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Module Code: ENGL2028 Module Title: Victorian and Fin de Siecle Literature (1830-1910)

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 'Gothic fictions seemed to promote vice and violence, giving free reign to selfish
ambitions and sexual desires beyond the prescriptions of law or familial duty'1

Fred Botting makes this statement in his book ‘Gothic’ where he wrote about the
traits of gothic genre and cultural significances that originate with it. In this book, he
makes few statements which are contained by his opinions about this Genre,
including the first-mentioned statement. According to him Gothic fiction emotionally
affected the reader’s mind and by doing that it congested the paths to rational and
critical thinking responses. Therefore, according to his perspective, all the plots with
violence and immorality in Gothic fictions affect the human mind and as a result, it
consistently encourages the subjected behavior and threatens the harmony of the
society2. This essay aims to prove Botting’s above statement by analyzing fictions
written by two Victorian writers, Great Expectations and Wuthering Heights.
Furthermore, this essay going to discuss other critics opinions about Gothic fictions
to see if they are agreeable with Botting’s statement.

Gothic first used as a sub-genre in literature around late eighteenth century. First
Gothic novel published in 1764, ‘The Castle of Otranro’ written by ‘Horace Walpole’.
The Gothic critic Alison Milbank writes, Gothic Literature begins as a result of
Enlightenment period in the middle of the revolution. Furthermore, in the nineteenth
century, Gothic writers paid more attention to the human mind and behavior, for
instance, Gothic tales such as ‘Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert
Stevenson’3. At the end of eighteenth-century Gothic novels got its’ major popularity
and most of the novels started to adapt as plays in theaters4. Professor Robert D.
Hume states characteristics that Gothic novels have in common5. According to him

1
Fred Botting, Gothic (The Taylors & Francis e-Library,2005) p.3.
<https://www.academia.edu/5307551/144174613-Fred-Botting-Gothic-the-New-Critical-
IdiomBookosorg> [accessed 1 December 2018]
2
Fred Botting, Gothic. p.2-3
3
Alison Milbank, Gothic fiction tells us the truth about our divided nature, The Guardian,
November 2011, 1-2
4
W. Thorp, ‘The Stage Adventurers of some Gothic Novels’, PMLA, 43(2) (1828), 476-486,
Modern Language Association, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/457635> (accessed 12
December 2018)
5
R. D. Hume, ‘Gothic versus romantic: A revaluation of the Gothic novel’, PMLA, 84(2)
(1969), 282-290, Modern Language Association, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/1261285>
(accessed 12 December 2018)
Gothic novels more concerned in mental and psychological processes and they also
have an emotionally complicated situation and dreadful situations create by their
characters6. Another one of his identified aspects is the way the Gothic writers
attempt to get the attention of the reader by using characters and situations that
arise the feeling such as ‘shock’ and ‘alarm’7. Furthermore, as the main distinctive
feature of Gothic fiction as its’ atmosphere, ‘horror’ and ‘terror’,8. Furthermore, the
critic Henry Hughes’ opinions about the traits of Gothic mostly parallel with botting’s,
according to Hughes, “Gothic literature is characterized by its use of a barbarous past
to dramatize uncontrolled human violence and passion”9, he explains further by
describing the traits of medieval Gothic, for instance the medieval writers often
created the acts of violence and dissolute sex in the themes such as war, selfishness,
vengeance and passion which portrayed the traits such as immorality, cruelty, and
passion, in the face of law10.

Ruth Perry’s description about gothic fictions, “Family members lose touch with one
another in these fictions, loosening the ties of consanguinity-by abductions, murders,
long imprisonments sea voyages, abandoned and adopted infants. The result is that
characters are ignorant of their real blood ties”11, entirely relatable for the fictions
Wuthering Heights and The Great Expectations. Charles Dickens published his novel
‘Great Expectations’ around 1860-1861. According to professor Ann B. Dobie,
Dickens’s pursued “pleasure in exiting and controlling his audience frequently led him
to indulge in descriptions of violence, arch-villainy, mystery, flights and pursuits”12.

