Essay
Gothic Comparative Essay 29/30 (A*)
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An A* essay on the theme of shock comparing the gothic texts The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
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Amelia CastledineGothic writing often utilises various tropes to shock their audience, such as violence, sexual
taboo and the supernatural. This shock provides a vehicle to discuss wider themes. The
Bloody Chamber utilises violence and sexuality to question the place of women within
society and subvert the expectation of women within the gothic genre as a part of the
modern and female gothic canon. Comparatively, The Picture of Dorian Gray utilises
violence and the discussion of homosexuality to shock its Victorian audience, often using
Victorian sensationalism and melodrama simultaneously. Both texts utilise the supernatural
to shock their audiences and make commentary on human nature.
Sexual taboo is used to shock in Dorian Gray through allusions to homosexuality. These
allusions were originally more explicit but were edited out by Dorian Gray after backlash
from Victorian society, where homosexuality was illegal. Despite this, the allusions to
homosexuality across the novel are not subtle, particularly in Basil and Dorian’s relationship,
where Basil declares “I worship you” to Dorian. Other characters in the novel also note the
sexual ambiguity of Dorian's male friendships as Lord Henry asks “why is your friendship so
fatal to young men?” The inclusion of homosexuality in the novel was shocking for the time
of the book's publication in the late Victorian period. However, Oscar Wilde’s also stated
“Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I
would like to be—in other ages, perhaps,” the inclusion of homosexuality therefore may
have been a simultaneous reflection of Wilde’s sexuality, which he was later prosecuted for,
and a desire to shock his Victorian readership. This reflected on by Jeffrey Myers who stated
“the novel is really about the jealousy and pain, the fear and guilt of being homosexual.”
Carter similarly explores sexual taboos across many of the stories in The Bloody Chamber
most shockingly and explicitly in The Snow Child. The story depicts necrophilia between a
Count and the supernatural manifestation of his desires, a young girl, in explicit detail, when
he “thrust[s] his virile member into the dead girl.” This is deeply shocking but it is through
the use of taboo and shocking her audience that Carter is able to make her commentary on
relationships. The Bloody Chamber relies on the subversion of traditional fairy tales and
within this shocking, it’s audience often with sexual acts, perhaps a product of the second
Wave feminist movement which was popular at the time of the novel’s publishing which
was concerned with women’s social-sexual repression. Some, however, criticise this as
Bacchilega compares the Snow Child to “a masculine fantasy”, this is further reflective of the
influence of the Marquis De Sade on Carter, which was highly unpopular in feminist circles.
Both texts, however, effectively use sexual taboo to shock their audience and contribute to
the gothic atmosphere of the texts.
The use of violence to shock appears across both texts. The Bloody chamber focuses on
violence in a gendered form, often commenting on the violence inflicted by men on their
partners, another concern of the Second Wave feminist movement prominent at the time of
publication. In the short story The Bloody Chamber, the unnamed protagonist discovers the
bodies of the Marquis’ three previous wives on what could be described as his literal
“bloody chamber.” The description of violence are detailed as shocking as the protagonist
discovers a wife in an Iron Maiden with her face construed in a “rictus of pain” stabbed by
hundreds of “spikes” and a “pool of blood.” While the discovery of the chamber is
foreshadowed to the reader the detailed descriptions of violence enacted by the Marquis on
his wives remains shocking, heightened by the realisation of the narrator's likely fate –
alluded to by her ruby choker. Contrastingly in The Lady of The House of Love, women are
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