Is Northanger Abbey really a parody?

When it comes to horror, writers like Stephen King, James Herbert and H.P. Lovecraft are probably some of the first to spring to mind, but women have been at the centre of horror since horror began.

It was eighteen year old Mary Shelley who penned Frankenstein, and Carmilla was terrorizing young maidens in their beds a quarter of a century before Dracula washed up on the Whitby shore. The protagonists of Gothic novels are primarily young women trapped in eerie houses with limited and frightening prospects, and it’s a trope that continues to influence us, from the Alien franchise’s Ellen Ripley to Edith Cushing, the heroine of Guillermo del Toro’s latest film, Crimson Peak.

Needless to say, there’s no shortage of women in horror, whether they be in the starring roles or the orchestrator of all that chaos.

Though most famous for her comedy of manners stories, Austen’s first completed novel, Northanger Abbey, was a parody of the Gothic novels she was most likely reading at the time. Pride and Prejudice is widely considered to be Austen’s masterpiece, but personally I’ve always preferred the story of the young, obsessive reader who lets her imagination get the better of her.

‘Silly’ is a word I often see thrown about when describing Catherine, and to be honest I think it's unfair. Catherine is naïve, gullible and imaginative, but never silly. You see, I’m not sure that Northanger Abbey really is a parody.

Catherine’s no saint; she makes (some rather hurtful) assumptions that lead to embarrassing consequences, making her, like all of Austen’s heroines, an ancestor of today’s Bridget Joneses and Carrie Bradshaws. Upon first meeting General Tilney, Catherine casts him as the villain in her own personal story. He’s the cold, calculating man who so values wealth that poor, dowerless Catherine is certain she’ll never be able to marry his son, Henry, unless the two of them romantically run off into the sunset.

Naturally she’s surprised when the General invites her to his home, Northanger Abbey, and the Gothic fangirl in Catherine simply can’t resist the opportunity to stay in a place that sounds as though it belongs in one of her favourite novels. Unfortunately, the Gothic fangirl in Catherine also comes to the conclusion that the General murdered his wife. Oh dear.

Ultimately Catherine learns her lesson and resolves not to let herself get carried away by the novels she loves. She and Henry marry and have a baby, leaving Catherine in a state of domestic bliss as the novel comes to a close.

That’s all well and good, but there’s more to this novel than a young girl learning from her mistakes. It’s true that Catherine is wrong about the General murdering his wife, but she isn’t wrong about him. The General proves to be a villain not only in the way he treats Catherine, but in the way he treats his own family; Henry himself admits that while his father is no murderer, his mother was so unloved that the General’s treatment of her certainly hastened her arrival at the pearly gates.

Northanger Abbey is haunted in much the same way that Thornfield Hall and Manderley are; Rebecca de Winter might not be visible, but she is very present throughout Rebecca, and Bertha Mason quite literally haunts the attic of Thornfield, so much so that the servants mistake her for a ghost. Mrs Tilney’s rooms are closed up and disused, as though the very memory of her has been banished to a solitary part of the house. Northanger Abbey is a living museum of domestic unhappiness.

There may not be murder, scandal or supernatural creatures in Northanger Abbey, unlike many of the other pre-Victorian examples of Gothic literature, such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Matthew Lewis’s The Monk, but there is a quieter horror at work here that would have seemed much more real to Austen and the other women of her day.

Mrs Tilney’s fate was one which befell many women whose husbands married them for their wealth alone, and then treated them like breeding mares. Just like today, many marriages during the Regency period would have been happy ones, but the unhappy ones were very unhappy. Back then women had even less rights than today; they couldn’t vote, often weren’t granted a divorce when they were brave enough to seek one, and signed over everything they owned to their husbands when they were married.

Catherine may read the situations around her through a Gothic lens, but the conclusion she comes to - that General Tilney is a villain (of sorts) - is ultimately correct. She recognises that Mrs Tilney was the victim of a miserable marriage, and in doing so Austen rewards her with a happy one of her own.

Sci-Fi Month | Is Alien Gothic?

Sci-Fi Month is hosted by Rinn @ Rinn Reads, and this year I'm participating!

Alien is probably one of the most iconic sci-fi films of all time, but is it also a Gothic story? Well, I would argue it is!

(If you've never seen Alien and you want to, I recommend you watch it before you read this because I will be talking about things that will spoil the ending for you!)

