A recurrent motif in Gothic fiction, the doppelganger or double has
both symbolic and psychoanalytical implications. In the case of the former,
the duplication or division of a character may serve to emphasize
polemically the moral dilemmas or social disparities around which a didactic
or cautionary narrative may revolve—for example, the fate of one
who resists temptation, as opposed to one who succumbs to it; or, the
lifestyle enjoyed by a character born into privilege, set against the parallel
experience of another raised in poverty. In psychoanalysis, the motif may
emblematize the polarity of the unrestrained id against its ego and superego
counterparts. Thus, the doppelganger may become, variously, a figure
that enacts taboo desires, a seeker of arcane knowledge, or one who
pursues the drive of thanatos rather than that of eros. In both symbolic
and psychoanalytical incarnations (though these demarcations are, inevitably,
capable of definition as much by the critic as the author), the double
may be formed by duplication (where two entities effectively parallel
each other’s actions) or division (where a character is split, physically or
psychologically, into two alternating personalities). Situations such as
disguise, cross dressing, or mistaken identity may also produce contextual
implications that are analogous to doubling.
Hughes, W. (2012) Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature
Wednesday 9 October 2019
Friday 4 October 2019
Abjection
The concept of the Abject, theorized by the French critic Julia Kristeva (1941–) in Powers of Horror (1980, trans. 1982), represents a significant advance over the binary logic of self and other that is characteristic of earlier psychoanalysis.
Conventional psychoanalytic thought proposes the oppositional integrity of subject and object, thus maintaining a number of apparently logical mental boundaries between the two. Kristeva’s theory, however, sees the subject and the object not merely as terms locked in opposition to each other, but also as discrete identities in and of themselves. This reconfiguration has an inevitably radical effect on the boundaries through which the self effectively demarcates itself from its other. In questioning the reassuring wholeness and integrity of ego-identity, abjection effectively erodes these borders, and thus proposes that the other, the taboo, the desired but dangerous, may already form part of the self.
Kristeva suggests, moreover, that there exists a tense relationship between the body and the mind, and that certain excretions and secretions from the former cause psychological distress within the latter quite simply because they are graphic reminders of how the self and the other are intimate. The body, as it were, is constantly engaged in abjecting—that is, repelling or rejecting—substances from out of its illusory wholeness. Yet those substances are, or have been until recently, part of the living tissue of the self and are intimately engaged in its survival or reproduction: their retention in certain circumstances, however, is traumatic, and in many cases pathologically dangerous in a literal or physiological sense. The classical abject excretions of the body include, in no order of precedence, blood (which has long been regarded as subject to religious and moral taboos), tears, saliva, and perspiration.
Conventional psychoanalytic thought proposes the oppositional integrity of subject and object, thus maintaining a number of apparently logical mental boundaries between the two. Kristeva’s theory, however, sees the subject and the object not merely as terms locked in opposition to each other, but also as discrete identities in and of themselves. This reconfiguration has an inevitably radical effect on the boundaries through which the self effectively demarcates itself from its other. In questioning the reassuring wholeness and integrity of ego-identity, abjection effectively erodes these borders, and thus proposes that the other, the taboo, the desired but dangerous, may already form part of the self.
Kristeva suggests, moreover, that there exists a tense relationship between the body and the mind, and that certain excretions and secretions from the former cause psychological distress within the latter quite simply because they are graphic reminders of how the self and the other are intimate. The body, as it were, is constantly engaged in abjecting—that is, repelling or rejecting—substances from out of its illusory wholeness. Yet those substances are, or have been until recently, part of the living tissue of the self and are intimately engaged in its survival or reproduction: their retention in certain circumstances, however, is traumatic, and in many cases pathologically dangerous in a literal or physiological sense. The classical abject excretions of the body include, in no order of precedence, blood (which has long been regarded as subject to religious and moral taboos), tears, saliva, and perspiration.
Orifices are especially significant in this context, because they are themselves abject, being both part of the body and an entry into (or out of) its integrity—they represent, in other words, the very fragility of the boundary of self in such a way that unbroken skin could never. The boundaries that separate life and death are themselves psychoanalytically abject: the moment of birth is saturated with fluids and excretions, the child itself being one of these at the moment of its emergence, neither an independent being nor an unequivocal part of the mother.
Death, too, brings dissolution and a gateway into another state of being, be it an afterlife or extinction. When the corpse decomposes, of course, the perceiver is reminded that he or she, too, is corrupt, destined to dissolution, a potential source of disgust or infection for those who themselves will, in turn, eventually perceive the dead and abject self. There is more to the abject, therefore, than a simple reflex of distaste or disgust. Dracula, for example, is particularly concerned with the dissolution of boundaries, and its specific focus on blood as an icon of individual, racial, and sexual identity makes Bram Stoker’s novel a frequent reference point in criticism.
Hughes, W. (2012) Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature. Plymouth: The Scarecrow Press
Wednesday 2 October 2019
The Uncanny
The colloquial meaning of the word uncanny—denoting that which is supernatural or merely mysterious by known standards—has been eclipsed in Gothic criticism by a specific Freudian deployment of the term. In a 1919 essay titled “Das Unheimliche” (“The Uncanny”), Sigmund
Freud (1856–1939) distinguishes between the Heimlich (literally, “the homely,” and by implication, the familiar) and the Unheimlich (literally, “the unhomely,” and usually translated from the German as “the uncanny”).
The latter is capable of inducing fear precisely because it is not known or familiar to the perceiver, though Freud extends the range of fearfulness by suggesting that unknown (and thus fearful) things may lie concealed within the most familiar of environments, institutions, and individuals.
Thus, the Unheimlich may be an ambivalent, possibly occluded but certainly frightening, aspect or component of the Heimlich.
The Unheimlich is a concept that is widely applied in modern Gothic criticism because of the genre’s historical associations with the representation of concealment and deceit, its frequent recourse to dramatic modifications in character or behavior, and its effective interposition of the supernatural or the marvelous as a functional presence in the supposedly normal world.
Arguably, the most Unheimlich institution of all is the human body— always on display and yet concealing not merely its mechanisms but its projected disorders also. The body’s uneasy oscillation between health and illness, life and death, and its liminal status as nominally part of humanity yet individual in its destiny, also align it psychoanalytically with the whole mechanism of abjection.
Freud (1856–1939) distinguishes between the Heimlich (literally, “the homely,” and by implication, the familiar) and the Unheimlich (literally, “the unhomely,” and usually translated from the German as “the uncanny”).
The latter is capable of inducing fear precisely because it is not known or familiar to the perceiver, though Freud extends the range of fearfulness by suggesting that unknown (and thus fearful) things may lie concealed within the most familiar of environments, institutions, and individuals.
Thus, the Unheimlich may be an ambivalent, possibly occluded but certainly frightening, aspect or component of the Heimlich.
The Unheimlich is a concept that is widely applied in modern Gothic criticism because of the genre’s historical associations with the representation of concealment and deceit, its frequent recourse to dramatic modifications in character or behavior, and its effective interposition of the supernatural or the marvelous as a functional presence in the supposedly normal world.
Arguably, the most Unheimlich institution of all is the human body— always on display and yet concealing not merely its mechanisms but its projected disorders also. The body’s uneasy oscillation between health and illness, life and death, and its liminal status as nominally part of humanity yet individual in its destiny, also align it psychoanalytically with the whole mechanism of abjection.
Hughes, W. (2012) Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature. Plymouth: The Scarecrow Press
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