What did you think of the exam?

Well done, my chickens, you have survived the terrible testing time! I thought the questions were good, especially 'fiend-like queen'! Told you they wouldn't surprise you that much...

Now relax from all English thoughts, and read for pleasure all summer...

Pre-exam session!!!

Be in the hall before the exam for a last-minute revision session to sharpen you up for the real thing... and good luck!

For your pleasure, and to relax please watch this video I have just created. It's not Gothic, but it might take your mind off exams for a few moments (all hits are good hits)

I think a similar one on Paradise Lost might work... what do you think?

The Gothic Heroine, and the female gothic

Ah yes... that damsel in distress (or is she?). The idea of the gothic heroine is one which is often curiously imprecise. If you ask people about it, you will tend to get the response that she is a classic fainting heroine, much given to shrieks and vulnerability. However, if you actually look aty gothic novels, you will often find that the heroines have a fair amount of fiestiness about them.

As you might expect from a genre aimed often at women, gothic heroines display more appealing characters than those of the constant victim. One of the earliest sub-genres of the gothic was what has become known as the Female Gothic. This often aimed to socialize and educate its female readers and was usually morally conservative, tending to discuss ideas about how women 'should' behave. Heroines were often lavishly rewarded for obedience, chastity and submission. However, the female gothic was sometimes used to criticise patriarchal society, and reinforce ideas of female independence--'classic' gothic heroines were often surprisingly capable.

The gothic often investigates gender differences and questions issues of oppression, as you will know from your set texts. Even in Paradise Lost, Sin talks about how gender (or apparent gender!) affects her treatment.
In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth foregrounds the whole issue of what a woman is actually able to do, or should be able to do, and connects it to the morality of men--is it the same, or different?

In Dracula the women, Lucy and Mina, demonstrate not only alarming (for the men) sexuality, but also considerable resolve and independence in asserting some measure of control over their own fate. I always like the comment about how a woman should be able to marry three men at once--is it referencing polygamy or male unfaithfulness, or a comment on female indecisiveness? Might it be possible to see the latent desires of Lucy becoming evident in her transformation, her 'voluptuousness', like that of the vampiresses, simply a way of talking about the disturbing ideas of female sexuality for the Victorian reader? Once you start thinking about this, then the use of the stake through the heart itself becomes something very easily processed in symbolic terms--as Carter realised when she used the 'impaled' image in 'The Bloody Chamber' itself.


In Wuthering Heights, you have the exaggeratedly female in Isabella, and the exaggeratedly male Heathcliff, with their counterparts in the feminised Edgar Linton and the 'masculine' (in terms of freedom and assertion) Cathy (remember how at six she can ride any horse in the stables?) In The Bloody Chamber of course, the ideas and stereotypes of masculinity and femininity are constantly explored. Gothic heroines often have slightly exaggerated features of femininity (eg swooning) so as to heighten this division--and to create a more dramatic effect when they finally gain courage.

A 'classically' gothic heroine will generally start off under the power of men in some respect, often with a villanous guardian who is trying to control her marriage. In symbolic terms, it is interesting how this oppressor is female in a novel such as Jane Eyre, but then becomes male (as Mrs Reed is replaced by the sinister Mr Brocklehurst). Female Gothic works usually include a female protagonist who is pursued and persecuted by a villainous patriarchal figure in unfamiliar settings and terrifying landscape, something that is very easily read in symbolic terms (remember your symbolic stories?)

Despite all the horror and excitement, the female gothic often avoids the more extreme scenes (such as the rape in The Monk, and it often introduces the idea of 'the supernatural explained', where the apparently supernatural happenings are discovered to be fairly natural--perhaps a way of discussing the irrationality of female fears? It might be interesting to link this trope, for instance, to Lady Macbeth's rationalisation of Macbeth's visions: 'this is the air-drawn dagger/ That you said led you to Duncan' (of course she compares his fears literally to a woman's 'fits and starts', through the comparision of a story 'told by a grandam'--a literal old-wives' tale.

Finally, as a reward for reading so far. Here's a gorgeous representation of Satan, sin and death in lego. How exciting is that????!!!

The Gothic Hero

Ah, the Gothic hero--thrilling creature! So very appealing and yet so very naughty, he was the creation of a kind of fiction that was, let us face it dear readers, aimed mainly at the ladies. He is the hero not in the sense that he is heroic, but in the sense that he is the main male characater--like a tragic hero, who may, like Macbeth, not be very heroic in modern terms at all. He is unlikely to rescue kittens from trees.

As such, a gothic hero is a kind of hyper-alpha male. He has some features of the tragic hero--he is the protagionist, we often see things from his point of view, and yet we can also see that he has a fatal flaw (and sometimes more than one). Often, he is a character who battles the forces of good and evil within himself (think of Milton's Satan as the pattern for this kind of hero--we sympathise, we even find him appealing, but we know which choice he ought to make).

The Gothic Hero resembles the Byronic Hero in some respects. He is generally intelligent, perhaps cunning, certainly cynical and self-aware, he is conscious of (and may share with the reader his consciousness of) his own flaws, though this doesn't seem to stop him pursuing his own way. He typically despises convention (may, like Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre, appear to despise conventional moral codes) yet is appealing and even seductive. He will often have a dark secret in his past--his identity, a etrrible thing that he has done or has had done to him--which influences his behaviour.

