Beauty and the Beast

It's lovely,isn't it--though of course Carter makes something much darker of the base story than Disney. Why do you think that she effectively 'doubles' the story by giving us 'The Courtship of Mr Lyon' as well as 'The Tiger's Bride'? Does she want us to simply know the base story to ring the changes on it? Or is there more to Mr Lyon than there appears to be at first sight?

Remember your question:

“Gothic texts often present a powerful opposition between dominance and submission” Discuss how far you have found this to be the case in any three of the texts you have studied.

Try considering how the repetition of the story strengthens or changes the ideas of dominance and submission...

Of course one other thing that repetition does is strenghtens or changes our preconceptions. One thing that inetrests me is the way that the beast is portrayed. I remember watching an inetresting interview with the animators where they discussed how they had come up with the Disney version--apparently a Wildebeest was a majoy contributor. The picture above seems very leonine, which goes with Mr Lyon (lions are also mentioned in The Tiger's Bride, and of course lions and tigers do interbreed (interesting but ultimately not very useful fact), and are both considered in some sense royal or dignified.


But what if the beast is not very attractive as an animal--if he is really beastly? Look at these illustrations, one by Walter Crane and one by Arthur Rackham. Neither seems to show the beast as particularly attractive as an animal in the way that a tiger or lion might be. How does this affect the story, and the transformation?

I especially like Rackham's rather piggy beast, because the incongruity is so great between his manner and his appearance--the way that he seems to be taking tea in a perfectly civilised manner in a smart suit, making polite conversation, with the head of a wild boar, though Crane's beast has a good deal of appeal as well. He seems to have cornered the market on pathos, looking rather like a sick frog in a ditch, though this is perhaps because of the point in the story from which this is taken. Anyway, neither of them look exactly like romantic heroes, whereas a more leonine or tiger-like beast seems to me to be closer to what human think of as attractive--what do you think?

Questions for Paper 3

For all those of you who want some section B practice, here is a copy of the sample questions. I'm happy to mark any answers to these you want to produce, but do please be aware that first priority in my marking folder goes to those students who turn up to lessons on a regular basis--and if you are at the bottom of the folder it might be a long time before your work becomes a priority. Those who are in lessons have nothing to fear--I'll try and get you back work within a lesson or so.

1. “Gothic texts present good and evil in ways that sometimes seem ambiguous” Discuss this view in relation to any three of the texts that you have been studying

2. “Gothic literature is concerned with portraying complex states of mind in its protagonists” Discuss how far you have found this to be the case in any three of the texts you have studied.

3. Discuss the presentation of evil or wickedness in any three of the texts that you have studied.

4. “Gothic texts rely on sharp contrasts and oppositions” Discuss this view in relation to any three of the texts that you have been studying

5. “Gothic texts often seem to deal with the melodramatic, the extreme, the exaggerated”. Discuss this view in relation to any three of the texts that you have been studying

6. “Gothic texts often rely on powerful imagery to create dramatic effects” Discuss how far you have found this to be the case in any three of the texts you have studied.

7. “Understanding the symbolic realm is key to an understanding of the Gothic; objects or characters in Gothic literature almost always represent something more than they might at first appear” Discuss how far you have found this to be the case in any three of the texts you have studied.

8. Discuss how authors create sympathy for characters that do evil things in any three of the texts that you have studied.

9. “Gothic texts often present a powerful opposition between dominance and submission” Discuss how far you have found this to be the case in any three of the texts you have studied.

10. Explore the presentation of victims in any three of the texts that you have studied.

The Bloody Chamber

I have just found a really interesting site which is rather like this (though with fewer followers--which is a shame, as it deserves more), from a school in Canterbury.

The author has included a rather interesting piece on The Bloody Chamber which might be really helpful if you are working on it--looking closely at some of the key themes and images. Take a look and let me know what you think of it. I've been looking at how it compares to Wuthering Heights--it's quite an interesting comparison.

Macbeth--dark doings

I think it's time I considered Macbeth in this blog. In many ways, one of my favourite plays (certainly the most memorable in many ways--if not the most edifying). One thing that always strikes me in the play is the ways in which images of darkness and light are used in the play. They are there from the first moments, when the thunder and lightning that opens the play introduces the witches, through the frequent invocations of darkness made by both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, to the bloody conclusion of the play, where Macbeth exclaims ‘I gin to be aweary of the sun’. Perhaps more than in any other play by Shakespeare, this dichotomy of light and dark dominates the imagery used throughout by all the major characters.

This sharp differentiation of light and dark, a focus on shadows, as well as a symbolic interpretation of what darkness might represent are all features of later gothic writing. When thinking about Macbeth as a gothic play, it is therefore worth examining how the literal distinction between darkness and light, or night and day, becomes transmuted, throughout the play, into a powerful symbolism that reflects good and evil.

There's a theory that all the scenes take place in darkness, or near-darkness (dawn and dusk). Very gothic. Do you think there's enough evidence to back this idea up?

Truth is stranger than fiction...

Just as I wrote the post below... What do I find? Truly there is nothing new under the sun.

Is Gothic literature the equivalent of today's chicklit?

Just because it is rather focused on alpha males and trembling heroines--and also because it was considered to be not very serious literature at the time of writing. Certainly Mrs Radcliffe was considered to be very 'girly' in its target audience, as Austen points out. Her hero Henry Tilney is seen as being very much a 'new man' in admitting to liking Gothic novels... interesting side question, is Henry Tilney deliberately opposed to the type of the Gothic hero, ot is he a version of one?

When I was at school, back in the dawn of time, we would never have studied Wuthering Heights as a Gothic text, because the Gothic was seen by my teachers to be a little trashy in some ways, though to be fair they had fairly high standards when it came to the canon (certainly we wouldn't have done Frankenstein for GCSE, for instance, that would have been very lowbrow) and to think of a text as a 'gothic novel' would be to diminish its importance as a serious novel. I suppose this is a hangover from the 'follow-ups' to the Gothic, the Victorian 'sensation' novel. Texts such as East Lynne (which inspired Mrs Doubtfire) or Lady Audley's Secret were certainly not the kind of literature you could study for an exam. How things have changed!

You can see this view reflected in Austen's take-off of it in Northanger Abbey, which shows you how long ago I was at school (about 1789), but it lasted for quite a long time. Now, of course, we look at the Brontes and there are plenty of gothic features, and it seems strange to think that such a novel wasn't always in that genre... What do you think?

The Company of Wolves-The Wedding Party

Look everyone--some truly easy gothic revision. Question for discussion--how closely do you think it relates to Angela Carter's real themes?