Browsing by Subject "Gothic revival (Literature)"
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Item Masculinity and the Gothic(Texas Tech University, 1995-12) Hendershot, Cyndy KayThis study explores masculinity in a variety of Gothic texts spanning the 1790s to the I990s. I argue that the Gothic mode works to contaminate realism, i.e., ideological reality, by introducing an unassimilable force. Thus works such as The Monk, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dracula, and The Island of Doctor Moreau all introduce an unassimilable element—daemon, alien, vampire, and Beast People, respectively—which threatens ideological reality by exposing the limits of that reality. I use a Lacanian framework to articulate this unassimilable element as being similar to Lacan's formulation of the objet petit a. My project focuses on one particular Western ideological category, traditional masculinity, and the Gothic's treatment of that category. I focus on ways in which the Gothic reveals the tension between the historical experience of men and women and the myth of masculinity as whole and dominant, rather than concealing the fissures that threaten to expose the male subject as a subject like the female one, one lacking and incapable of ever achieving wholeness and mastery: the female subject position is the Symbolic condition all subjects from a Lacanian viewpoint. The first section of my study, "Masculinity and the Body," establishes crucial issues regarding masculinity, heterosexuality, and the body, and the representation of them in Gothic texts. In the first chapter of this section I discuss The Monk, Dracula, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers. In the second chapter of this section I explore The Italian, Psycho, and Dressed to Kill. After establishing key issues of the Gothic and masculinity in the first section, which examines texts ranging from the late eighteenth century to the present, I focus my attention on a particular historical period, the nineteenth century, examining both nineteenth-century texts and twentieth-century representations of the nineteenth century. Part Two is entitled "Masculinity and Science." In the first chapter of this section I analyze Frankenstein, "The Birth-mark," and "Rappaccini's Daughter." In the second chapter I examine "Green Tea," The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde, and "Olalla." Section Three of my study explores masculinity and imperialism. The first chapter of this section focuses on The Is/and of Doctor Moreau, "The Speckled Band," and Heart of Darkness. The second chapter of this section examines Jane Eyre, "The Villa Désirée," and Wide Sargasso Sea. The concluding chapter of my dissertation focuses on The Piano and its attempt to (re)vision the Gothic and its exploration of masculinity for a late-twentieth-century audience.