Destruction In The Castle Of Otranto

Kelly Hurley recognised “within this genre one may witness the relentless destruction of the human”. (Hurley, 1996) The ‘destruction’ of the characters minds, alongside the exposure of repressed thoughts and passions is a prevalent and crucial facet of gothic texts. I agree to a certain extent that the novels I have read and studied on this module explore and demonstrate the release and escape of concealed anxieties and desires that characters bury deep in their unconscious. The inevitable release of these anxieties, passions and desires creates a climatic and eventful, often terrifying story, which the gothic novel usually revolves around. However, I struggle to completely agree with this statement as the gothic investigates more than just

The Castle of Otranto is an immensely nationalistic text, which focuses on and discusses inheritance laws. The story denotes an ancient prophecy and law, saying that the castle ‘should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it.’ (Walpole, 1998: 8). The inheritance laws present in 1764 when the story was published meant that the issue of heirs and inheritance was a tricky process. Sue Chaplin stated that the gothic text arose from ‘societal trauma’ (Chaplin 2011). Manfred, although a typical gothic villain, evil and cruel, could have experienced trauma in his inability to continue his familial lineage with his wife’s inability to produce an heir. It is likely and probable for men such as Manfred, men of property and wealth, that this would have caused great stigma and had the potential to damage his reputation. This could potentially explain Manfred’s madness and his desires manifesting into cruelty, incest and betrayal. Thus, it would be incorrect to generalise and argue that the gothic is solely and primarily a method of exploring repressed passions, as the investigation of societal issues and laws is much more key in ‘The Castle of

Critic Stephanie Demetrakopoulos argued that ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula embodies a collective dream reflecting Victorian sex roles and repression’. (Stephanie Demetrakopoulos 1977) Victorian society was a period where sexuality and sexual fantasy were taboo subjects and prostitution was rife. Stoker primarily focuses on classic gothic motifs such as Vampirism, The Abject to present and demonstrate the several types of hidden sexuality’s that are repressed in Dracula. The controversies, rejections and invectives surrounding Stoker’s novel arose because of the silence and refusal to discuss sexuality in Victorian England. Dracula in Victorian culture, was scandalous and many members of Victorian society refused to read the novel, supressing their interest and curiosity in correspondence to the principles and social expectations of what was acceptable. The vast range of sexualities repressed in Dracula include bisexuality, heterosexuality and homosexuality. It has debated that the male characters ‘white fangs’, (Stoker) are phallic representations as they graphically penetrate the skin. This is supported with the vampires physically biting another whilst drinking their blood, this is symbolic for the act of sexual intercourse as it brings them life and they exchange bodily fluids. This also can