteThis is an expository moment of Nelly's character. I found myself taken aback in her admittance that she liked being next to Catherine's corpse, because it was unlike anything she had revealed earlier in the text. The passage points towards several things. The first in the peace that comes with death, and the problems that it can solve. Although anguish follows Catherine's death, it probably leads to a more peaceful separation. The word shadowless stands out, as it implies an existence where nothing is followed, and nothing is tethered to a past circumstance, that everyone living in Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange have become accustomed to.
The novel is filled with ghosts, haunting and the notion of the everlasting love or presence of a spirit. Nelly finds something beautiful in the foreverness of death.
Nelly finds comfort in the acknowledgment that there is a world beyond the power of Heathcliff, Catherine, and Linton and that the way to reach the resolution is by death.
There seems to be a whole lot of disease in Wuthering Heights. How does this fit in with other Gothic conventions? There is certainly a relation to fascinations with the body; consider the vivification of Frankenstein’s creation and Frankenstein’s subsequent illness. Meanwhile, the creature is immune to disease despite being outdoors for most of the novel. There is a sharp contrast between the fortitude of the creature and the fortitude of the characters in Wuthering Heights. There seem to be more characters who fall ill than those who don’t; the doctor plays just as an involved role as the lawyer. Of course, disease is a useful technique for killing off characters, which relates the Gothic fascination with death. And if there are no deaths, there are no ghosts to chase.
ReplyDeleteOne of the best ways to avoid catching a cold is to stay inside. Ideally, the literal warmth of the house combines with the familial support in the domestic sphere to enable one to survive or defeat disease. This is brought out in the character of Linton, who can’t seem to stay healthy despite spending a lot of time near the fire. Although he has the physical support and an ally in Catherine, he has an enemy in Heathcliff who perhaps wills his death through a failing of his health. Moreover, although early deaths were certainly common, the seeming inevitably of his death might reflect a concern over genetic factors; meaning, something inherent in him causes him to be frail.
I mention genetics because not only are Catherine and Linton cousins, but for some reason I can’t help but think of Heathcliff as a brother to Hindley and the elder Catherine. My mind is involuntarily screaming “incest!” although I know that it doesn’t really make sense. Perhaps it is a reaction to the idea of adoption; once Earnshaw adopted Heathcliff, it is hard to continue thinking of Heathcliff as a different kind of child than Hindley and Catherine. Perhaps that is an important tension.