The rise of Gothic literature began in the latter half of the 18th century, with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764, being regarded as the very first Gothic novel. Gothic has stayed around ever since, becoming hugely popular during the Victorian period; proven by the popularity of Penny Dreadfuls, and the publication of staples of Gothic literature such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Even before the Victorian period there was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, published in 1818, and earlier still was the work of Ann Radcliffe, author of books such as The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797).

Even Jane Austen had a go at the Gothic novel in her somewhat tongue-in-cheek friendly parody, Northanger Abbey. Though it was one of the last novels of hers to be published, it was the first one she wrote, and something of a homage to much of the Gothic literature Austen was probably reading at the time.

Later, in the 20th century, Southern Gothic emerged as a new strand of American literature; stories which took place in the American South, and include authors such as William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy and Anne Rice.

Today we have contemporary Gothic, and tributes to the older work of a genre that we simply haven't let go of. Shows like Penny Dreadful are proof of how much we still love Gothic, and Guillermo del Toro's latest film, Crimson Peak, is a homage to all of those Gothic stories that have inspired him since childhood.

That's all well and good, Jess, but where the hell does Alien come into all of this?

Well reader, let me explain!

Something can only really exist as a genre if there are tropes and similarities between the various stories. Jane Eyre is Gothic, but Agnes Grey is not, and yet both of them are Victorian novels about the life of a governess. So what makes one Gothic while the other is not?

Gothic saw the rise of the monster in literature - from Frankenstein to Carmilla to The Were-Wolf - but the setting is also incredibly important to a Gothic novel. You're not about to open a Gothic novel that's set in a quaint little country bakery, or in a busy, bustling city centre; isolation is vital to a Gothic novel, as is a character who must be isolated and, perhaps most importantly, threatened.

Naturally, that isolated, threatened character, more often than not, is a vulnerable and (probably) virginal young lady. She's Jane Eyre in Thornfield Hall; Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey; Emily St. Aubert in Udolpho; Mrs de Winter in Manderley; Ellen Ripley in Nostromo.

There's a lot of cross-over between Gothic and horror, though the two aren't the same. In Drew Goddard and Joss Whedon's brilliant 2012 film The Cabin in the Woods, they talk about the archetypes in horror - The Whore, The Athlete, The Scholar, The Fool, The Virgin - and how it is always The Virgin who either survives or dies last. This idea translates to Alien, too, and it must be one that's been influenced by the pool of Gothic heroines from the 18th century and beyond. By the end of the movie Ripley is the only survivor from the Nostromo, starting a franchise that has given us one of the best action heroines in film history, but only after she's fought her way free from the Nostromo and the monster lurking inside it.

The Nostromo might not be a manor house, but it's certainly an isolated, claustrophobic setting. After all, where is more isolated than outer space? The Alien might not be as sophisticated as Dracula or as tragic as Frankenstein's Monster, but she's still become one of the most famous monsters around. Ellen Ripley might not be defenceless and innocent in the same way someone like Catherine Morland is, but she's certainly a descendent of those earlier Gothic heroines; a mixture of vulnerability and capability, and downright determination, that have made her one of the most genuine heroines to come out of '70s movies.

So, is Alien Gothic? Yes - and it's brilliant!

Classics & Contemporaries | Victorian Vampires

Happy Halloween!

This month in Classics & Contemporaries we're going to explore  a section of the spooky genre that is Victorian Gothic, one of my personal favourites. I did an entire module on Victorian Gothic at university and I loved it, so I've been looking forward to this installment!

When it comes to Victorian Gothic there are some very famous pieces of literature; Bram Stoker's Dracula, Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights just to name a few. Today, however, I've opted to explore some of the lesser known, but equally fabulous, pieces of Victorian Gothic fiction out there.

So today we're going to look at some vampire stories, and neither of them are Dracula!

First published in 1871 (that's right - before Dracula!), J. Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla tells the story of Laura, a young girl who lives in Styria with her retired, widowed father, who has been looking forward to a visit from Bertha Rheinfeldt, the niece of her father's friend. Her father receives a letter from his friend, General Spielsdorf, informing the two of them that Bertha has died under mysterious circumstances which he will soon discuss with Laura's father in more detail.

Disappointed that she will have no companion, Laura's prayers are answered when a carriage accident outside their home leaves a young girl, around Laura's age, in their care. The girl introduces herself as Carmilla, and she and Laura immediately bond when the two of them recognise each other from a strange dream they both claim to have had during their childhood.

