Exploring Gothic Novels: Works by Mary Shelley & Horace Walpole, Schemi e mappe concettuali di Inglese

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THE GOTHIC NOVEL New interests in fiction - Taste for the strange and the mysterious - Impulse for freedom and escape from the ugly world - Fear of the triumph of evil and chaos over good and order - Interest is common to all social classes -> thanks to circulating libraries - The adjective “gothic” was first applied to architecture (the house of the parliament, London station, St Patrick cathedral) long before it connoted literature -> gothic revival - Writer -> Horace Walpole “the castle of Otranto” (from architecture to literature, written because of a dream) Features of the Gothic novel - Gothic novels intended to arouse fear in the reader with the threat of realising all the potentialities of the mind beyond reason - The specific novels reflect the specific historical moments o Characterised by increasing disillusionment with Enlightenment rationality and by the bloody revolutions in America and in France - Reaction against the revolutions Settings - Influenced by the concept of sublime (obscurity) - Ancient settings -> isolated castles, mysterious abbeys and convents with hidden passages and dungeons - During the night -> darkness is a powerful element used to create an atmosphere of gloom, oppression and mystery - Rainy settings - Supernatural elements Characters o Moving in such settings perceive the world around them as hostile o The gothic hero  Isolated o The heroine  Afflicted with unreal terrors  Persecuted by a villain o Plot  Complicated by embedded narratives and supernatural beings (monsters, vampires, ghosts and witches) -> increase the suspense and mystery Mary Shelley (1797-1851) - Her life was full of tragedies (her mother died, the relationship with her step mother wasn’t good, she lost her sons and her love) - Was born in 1797 - She was the daughter of Mary Wollstonecraft (feminist philosopher and novelist, who died ten days after Mary’s birth) and William Godwin (anarchist and philosopher) - She grew up in an environment that supported the French revolution. Intellectual contest (her father’s library) - Her dad married Mary Jane Clairmont -> cause of Mary Shelley’s troubles (she had a Cinderella life) so she was sent to Scotland - In her father’s library, she met some of the most famous writers and artists of the period o In particular the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was immediately attracted by the young, beautiful, intellectual Mary Godwin  He was a romantic poet  He was married with kids  They decided to escape from England  They went to France  Their parents weren’t happy -> they hadn’t money  They came back to England  She had 5 children with P.B. Shelley (only one of them survived) - In 1816 o Shelley decided to rent a Villa in Geneva  near George Gordon Bryan (Villa Diodati) -> Mary’s stepsister was dating him o Rainy summer (because the irruption of a Volcano)  They decided to write stories to pass time  Mary had a vision so she started writing Frankenstein o Mary and Shelley married (because his ex-wife committed suicide) - In 1818 o They went to Italy (Venice, Milan, Rome) o They had a child, Florence (the only one who survived) o They bought a house in Lerici (Liguria) (golfo dei poeti)  Shelley was in a boat with one friend, when a storm came -> he died  His body was found in Viareggio  He was buried in Rome o In that period Shelley had a relation with his friend’s daughter (it is believed that Mary and Shelley had a free love) - When Mary came back to England decided to publish her husband’s works Frankenstein - she had written it when she was 18 - Published anonymously in 1818 - Written by a woman who has suffered a lot - Full of philosophic theories (education…) - Gothic novel o Sense of mystery o Setting -> laboratory is obscure o Time  Night  Obscure weather o Sense of sublime o Villain -> it could be both the doctor or the monster, maybe is society - “the modern Prometheus” o Prometheus was a titan that rebelled against Zeus, and stole fire from gods and gave it to men (Frankenstein stole the fire of knowledge) -> he was tied to a rock and a eagle will eat his stomach every day (during the night the stomach will grow again) o Scientist who goes beyond the limits of nature, scientist who plays god o Prometheus was punished for the eternity -> also Frankenstein was punished  He suffers for what he did - Sources o Milton, paradise lost (explicit references) -> Satan similar to Frankenstein o Dante, inferno o Ancient mariner -> tales of a crime against nature o Greek literature o Rousseau -> Rosseau’s natural man -> man in a primitive state, not influenced by civilisation o Yellow and white -> idea of death o Black -> obscurity - The experiment o Went wrong o The monster isn’t the creature that Victor expected -> the monster wasn’t similar to him -> feels regret ad guilty o Victor goes against laws of nature o We don’t know the steps of the experiment -> forbidden knowledge -> Frankenstein went over the limits - Description of the creature, something horrifying, grotesque o Eyes -> yellow, watery, dull o Limbs -> dipropionate o Skin -> yellow, fry, see through o Lips -> black o Hair -> black, lustrous o Sockets -> white o It doesn’t have an actual name -> without identity (that makes people humans) - Victor o Regrets the monster o Has a dream (nightmare)  Kissing Elizabeth who suddenly turns into his mother, but his mother is death, so she turns into a death body (anticipate the future -> at the end Elizabeth dies)  Reference to the past  Nightmare represents  Changing from a pure past to a corrupted present  The experiment itself -> Victor’s ream was to do his experiment to discover the secrets of nature and life -> than it becomes a nightmare  Mary Shelley’s life o Will never be in peace Chapter XXIV - Narrators o Walton -> writes letters to his sister  Trustworthy or is he just presenting his point of view? -> we must fund the truth o Frankenstein -> speech in which is reported by Walton that send it to his sister - Theme o Revenge  Victor wants to destroy his creation -> but the monster is his complementary opposite -> they are inseparable -> the monster symbolizes guilt, punishment, dark side  Frankenstein is not able to destroy the monster -> but both of them died  Hamlet  Feeling of Victor  Pain, agony, sufferance, hope of killing  Love for his family and friends - The monster escapes to the north pole (desert of ice -> sublime and unknown) and leaves behind messages to be followed and to make Victor knows that it is still alive (it is the most terrible new for Victor) - Frankenstein o Found Walton’s ship stuck in ice o died because was very ill because of his crime