6
R. D. Hume, ‘Gothic versus romantic’ p.283
7
R. D. Hume, ‘Gothic versus romantic p.284
8
R. D. Hume, ‘Gothic versus romantic p.286
9
H. J. Hughes, ‘Familiarity of the Strange: Japans Gothic Tradition”, Criticism, 42(1),
(2000) 59-89, Wayne State University Press, < https://www.jstor.org/stable/23125174>
(accessed 12 December 2018)
10
H. J. Hughes, ‘Familiarity of the Strange: Japans Gothic Tradition”
11
R. Perry, ‘INCEST AS THE MEANING OF THE GOTHIC NOVEL’, The Eighteenth Century,
39(3), (1998) p. 261-278, University of Pennsylvania Press <
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41467695> (accessed 12 December 2018)
12
A. B. Dobie, ‘Early stream-of-consciousness writing: Great Expectations’, Nineteenth
Century Fiction, 25(4), (1971) p.405-416 University of California Press <
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2933119 > (accessed 12 December 2018)
In the novel, there are few gothic characters who countable for the argument of this
essay.

Dickens introduces Miss Havisham to the reader by giving a portrayal of a fantasy

creature rather than a fellow human being. She corrupted and manipulated Estella’s
mind according to her cruel expectations of vengeance of the society that she was
victimized. Consequently, she bought up Estela as a weapon or an object that uses
to break men’s heart and she neglected her motherly responsibilities. In addition, for
her revenge, there were no age limitations. She started to use Estella for emotionally
abusing Pip since he was a young child. "Love her, love her, love her! If she favors
you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces, and as
it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper, love her, love her, love her!"13. Estella’s
birth mother Molly who was working as Mr. Jagger’s housemaid was no different from
her adopted mother. Molly attempted to kill his own child (Estella) to hurt child’s
father, Magwitch after realizing he was having an affair “frantically destroyed her
child by this man…some three years old…to revenge herself upon him”14, and there
was evidence that she killed the woman whom he was having the affair with because
of her jealousy. Apart from the immorality of this situation, it also gives the insights
of how corruptive and manipulative the law can be, because Molly’s lawyer, Ms.
Jagger’s could turn the obvious evidence against Molly, to nothing but a lie that made
up against her.

Mr. Jagger is another thought-provoking character who connected to most of the

characters in the novel. However, the morality of his actions as a lawyer is
questionable, since he freed guilty convicts. Apart from this, his relationship with his
maid Molly exposes a sinister façade of his personality. He manipulated Molly as she
was inhuman. His cruel and sadistic personally came into the view when he took no
attention to her begging and continued to admire her ‘scattered wrists’. Including to
this, it is arguable fact that novel seems to promote the idea of ‘taming’ the ‘wild’
women since there were situations that wicked and cruel women got tamed after the
influence of men. Molly, Estella Mrs. Joe got tamed and punished by men.

13
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (Random House,20 Vauxhall Bridge road, London,
2008) p.226
14
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, p.272
Furthermore, Pip tamed Mrs. Havisham by accusing her of her cruelty. Therefore, it
is safe to say that novel was encouraging the idea of punishing and domesticating
women who were threatening the well-being of men and their domination of the
society and who does not fit to the common stereotype of a timid, kind-hearted and
submissive woman.

The main character, Pip’s betrayal of his family could be mention as another example
of the argument of this essay. At the beginning of the book Pip got infatuated with
the character Estella and her behavior toward him because he was a common
blacksmith boy. After he left his family behind and never visited them until he heard
his sister’s death after months. And whenever he went to his hometown, he never
once spends the night in his old home. And most of the time he visited ‘static house’
he never visited his old home. In addition, when he was young pip had a strong
relationship with his brother in law, he was a fatherly figure for him. However, when
Joe visited to see him to the London, Since, Joe’s appearance and behavior not suited
for the ‘gentlemen class’ to the life which Pip was living in the city, Pip did not hide
his embarrassment and irritation he felt about the visitation, For Pip, ties he had with
Joe was a resemblance to his past blacksmith life, with Joe he was still bound to the
low-class life that he never wants to be a part of again, “I was bound to him by so
many ties; no; with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense
of incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly would
have paid money”15. Consequently, his persuasion desires loosened the relations with
his family. All in all, it is fair to say that, above character analyze in the Great
Expectations is an enough example proves for the Bottings’ statement or the
argument of the essay.

Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights in 1847, Novel is about the tragic love story
of the main characters, Heathcliff and Catherine. Furthermore, it has all the gothic
elements that professor Hume discussed, for instance, the novel filled with gothic
characters, spirits, dream visions, and evil atmosphere. The main heroine and hero
of the novel could be used as perfect examples of the argument of this essay. Bronte
portrayed Heathcliff as the hero-villain of the story. As most of the Gothic characters

15
Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, p.206
in fictions Heathcliff life was full of mystery, the novel never mentions about his birth
name or family and the way he owned his wealth after he left Wuthering Heights, as
a result, Heathcliff represented a usual Gothic character of ‘fantasy creature’ through
the novel. Since the young age he got infatuated with Catherine, however, society
norms and family bonds came in between their story. The plot continues, Heathcliff’s
persuasion of Catherine’s love and his progress of revenge on the forces that nurtured
their separation. Somewhat same as Pip, on the way to his expectations Heathcliff
commits deliberate delinquencies that disturbed both guilty and innocent lives. He
spends a lawless life through the novel. He disregarded his responsibilities as a
husband and a father and manipulated other the characters to aid his vengeance. His
violent acts abusive acts were prominent in the middle and last episodes of the novel.
For instance, he mistreated his own son, Victor. He abusively manipulated Victor to
manipulate Catherine, and he refused to give Victor any treatments when he was
dying. Furthermore, he kidnapped Catherine kept he house capture, later he forced
her to marry Victor, furthermore, novel shows Heathcliff’s’ often brutal abuses and
acts of violence towards Cathleen even though she was a young girl, “he seized her
with the liberated hand, and, pulling her on his knee, administered with the other a
shower of terrific slaps on both sides of the head, each sufficient to have fulfilled his
threat, had she been able to fall”16. He also used his power of wealth against the law
to mute and the manipulate the acts of law. As same as Heathcliff, Cathleen’s
character also portraits manipulative traits, he used and manipulated Edgar to marry
her, because she wanted his wealth to aid Heathcliff, “if I marry Linton I can aid
Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power”17.

The use of hero-villain character is another attempt of writers to engage the reader
by a thought-provoking plot in Gothic literature. The character of Hero-villain makes
readers confuse about the morality, which called the “moral ambiguity” 18, because
usually, this character contains both traits of morality and immorality. Despite the
character’s evilness, readers get infatuated with it because of its’ heroic
characteristics, this reader’s reluctant attraction to the threatening force known as

16
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, (England, Penguin publishers, 2003) p.270-271
17
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, p.82
18
R. D. Hume, ‘Gothic versus romanticl’ p.287-288
“paradox of cruelty”19. The character Heathcliff is a perfect example for the model of
hero-villain. Addition, James M. Keech describes Heathcliff as a “symbolic
embodiment of power, will, sexual force, and passion -- as perfect a Byronic hero-
villain as any in a traditional Gothic novel”20. According to him, despite the evilness,
Heathcliff is the perfect ‘metaphor’ for the sexual passion21. Furthermore, as any evil-
villain portrayal, Bronte gives a sympathetic ending to Heathcliff which intensifies the
readers’ attraction to the character. Nevertheless, considering the analyze, to create
the characters such as Heathcliff and other hero-villains, writers must practice the
acts of immorality, violent and lawlessness behaviors in their fictions.

