A-Level English Literature OCR Presentation of Women in the Gothic - 30/30 (A*)
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Course
Literature post-1900
Institution
OCR
In Gothic writing, women are presented either as innocent victims or sinister predators, or are significantly absent (30 marks).
I achieved 3o/30 for this essay.
In Gothic writing, women are presented either as innocent victims or sinister predators,
or are significantly absent (30 marks).
In the Gothic genre, women are polarised as either innocent victims, sinister predators or
appear to be significantly absent. They are characterised as such through their voluntary actions
and their interactions with other characters. Sigmund Freud examines the idea that female
characterisation is by virtue of the author’s own feelings and desires (the idea of repressed
desires reflected in predatory women). Stoker’s 1897 ‘Dracula’ and Daphne du Maurier’s
‘Rebecca’ explore these polarisations.
In ‘Dracula’, Mina Harker is portrayed as an innocent victim of both Dracula and the denouncing
and degrading critiques she receives from the male characters. While Stoker evidently gives a
voice to the fairly-respected Mina, it is curious to consider her lack of true character as Stoker’s
method of conforming to traditional gender roles at the time. Although Mina contributes to the
investigation of Count Dracula, feminist Judith Butler may argue that Mina is attempting to
perform a masculine role, and this undermines her states and respectability, as showcased by
Van Helsing, who claims that Mina has a “man’s brain”. Traditionally, women are expected to
conform to a passive, domestic role that does not challenge the patriarchy, this perhaps being
the reason that Mina is denounced by the men and presented as an innocent victim. In
‘Rebecca’, the narrator similarly finds herself adopting the role of an innocent victim as she is
subject to verbal abuse from Mrs Danvers and unprovoked isolation from her husband - Maxim.
While du Maurier wrote ‘Rebecca’ in the 20th century, she did not restrict her own bias from
being entrenched in her novel. Du Maurier found herself a victim of jealousy and uncertainty in
regards to her husband’s love for her. In this way, much like Mina, the narrator’s role as an
innocent victim is characterised by her interactions with other characters and character
reactions to their mannerisms.
In ‘Dracula’, Lucy Westenra is illustrated as a sinister predator that conducts herself largely for
her own purpose and benefit. As set in the 19th century, Lucy’s unconventional character
evoked fear within Stoker’s literary consumers, her rash and almost animalistic nature
challenging a very religious society at the time of publication. While Lucy may not embody
Stoker’s own desires, she may reflect Stevension’s ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr
Hyde’, in that within Lucy’s polar character of a metaphorical ‘angel fallen from grace’, she
manages two other polars - one being conducting herself as her demonic self and the second
being the lack of true control she maintains of her actions. As Lucy is a sinister and menacing
slave of Dracula, this may have caused a 19th century audience to fear the invasion of events
inexplicable by religion and instead entrenched within a subversion of traditional social norms.
Similarly, the titular character of ‘Rebecca’ is heavily demonised and criminalised due to her
unconventional promiscuity and voluptuousness - much like Lucy. Rebecca is not only a source
of spite for the novel’s characters, but also the readers themselves. While the 20th century is
argued by Simone de Beouvieour to be a time in which feminism thrived, women of Rebecca
and Lucy’s characterisation still found themselves deemed as inhumane or severely ill - the
conventions of gender remained as an ever-present social inequality that may have caused
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