Carmilla and Laura grow intimately close, but as the months wear on it is clear there is more to Carmilla than meets the eye.

First thing's first: Carmilla is more of a novella than a novel, my edition is only 108 pages long, so whether you feel intimidated by classics or not I highly recommend giving it a try, especially at this time of year. It's one of my favourite classics, and has one of the most exquisite last lines of any story ever. I love it!

There are plenty of reasons to read Carmilla; it's a pre-Dracula example of vampirism in literature, and when it comes to monsters in literature the Victorian era is possibly the best era to start your exploration; because of the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Victorian society was terrified by the prospect of devolution. If people really had evolved from apes, did that mean they could revert back to an animalistic state? Was devolution responsible for criminals, homosexuals and over-ambitious women?

Carmilla is beautifully written and utterly haunting, and the relationship between Carmilla and Laura is both fascinating and tragic.

But if you don't feel ready to tackle any 19th century fiction just yet, there's a piece of historical fiction that's perfect for this time of year!

First published in 1999, Sarah Waters' Affinity tells the story of Margaret Prior, a woman who is recovering from a suicide attempt following the death of her beloved father. She decides to volunteer at the nearby women's prison, Millbank, as part of her rehabilitive charity work, where she works as a companion to the inmates. She speaks with them, listens to their stories and their troubles, and is discouraged from growing close to any of them.

One woman in particular, however, intrigues her. Selina Dawes claims to be a spiritualist who has found herself in prison after one of her séances led to the death of one woman and the deep disturbance of another. Though Margaret is initially sceptical of Selina's claims, she slowly becomes enamoured by this mysterious, enchanting woman.

But is Selina all that she appears to be?

Obviously there are many differences between Carmilla and Affinity, the most obvious being that there are no vampires in Affinity! But there are many similarities between them. They are both beautifully written, both claustrophobic and gothic, and both set in the 19th century. I have mentioned Sarah Waters in Classics & Contemporaries before - here! - as an author well known for her LGBT historical fiction, and Affinity is no different. Margaret and Seline's sexuality is not shied away from at all throughout the novel; in fact if you're a lover of historical fiction who would like to see more LGBT characters in the books you read I highly recommend giving her work a try if you haven't already. The majority of Waters' novels include LGBT characters in lead roles, perhaps her most famous works being Fingersmith and Tipping the Velvet.

Similarly, if you'd like to see more LGBT characters in your classics then Carmilla is the ideal book for you! It's often described as 'the lesbian vampire story', though whether or not that description is true is debatable; there are certainly elements of the homoerotic throughout the text, but I would be surprised if Le Fanu himself meant it as an LGBT text.

All the same, if Affinity interests you then there's no reason you wouldn't enjoy Carmilla!

Next we have an even shorter and even lesser known 19th century vampire story...

Robert Louis Stevenson is no stranger to the Victorian Gothic genre. He is perhaps most famous for The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Treasure Island, but during his life he also wrote many short stories, and many of those short stories were spooky and included elements of the gothic and fantastical.

Olalla is one such story. First published in 1885, Olalla tells the story of a nameless English soldier who is recovering from his injuries received in the Peninsular War. Still weak, his doctor advises him to stay with a once noble Spanish family, consisting of a mother and her two children: her son, Felipe, and her mysterious daughter, Olalla.

Our narrator feels welcome and comfortable in his temporary home, although he believes his hostess and her son to be slothful and dim-witted, but something seems odd. Though he hears of Olalla he does not see her, and each night when he goes to sleep he hears wild noises as though he were staying in a mad house.

When he finally meets Olalla he discovers that, unlike her mother and brother, she is extraordinarily intelligent and the two of them fall deeply in love with one another. He wishes to take her away from her home, but when he cuts his wrist on some glass while trying to orchestrate their escape, Olalla's family have an incredibly strong reaction to his blood...

Olalla is a very interesting piece of gothic fiction in that it is still being debated as to whether or not it is a vampire story or a werewolf story, for there are strong cases for both. After all, it wasn't only vampires that were popular in Victorian Gothic fiction - werewolves, ghosts and monsters were also very popular!

Just as Carmilla explores the idea of devolution, in Olalla we have an idea common in Victorian vampire fiction: fallen noble families with bad blood. In Olalla it is implied that Olalla's mother and brother, and indeed Olalla herself, are the way they are because they are the product of years and years of inbreeding. This idea of tainted nobility can also be seen in Dracula, the most famous vampire story in history, and it can even be seen in more modern incarnations of the vampire story such as Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque's American Vampire graphic novel series, where a new breed of vampire is able to survive beneath the sun and threatens the existence of vampires who are stuck in their bourgeoisie-esque ways.