To put it simply--he is the ultimate rake that women want to reclaim and reform. Heathcliff is a good example. He is selfish and yet wounded, and his vulnerability shows through even his cruellest acts. Remember when he says to Isabella that he is only killing her dog because he's jealous of it? The excuse of abusive relationships down through the centuries echoes in that little exchange. It appeals to herthough, because it offers that little chink of possibility that he is sincere, and that he oves her.

Gothic heroes often have dark secrets in their past. In an early novel such as The Castle of Otranto Manfred is the hero/villain who is battling with his own wicked passions and Theodore is the hero (with the mysterious past)who is true and good and the victim of mistaken identity. In later novels they seem to more often become one and the same person, or more obviously parallel 'splits' of each other.

It's interesting that the Brontes dealt quite firmly with their gothic heroes. Mr Rochester is mutilated and blinded--'tamed'--before Jane can marry him (she rejects his offer of a bigamous marriage, or a liaison outside marriage). Heathcliff dies without ever winning Cathy so that the second generation of lovers may live peaceful lives. In Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the heronine stands up to her abusive husband altogether,and refuses to submit to his treatment--a sort of more feisty Isabella.


Gothic heroes are often made sympathetic; sometimes seen as victims even at their most vicious ('the artrocious lineliness of that monster') and often suffer through events that for others would be seen as good--such as adoption or a respectable marriage (again, think of Heathcliff here). The hero is also often seen as 'animal', at the mercy of his darker instoncts of sexuality, predatory and yet helpless (very Angela Carter). In this way, he can become a sorty of everyman figure, ruled by his passions, yet yearning to be better than that.

Gothic heroes are still popular--just think of Twilight, or Mitchell in Being HumanI quite like Kirstin Miller's take on the idea of the gothic hero. She has some good points!

Powerpoint--and section B questions

It was terrific to see so many pf you at the revision sessions, so thank you for that! I hope it was useful. I have put the section B powerpoint in the shared area, for those of you who would like to look at it again, and I attach the list of section B quiestions from past years.

As I said, I suspect that the gothic hero would be a good line to revise, as well as extremes, shock, horror, terror and all such key terms and ideas. Also, it struck me that they might ask about the gothic being a revolutionary form--which I think would be an interesting question.

Don't forget--lots of practice essays to get you used to the timing, and don't write long introductions for section B--nice short sharp precise address to the question,, mention your texts, then straight onto your first analysis.

Gothic Example Questions for section B

Sample Paper
• 19 ‘Gothic texts show the supernatural intertwined with the ordinary’. Discuss this view in relation to the texts you have been studying.
OR
• 20 ‘Gothic literature is concerned with the breaking of normal moral and social codes’ Discuss.
OR
• 21 ‘If a text is to be labelled as Gothic, it must convey a sense of fear and terror’. Discuss this view in relation to the texts you have been studying.

January 2010
• 19 To what extent do you think gothic literature is characterised by a fascination with death?
OR
• 20 ‘Gothic settings are desolate, alienating and full of menace’. In the light of this comment, consider some of the ways in which writers use settings in the gothic texts you have read.
OR
• 21 Consider the view that gothic writing often explores the powerlessness of humanity when faced with the power of the supernatural.

June 2010
• 1 9 ‘Religion is central to readings of gothic texts’. How far do you agree with this statement?
OR
• 2 0 Consider the view that gothic writing explores the ‘nightmarish terrors’ that lie beneath the orderly surface of the ‘civilised mind’.
OR
• 2 1 ‘In gothic writing, women are presented as either innocent victims or sinister predators or are significantly absent.’ Consider the place of women in gothic writing in the light of this comment.

January 2011
• 1 9 “A melodramatic genre, where extremes of emotion have disastrous consequences.” How far do you agree with this view of writing in the gothic tradition?
OR
• 2 0 Consider the view that literature within the gothic genre is always shocking.
OR
• 2 1 “Characters in gothic writing are haunted by their past mistakes and often have to face terrible consequences.” Discuss some of the characters in the texts you have read in the light of this comment.

Next revision session is on Thursday

It was very good to see so many of you there today--thanks for coming, and I hope it was useful! I have saved the powerpoint from the session in the shared area in the MMC folder, if you want to have another look at it. It also has sample exam questions, if you need some for practice.

Thursday's session will be on section B, and after that there are going to be other revision sessions, as advertised on the English office door:


Thursday 9th June 2pm
Dr McCarthy
Approaching Section B

Friday 10th June 11.15am
Mr Gray
10 things to remember about Macbeth

Monday 13th June 11.15am
Mr Gray
Wuthering Heights and Bloody Chamber

Monday 13th June 1pm
Miss Davies
Approaching Dracula

Tuesday 14th June 1pm
Mr Gray
Need some AO4? Come along.


Thursday 16th June
Exam
I shall probably run a very brief revision 'top up' session just before the exam, as I did last year, to get you into the mood for it--but I'll let you know for sure on Thursday

Macbeth Act 1, Scene 1

Hello my lovelies--look what I found!

entertaining, no?