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Sara Schoch
Abstract:
Gothic literature of the nineteenth century was deeply concerned with with threats to masculinity.
Beginning with Mary Shelleys Frankenstein (1818) and spanning the century, these novels captured an
important sense of social unrest attributable to contemporary changes in intellectual and social thought
which reverberated throughout the century and threatened to topple patriarchal gender norms. Two major
shifts contributing to this instability were the transition from the Baconian to the Darwinian scientific
model, and the threat posed by the emerging model of the New Woman to the Victorian feminine ideal
embodied in the angel in the house. These changes threatened the foundation upon which masculinity
and thus, patriarchal society, rested its dominance. This article explores textual attempts to neutralize such
threats by vilifying the New Woman and glorifying the angel in the house in Mary Shelleys
Frankenstein, Robert Louis Stevensons Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Bram Stokers Dracula, and
concludes that such attempts ultimately reaffirm the females power in this male-dominated society.
GOTHIC literature of the nineteenth century was Baconian to the Darwinian paradigm of science,
deeply concerned with threats to masculinity. and the threat posed by the emerging model of
Beginning with Mary Shelleys 1818 publication the New Woman to the traditionally established
of Frankenstein and spanning the century, these and deeply celebrated angel in the house
novels captured an important sense of social worked to threaten the foundation upon which
unrest attributable to significant contemporary masculinity and thus, patriarchal society, rested
changes in intellectual and social thought, which its dominance.
reverberated throughout the majority of the
century and threatened to topple current Several key texts exploring such threats use
patriarchal gender norms 1. Evolution in scientific monsters and depictions of their moral and
and social thought over the course of the century sexual depravity to subvert these contemporary
played an integral role in destabilizing Victorian destabilizing influences and strengthen the
masculine gender dominance, causing anxiety in power of the feminine. Mary Shelleys
the face of dramatically changing social standards Frankenstein, the catalyst for such socially critical
for the family. 2 The two major shifts contributing monstrous texts, Robert Louis Stevensons The
to this instability the transition from the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Bram
Stokers Dracula , all explore and attempt to
neutralize the social threat of the emerging
1Smith, Andrew. Victorian Demons: Medicine, dominant female figure, as well as that of the
Masculinity and the Gothic at the Fin-de-sicle. scientific revolutions subjection of the male
Manchester: Manchester UP, 2004. Print., Showalter, scientist to a feminized nature, by using the
Elaine. Sexual Anarchy: Gender and Culture at the Fin villainous monster as a representative of the
De Sicle. New York, N.Y., U.S.A.: Viking, 1990.
autonomous and assertive New Woman figure,
Print.
2 Navarette, Susan J. The Shape of Fear: Horror and the
while celebrating textual representatives of the
angel in the house as integral features of a happy
Fin De Sicle Culture of Decadence. Lexington:
and healthy society and family.
University of Kentucky, 1998. Print.
Sara Schoch, 2013. Originally published in Explorations: The UC Davis Undergraduate Research Journal, Vol. 15
(2012). http://UndergraduateResearch.UCDavis.edu/Explorations. The Regents of the University of California.
Shifting Paradigms: Baconian to Darwinian qualities, implicitly placing the male at the
random mercy of a feminized nature, disrupting
The first major shift working to destabilize previous notions of masculine superiority over
masculinity in the nineteenth century was that in the feminine. This greatly impacted male
scientific paradigms from Baconian to Darwinian subjects perceptions of themselves as masterful
thought. Cindy Hendershot discusses this shift in and flawless, subjecting them to the raw and
her chapter on Darwinism and Masculinity in immitigable power of a feminized system. In
The Animal Within, explaining that the Baconian nineteenth century Britains overbearingly
paradigm asserts that the male scientist and his patriarchal society, the implications of a feminine
scientific pursuits are guided and empowered by force wielding power over the male subject were
divine inspiration from God himself. This potentially devastating to masculinity as it
celestial influence allows the male scientist to defined itself by, and derived its power through,
exercise a sense of innate power over nature, its domination over passive femininity.
which Baconianism depicts as a feminine force.
Carolyn Merchant discusses Bacons specific Notions of science and its divine empowerment
feminization of nature in The Death of Nature, of the male subject found themselves in flux as
first citing his textual goal of leading [the male early as 1814 3 and became a significant presence
scientist] to nature with all her children to bind
in Mary and Percy Shelleys own lives, due to the
her to [their] service and make her [their] slave
integral role of their family doctor, Sir William
(Merchant 170). She goes on to retell Bacons Lawrence, in attempting to undermine and
description of matter as a common harlot, and
debunk scientific arguments that electricity and
insistence that the scientist can find truth in
the divine imbued animals with the force of life.
nature and authority over nature by exploring The core point of contention in this debate was
within her deep mines and caves and delving
the antiquated notion that a mysterious,
into the earths bosom (171). Merchant also
superadded forcewas needed to animate life.
explains Bacons characterization of man and his Forward-thinking materialists, such as the
relationship to nature by asserting that nature,
Shelleys doctor were of the professional
by art and the hand of mancan then be forced
opinion that life has its origin in that of [an
out of her natural state and squeezed and organisms] parents, thereby seeing no means of
molded into that which man can use to
abstracting the animating power from the
reconnect to God. Bacons explicit feminization
animal (Butler 305-6). Lawrences highly
of a natural system subordinate to man, yet publicized debate with a colleague took place in
essential in the process of recovering the power
the years immediately preceding Mary Shelleys
over nature lost, and irrefutable connection to
conception of the plot of Frankenstein, and
God, when Adam and Eve were expelled from clearly manifests itself in Victors process of
paradise, demonstrates the dependence of the
creating his monster, making this particular
masculine subject on female inferiority in
scientific debate and shift highly pertinent to the
constituting his powerful masculine identity. formation of her text. This fundamental
disagreement over whether mans scientific
This model was upset by the emerging and
pursuits channel the divine, placing him above a
eventually dominant Darwinian model, described generally feminized nature in the universes
in The Descent of Man, which takes God out of
hierarchy of power, is finally settled in the shift
the equation and asserts that humanity itself is
nothing more than a serendipitous symptom of
biological change, resituating humans as 3Butler, Marilyn. "Frankenstein and Radical
inherently subject to nature and taking away the Science." Frankenstein. Ed. J. P. Hunter. By Mary
scientists ability to seek dominion over her. This Shelley. 1818 ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996.
shift disempowers the male scientist, while 302-13. Print.
continuing to imbue nature with feminine