But for a 21st century recommendation, I've turned to YA!

Sarah Beth Durst's Drink, Slay, Love is a fun standalone about 16 year old Pearl, a classic vampire - she's allergic to the sun, loves blood and really quite evil - who is stabbed through the heart by a unicorn. Naturally, her family, who just so happen to be the vampire mafia, think she's been attacked by a vampire hunter - because unicorns don't exist! - but what really shocks them, and Pearl, is that she's suddenly able to withstand the sun. In fact, she's slowly becoming less and less vampiric.

Never to waste an opportunity, especially with the Vampire King coming to visit, Pearl's family decide to make use of her new 'talents' and send her to high school. Why? For dinner, of course. But can Pearl really feed her family, and the King, her newfound friends when she's slowly starting to develop a conscience? And does she really have a choice? Because if she doesn't offer up her classmates, she's dead meat anyway...

Drink, Slay, Love is nothing like its 19th century fear-mongering ancestors, but there's certainly elements of the early vampires within the story even when they are being parodied. Like Olalla, Drink, Slay, Love plays on this idea of old, intimidating families who are as threatening to each other as they are to outsiders.

Obviously there are more differences than similarities here - there's a unicorn, for heaven's sake! - but if you enjoy this brilliantly bizarre and self-aware novel, then I don't see why you won't enjoy a 19th century short story.

As always, I hope this has been an interesting installment of Classics & Contemporaries! Happy Halloween!

Classics and Contemporaries!

I love a good classic, but I'd be a big, fat liar if I said I wasn't intimidated by some of them. Les Misérables is so big that just the thought of reading it makes me break out into a cold sweat, and Thomas Hardy sends me to sleep, but there are some fantastic stories out there that don't get read because some readers are wary of classics.

If you're one such reader, I don't blame you! If you're introduced to classics in the wrong way you can hate them forever - I, for example, cannot bring myself to enjoy The Great Gatsby because I had to study it in school - but I want to share my love of classics with you and show you another way of getting into them without diving into the deep end!

How? Simple! I'm currently working on five posts in which I have compiled a collection of modern day fiction alongside a collection of classics. Despite being written perhaps hundreds of years apart in some cases, these novels include much of the same themes, characters and/or settings; my hope is that if the modern read interests you, perhaps the classic will, too!

In each post I'll be talking about two classics and their contemporary recommendations. I've divided them all into themes: Romance; Social Commentary; Children's Fiction; Gothic and Science Fiction. These themes mainly apply to the classics rather than the contemporary pieces, but like I said there are still a lot of similarities between them. I've tried to be as diverse as possible with my picks, but the majority of my classics are pieces of Victorian Literature, purely because it's my favourite there are so many different strands of it.

So if this sounds like fun - I hope it does! - look out for the first post, where I'll be talking about Romance, next month! From there, I'll post a different one each month until the end of the year.

See you then!

J.

Frankenstein's New Heroine!

Pemberley Digital, the company behind web series "The Lizzie Bennet Diaries", "Emma Approved" and "Welcome to Sandition", is teaming up with PBS Digital Studios to step away from the fluffier side of Romantic Literature, and delve into the Gothic by creating web series "Frankenstein M.D.": an adaptation of Mary Shelley's famous novel.

That's already cool, right? Frankenstein is one of my favourite classics - in fact it's one of my favourite novels period - so I'm already pleased, but Pemberley and PBS are making this particular adaptation even better.

How? Well, the main character of this particular adaptation is Victoria Frankenstein. Victoria is described as: "an obsessive, eccentric prodigy determined to prove herself in the male-dominated fields of science and medicine." That's right. This adaptation is blessing us with a female lead!

Am I excited? Hell yeah I am!

Some people might think there's no need to genderbend the main character of such a classic (and you can guarantee most of those people will be men) but actually this is an adaptation which really, truly suits a female lead.

Upon writing Frankenstein, 18 year old Mary Shelley basically created the genre that is modern day Science Fiction, and yet today it's a predominantly male orientated genre. My hope is that this series breathes life back into the roots of Sci-Fi, and encourages women everywhere to feel welcome in the genre.

All hail Mary Shelley: the mother of Sci-Fi and all-round bad-ass!