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INTRODUCTION
The Gothic genre is undoubtedly as transgressive as the content that it addresses, it is never completely stable and always under influence from culture and society. Botting, one of the most well know Gothic critic, has defined this genre to the best ability that the nature of the genre allows.
These days it seems increasingly difficult to speak of ‘the Gothic’ with any assurance.[…] adjectives often need to be inserted to supplement the indefinition of the category: ‘the eighteenth century Gothic’, ‘Victorian Gothic’, ‘modern Gothic, and, even, ‘post-modern gothic’, contain reference within a cultural-historical period. Genre appear to confine what was already a subgenre of the developing realistic novel to new subgenres in the shape of ‘female Gothic’, ‘postcolonial Gothic’, ‘queer Gothic’, ‘Gothic science fiction’, ‘urban Gothic’, thereby both classifying it in herms of another category and creating a new hybrid. (Botting, the Gothic; Essays and Studies 2001’Preface: the Gothic’, p.1)
He goes on to write that by searching for the Gothic the only certainties that define it as such is how centuries of Gothic texts have continuously depicted the transgression of natural law, moral law, class/social etiquette and social taboos. Due to the genre being founded and established by these texts, a text that is being considered of a place within the Gothic must incorporate all or most of these themes. The acknowledged first Gothic text is Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764) which paved the way to this genre with a beginning that is just as unstable as its predecessors. Haggerty writes in Gothic Fiction/Gothic Form that ‘Walpole faced all these problems in his attempt to blend the ancient and the modern’ (p.3) therefore it can be said with a degree of conviction that a text that is part of the Gothic must deal with this duality it some way, which the Harry Potter novels explore through Rowling’s co-existing magical and non-magical worlds.
Over time, this genre has played an important role in the growth and changes of society, enabling the silent citizen a carefully guarded and masked voice in public, as well as giving the public figure an allegorical outlet for anxiety for topics that would be otherwise too controversial to publish, for fear of tarnishing their name or being persecuted. This genre was used in history often “to see a connection between national purity and fear of foreign invasion” (Bruhm, the Contemporary Gothic; Why we Need it, p.260) and it is now being used today for this effect, although the fear is much more varied than just the fear of foreign invasion. Today, the fear is against consumerism, the morality and sexuality of our youth and the fear of loss of an object, human or fear of losing the current social condition due to it threatening freedom, these are the anxieties Rowling explores in Harry Potter.
The Gothic genre has roots within fairytale and folktales due to their strong sense in morality, however most readers do not deem all fairytales as Gothic due to their ‘Disney’ distorted perceptions of the fairytale. Very little people know that in the original Sleeping Beauty (unknown) the princess was raped whist she was sleeping, and that Little Red Riding Hood (unknown) is a cautionary tale for young girls not to have premarital sex, however the Gothic genre plays upon the same and often subtle techniques that these tales use, to build not only a forefront of terror but also a dark implied intention that is not expressed on the surface. Bruhm argues this idea that the Gothic is linked to the fairytale by it being the process “looking back into an imaginary history, pining for a social stability that never existed, mourning chivalry that belonged more to a fairy tale than to reality” (p.259 The Contemporary Gothic; Why we Need it). And in that sense the Gothic text correlates strongly to the fairytale as it continues the practice of promoting morals.
Through the course of this dissertation, CHAPTER 1 will be addressing the use of Gothic spaces in the Harry Potter novel series, closely looking at the Castle/Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Azkaban prison, St Mungo’s Hospital, Shacks and a brief look into the use of manor Houses; House of Gaunt and Malfoy manor. CHAPTER 2 will be used as a discussion of Rowling’s use of the supernatural, class and bloodline and how it challenges the Gothic text, and adapts it, mimicking a quality close to the original Gothic fairy tale. Focusing upon Witches/Wizards and ghosts in order to explore how they fit into the classes within Rowling’s magical society. Also, an approach to the House Elf through a Marxist reading of and investigating the supernatural relationship between Harry and Voldemort in regards to; blood and lineage, the ‘absent’ vampire and Freudian theory. In the final Chapter, CHAPTER 3, the use, or lack of, sexuality is being considered within the series, reflecting on the coming of age genre as well as the Gothic and exploring why Rowling’s intentions and motives towards the readership may have influenced this decision. A discussion of the relationships within the texts and the role of the Gothic heroine precede an investigation into the way Rowling updates the negative conception of women which the Gothic genre usual has, with consideration to how Gothic fairy tale female conceptions are used within these texts.
It is through these means that I will argue that the Harry Potter series is appropriate to be included with in the Gothic Genre, despite its being marketed to a younger audience. It is worth mentioning here that as Rowling intended the reader to grow alongside her protagonist she used the series to deal with adult ideas and themes, in order for the anxiety to be explored.
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All works Copyright Kate Ruston 2014
Please check out my e-books on amazon kindle.
All works Copyright Kate Ruston 2014
All works Copyright Kate Ruston 2014
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