As I was reading Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's "The Character in the Veil: Imagery of the Surface in the Gothic Novel," I found myself drawing many connections to Bronte's Jane Eyre. One of my favorite things about this class is the ability we have been given to see how the novel has developed during the eighteenth century.
Reading The Monk, I could see some not-so-obvious connections, but it wasn't until I read Sedgwick that I saw how much influence the Gothic novel of the 18th century has on its successors in the 19th century. I tried to remember reading Shelley's Frankenstein (because I'm sure I'd have more to work with, but sadly that was back in my undergrad years (which seem so far away!). Jane Eyre is fresh in my mind, so that is what kept diverting my attention when reading the essay. Bronte's novel can be read as a gothic, especially when considering the scenes involving Bertha Mason and the Red Room scene Jane experiences as a child. However, it was Sedgwick's discussion of the veil that really peaked my interest. Sedgwick argues: "The veil that conceals and inhibits sexuality comes by the same gesture to represent it, both as a metanym of the thing covered and as a metaphor for the system of prohibitions by which sexual desire is enhanced and specified" (256). With this explantion in mind, I recalled the scene where Bertha rips Jane's veil off. It can be interpreted in many ways, but I would argue that given Sedgwick's perspective, Bertha is essentially trying to take away Jane's sexuality - the very thing that attracts Rochester to her. Something so seeming innocent, then, becomes a subject of importance. Similarly in reading The Monk, I wasn't really zoning in on the importance of the veil and what it meant regarding the female characters. However, as Sedgwick points out, from the beginning of the novel when Antoinia appears at the church covered in a veil, readers should read into this a bit more and be able to connect it with her sexality. Sorry if I've gone a bit off topic. I am just fascinated with my new found ability to see and understand how the 19th century novel developed from the 18th century, and will often obsess about it as I read.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Setting the Context for the 19th Century Gothic Novel
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Interesting connections, Laura! I am happy you brought up Jane Eyre, because it offers us a way in to another important facet of The Monk that, oddly, we've seen in one other novel earlier--Pamela. Did anyone notice the number of references to othered, marginalized, colonial spaces in Lewis' novel? Haiti, Cuba, Hispaniola, the "wealth of the Indies"--and even "Virginia"? For those of you who've read the Bronte novel--or Rhys' rewriting, Wide Sargasso Sea--you might be familiar with the Creole figure. A Creole is actually a white European who was either born in or lives in the Caribbean colonial space. Creoles occupy a vexed position vis-a-vis the metropolitan or imperial center, the colonizing power, because they are both white and not-white, both of the center and of the margin. Does anyone know where Antonia was born? Or have any ideas how this helps us read the novel, the issues of power and authority and legitimacy raised in the novel?
This response is a bit off-topic from Laura's post about the veil, so I'll close with one more comment--does the veil have a masculine counterpart in The Monk? What about the cowl, that conceals Rosario as well as Ambrosio? Do you think there's a sexualized image here, too? Nice work!
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