Paul Atkinson defines gothic characters as, “The promiscuous mixing of organs, the
admixture of the human and the not-human”22. The reason for this definition is the
prominent animalistic/non-human behavior of the characters that Gothic writers
created. Characters such as Miss Havisham and Magwitch in Great Expectations and
Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights could take in to account as examples of these sub-
humans. However, it is also true that these characters are victims of society’s
universal traits and forces that are out of their control. According to Michelle
Callander, Gothic fiction “has proven a highly adaptable vehicle for expressing the
anxieties and concerns of generations”23, and he is not the only critic who support
the idea of Gothic culture representing the trait of society. They expose those
monstrous traits to reveal complications of the society that were out of reach of the
public eye. However, the critic, Daniel Punday argues that, against the popular
perception, the writers’ use of immorality in their writing is to “the challenge and

19
R. D. Hume, ‘Gothic versus romantic: A revaluation of the Gothic novel’ p.287-288
20
J. M. Keech, ‘The Survival of the Gothic’ Studies in the Novel, 6 (1974)
<http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/keech.html > (Accessed in 24 December 2018)
21
J. M. Keech, ‘The Survival of the Gothic’ Studies in the Novel
22
P. Atkinson, Book Review: Gothic Imaginations. Social Studies of Science, 35(4), (2005).
653–664. <https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312705054592> (Accessed in 24 December
2018)
23
M. Callander, ‘Bram Stoker’s Buffy: Traditional Gothic and Contemporary Culture’, The
online international journal of buffy studies,
<http://offline.buffy.de/outlink_en.php?module=/webserver/offline/www.slayage.tv/PDF/cal
lander.pdf> (Accessed in 24 December 2018)
invigorate the art of storytelling”24, as an example writer Charles Dickens, as written
before in the essay, he took a pleasure by making readers amazed through his Gothic
plots. Nevertheless, despite the reason behind the use of immortality in the fictions,
these arguments indeed prove the writers’ keen need of using ‘Gothic’ in their fictions.
Therefore, this writers’ exposing of immoral qualities in Gothic fictions, which results,
the ‘promote’ in Botting’s argument.

In addition, the critic Kathleen Miller suggests that the women writers are keener to
write Gothic fictions than men, according to her “they express female paranoia and
enable the heroine to work through extreme feelings of ambivalence without
assuming too much guilt for having these negative emotions”25. Therefore, by being
anonymous or not, women writers used Gothic fictions as their freedom to express
their passion and perspectives from another side of society. For instance, Cathleen
in Wuthering Height, Bronte portrayed Cathleen as a bird trapped in a cage. She was
bounded by wishes of her family and social norms, because of those boundaries she
lost her love, Heathcliff and even had to hide her true wild and free personality, which
was one of the reasons killed her in the end. Therefore, it is safe to say that Bronte
portrayed another female victim through her novel. Furthermore, the critic Ruth Perry
discuss the similar perceptions of Miller. However, she includes Homosexual writers
to the category. In her discussion, she points out the Homosexual writers such as
Walpole, Beckford, and Lewis using Gothic to express the society’s conflictions and
violations in sex and sexual feelings in their novels26. They used Gothic to express
their feelings and perceptions which they could not express directly to the public.
Overall, they used Gothic fictions to criticize the immoral behavior of the society
mainly occurred through the male domination including the prejudicial social norms.
Therefore, as argued in the paragraph before, the satisfaction writers could gain

24
D. Punday, ‘Narrative Performance in the Contemporary Monster Story’, The Modern
Language Review, 97(4 ) (2002), p. 803-820, Modern Humanities Research Association
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/3738613>
(Accessed: 12 December 2018)
25
K. A. Miller, ‘Haunted Heroines: The Gothic Imagination and the Female Bildungsromane
of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and L. M. Montgomery’, The Lion and the Unicorn, 34(2),
(2010) pp. 125-147 Johns Hopkins University Press
<https://muse.jhu.edu/article/384434/pdf> (Accessed: 12 December 2018)
26
R. Perry, ‘INCEST AS THE MEANING OF THE GOTHIC NOVEL’
through the writing Gothic novels shaped an encouraging atmosphere for them to get
accustomed with it more, as a result, it created a ‘promoting’ atmosphere for the
immorality, selfish ambitions, and anarchy of the society.

