Gothic Literature Analysis

Extension English Final

“Genres and the interpretation or adaptation of texts in genres are an embodiment of the value and ideologies in which they were written”

During legal studies this past term, I’ve learnt that the law is a reflection of the values and ethics of the wider community. Law reform is therefore necessary to keep up with society’s changing views on right and wrong. Literary texts are also reflective of the social and historical context in which they are created whether they buy into the beliefs of the time or rebel against them. We will see this by taking an in-depth look at the Castle of Otranto and the Turn of the Screw, two gothic novels. We will compare and contrast the effect of context on how the two novels use the
In the Castle of Otranto women are targeted and threatened at the hands of the malevolent Manfred.This can be seen through his disregard for Hippolita, his wife. Hippolita is characterized as weak, feeble and hysterical. She unswervingly bows to the will of her tyrannical husband as evident in this excerpt: “Hippolita needed little persuasions to bend her to his pleasure." (p.50) Her subservient nature is hyperbolized to show how easily she is swayed by the will of Manfred. In 18th Century England women were marginalized and considered inferior to men and this is reflected through the oppression of Hippolita. 19th Century England was a very different time. First wave feminism had begun allowing the Turn of the Screw to be a world dominated by strong female characters. Also, the idea that children were separate from adults, had begun to be commonly accepted and we can see this through the appearance of children’s fiction by authors such as Thomas Hughes and Lewis Carroll. Due to these two contextual factors the sense of danger shifts from women to children in The Turn of the Screw. The Governess says of Miles, the boy in her charge: “He was only too fine and fair for the little horrid unclean school-world, and he had paid a price for it.” (p.32) By painting Miles in an angelic light, James places an eerie aura of purity over him that compels the Governess to protect him at any cost. When the Governess is convinced that the ghosts (Peter Quint and Ms Jessel) are after the children she stops at nothing to preserve their innocence. When discussing the intentions of the ghosts with Mrs Grose, the Governess says: "For the love of all the evil that, in those dreadful days, the pair put into them. And to ply them with that evil still, to keep up the work of demons, is what brings the others back." (p.82) The connotation with hell and demons creates a vivid depiction of evil.