Humanity, Monstrosity, Gothic Literature Death Essay

Humanity, Monstrosity, Gothic Literature Death by J. Williams The Gothic genre delves into the depths of humanity, where the presence of the horrible and the macabre represent ‘the dark side’ of human nature. Indeed, according to M. H. Abrams, Gothic novelists invited â€Å"fiction to the realm of the irrational and of the perverse impulses and nightmarish terrors that lie beneath the orderly surface of the civilized mind† (111). In such works, unnatural desires and forbidden excesses that are buried and secret in the functioning self, become the monsters lurching around in Gothic lore. Eve Sedgwick expands upon these themes by identifying how the fictional self is â€Å"massively blocked off from something to which it ought normally†¦show more content†¦(112-13) Bertha is also an outcast, although she has known an even sharper degree of oppression, so perhaps it is excusable that she cannot contain her result. She has lost her family, wealth and sanity in the years since becoming Mr. Rochester’s wife. Mr. Rochester acknowledges that Bertha’s madness is due in part to a hereditary disorder concealed from him by her family. However, his depiction of her as â€Å"loose and drunken† suggests that she is also an immoral woman, and ultimately at fault for her monstrous condition. Confined for over ten years in the attic (in lieu of a dungeon) at Thornfield, Bertha has become physically deformed and utterly malevolent. Her wild, unrestrained passion is juxtaposed with Jane’s surface of steady morality. Shut off from the full assertion of thought and feeling that should be her right, Bertha is the monstrous â€Å"double† that powerfully represents what Jane has subdued. Though Bertha must ultimately be destroyed (in a violent fire) to be freed from her tyrannical existence, and for Jane to be united with Mr. Rochester and eventually freed of her own monstrousness, Bertha’s presence in the novel serves as a potent expression for the underlying forces stirring withinShow MoreRelatedFrankenstein, By Mary Shelley Essay1595 Words   |  7 Pagestime. According to John Reider, â€Å"The universal disgust inspired by the creature is coherent with the excess of Frankenstein’s stupidity over mere narcissism† (25). Frankenstein’s narcissism is the real creature in the story. Due to the creatures monstrosity, which was designed by Frankenstein, the creature is automatically looked at with irrational hatred and loathing. Victor refused to take responsibility for his creation because he did not care for it or want to gain a bad reputation. 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