In conclusion, this essay agrees with Botting’s statement, “Gothic fictions seemed to
promote vice and violence, giving free reign to selfish ambitions and sexual desires
beyond the prescriptions of law or familial duty”. Furthermore, it analyses the fictions,
Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations in the light of Botting’s statement and
proves that the statement is correct by giving proves about the practice of
immorality, violence, and lawlessness. In addition, this essay evaluated critics
perceptions of Gothic fictions and if discussed, how writers much keen on using Gothic
in their writings because of the traits it comes with, which this essay argued as a
practice of ‘promote’. All in all, what the essay discussed is, Gothic novel writers often
use of the themes which portray the atmospheres of ‘horror’ and ‘terror’, and they
use Gothic characters such as Miss Havisham and hero-villains such as Heathcliff in
their novels often. To create these themes and characters they must include act
portray immorality and other dark corruptions, as a result, they promote it.
References

Alison Milbank, Gothic fiction tells us the truth about our divided nature, The
Guardian, November 2011

Atkinson, P., Book Review: Gothic Imaginations. Social Studies of Science, 35(4),
(2005). 653–664. <https://doi.org/10.1177/0306312705054592> (Accessed in 24
December 2018)

Botting, Fred, Gothic (The Taylors & Francis e-Library, 2005)

<https://www.academia.edu/5307551/144174613-Fred-Botting-Gothic-the-New-
Critical-IdiomBookosorg> [accessed 1 December 2018]

Callander, M., ‘Bram Stoker’s Buffy: Traditional Gothic and Contemporary Culture’,
The online international journal of buffy studies,
<http://offline.buffy.de/outlink_en.php?module=/webserver/offline/www.slayage.tv
/PDF/callander.pdf> (Accessed in 24 December 2018)

Dobie, A. B., ‘Early stream-of-consciousness writing: Great Expectations’, Nineteenth

Century Fiction, 25(4), (1971) p.405-416 University of California Press <
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2933119 > (accessed 12 December 2018)

Haque, F., ‘Depiction of Victorian era in the novel Great Expectations by Charles
Dickens”, International Linguistics Research, 1(2), (2018) p17 Brac University
Bangladesh < https://doi.org/10.30560/ilr.vln2pl7 > (accessed 12 December 2018)

Hughes, H. J., ‘Familiarity of the Strange: Japans Gothic Tradition”, Criticism, 42(1),
(2000) 59-89, Wayne State University Press, <
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23125174> (accessed 12 December 2018)

Keech, J. M., ‘The Survival of the Gothic’ Studies in the Novel, 6 (1974)
<http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/keech.html > (Accessed in 24 December
2018)

Miller, K. A., ‘Haunted Heroines: The Gothic Imagination and the Female
Bildungsromane of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, and L. M. Montgomery’, The Lion
and the Unicorn, 34(2), (2010) pp. 125-147 Johns Hopkins University Press
<https://muse.jhu.edu/article/384434/pdf> (Accessed: 12 December 2018)
Perry, R., ‘INCEST AS THE MEANING OF THE GOTHIC NOVEL’, The Eighteenth
Century, 39(3), (1998) p. 261-278, University of Pennsylvania Press <
https://www.jstor.org/stable/41467695> (accessed 12 December 2018)

Punday, D., ‘Narrative Performance in the Contemporary Monster Story’, The Modern
Language Review, 97(4 ) (2002), p. 803-820, Modern Humanities Research
Association <https://www.jstor.org/stable/3738613> (Accessed: 12 December
2018)

Thorp, W., ‘The Stage Adventurers of some Gothic Novels’, PMLA, 43(2) (1828), 476-
486, Modern Language Association, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/457635>
(accessed 12 December 2018)