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This monograph is an original project which plots the trajectory of the maternal gaze as a convention in the Gothic. It offers new directions for Gothic studies by exposing and challenging a critical and cultural myopia towards the capabilities of maternal desire, and in doing so engages with a range of texts from the Romantic to contemporary literary and visual cultures to locate a tyrannical maternal gaze in the genre. Compelling a seismic shift in the perception of the genre as the embodiment of patriarchy and the sexually violent male gaze, this is a new and unexplored area of both the Gothic and criticism of the genre, which has historically privileged the Oedipal paternal tyrant/female victim dynamic established in the Romantic Gothics of Walpole and Radcliffe. The monograph fills significant gaps in the Gothic academic publishing market. It is the first overview of the maternal gaze in the Gothic, it offers in-depth studies of previously neglected authors and their works, and it fundamentally changes how we see the Gothic mother/figure and child, both as a single entity and discrete tropes. The Maternal Gaze in the Gothic examines how articulations of maternal visual tyrannies in the Gothic-including kidnapping; incarcerating; gaslighting, hurting and killing the child under the guises of protection-are ignored by both the Gothic critical heritage and also feminist gaze theory. This book is a must read for those interested in the Gothic and Feminism alike.
List of contents
Chapter 1. Introduction - The Maternal Gaze in the Gothic.- Part 1: The Gothic Heritage.- Chapter 2. The Gothic and Maternal Symbolism in the works of J.S. Le Fanu and Bram Stoker.- Chapter 3. "The more I saw the less they would": Subverting Hysteria and Surveillance in The Turn of the Screw, The Others and The Orphanage.- Part 2: Gothic Practices.- Chapter 4. Seeing is Believing: Spiritualism, Psychic Photography and the Maternal Gaze.- Chapter 5. "Taken From Life": Memorial Portraiture, Divine Death and the Virgin Mary in the Photography of Julia Margaret Cameron.- Part 3: The Gothic Domestic.- Chapter 6. Guilty Pleasures: Incest and the Pre-Oedipal Maternal Tangle in Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations, Virginia Andrews' Dollanganger Saga and Misery Literature.- Chapter 7. The Maternal Gaze and the Gothic Abyss of the Internet.
About the author
Sara Williams is an independent scholar in the field of English Literature with an emphasis on Gothic literature and film. Her research focuses on relationships between trauma, voyeurism and consumption in the maternal Gothic and she has published a variety of reviews, articles, chapters; a critical edition. She is currently co-editing a collection The Crazy Cat Lady and the Gothic.
Summary
This monograph is an original project which plots the trajectory of the maternal gaze as a convention in the Gothic. It offers new directions for Gothic studies by exposing and challenging a critical and cultural myopia towards the capabilities of maternal desire, and in doing so engages with a range of texts from the Romantic to contemporary literary and visual cultures to locate a tyrannical maternal gaze in the genre. Compelling a seismic shift in the perception of the genre as the embodiment of patriarchy and the sexually violent male gaze, this is a new and unexplored area of both the Gothic and criticism of the genre, which has historically privileged the Oedipal paternal tyrant/female victim dynamic established in the Romantic Gothics of Walpole and Radcliffe. The monograph fills significant gaps in the Gothic academic publishing market. It is the first overview of the maternal gaze in the Gothic, it offers in-depth studies of previously neglected authors and their works, and it fundamentally changes how we see the Gothic mother/figure and child, both as a single entity and discrete tropes. The Maternal Gaze in the Gothic examines how articulations of maternal visual tyrannies in the Gothic—including kidnapping; incarcerating; gaslighting, hurting and killing the child under the guises of protection—are ignored by both the Gothic critical heritage and also feminist gaze theory. This book is a must read for those interested in the Gothic and Feminism alike.
