The Gothique: Myriad Manifestations

Aparajita Hazra

Description

The Gothic has come a long way from the romantic quest for the imaginary. The gothic has proved to be an extremely enduing genre that has manifested itself in various forms in the cultural, literary, political, ecological and historical aspects of human existence. This anthology takes up various aspects of the Gothic ranging from ghost stories in literature and films to folklore and mythology to cultural horror, to showcase how Gothic is part of an omnipresent power structure that shapes the socio-cultural and psychological metanarrative that governs human ontology.

Sujets

• Folclore
• Theatre
• Shapeshifting
• Tantra
• Psychology
• Tantrisme
• Gothic
• Fiction
• Folklore
• Dracula

Informations

• Publié par: Partridge Publishing India
• Date de parution: 06 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781543708998
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

The Gothique: Myriad Manifestations
 
—A Study of the Various Forms of the Gothic.
 
 
 
Edited by

APARAJITA HAZRA
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2023 by Aparajita Hazra.
 
ISBN:
Softcover
978-1-5437-0900-1

eBook
978-1-5437-0899-8
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
www.partridgepublishing.com/india
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Foreword
ABHIRUP DHAR
Introduction
APARAJITA HAZRA
Aggressive Revenants in Swedish Folk Tradition
TOMMY KUUSELA
On Media and Vampires: at the Origins of a Gothic Myth
GIUSEPPE MAIELLO
The Gothic Shapeshifter: Man, Monster, Myth
JOHN B. KACHUBA
Gender, Famine and Fairylore in Jane Urquhart’s Away (1993)
CATHERINE COUSSENS
Folk Myths, Alternate Reality and Gothic Elements Chandrasekhar Kambar’s Jokumraswami
SHILPA SAPRE AND DINESH KUMAR
Mystifying Childhood in Literature: Supernatural Children in Magic Realism
EUGENIA KUZNETSOVA
Stolen Diamonds and Cursed Objects: Perceptions of Hinduism in Imperial Gothic Literature
BRIGID BURKE
The Politics of Gender in The Gothic: A Case Study of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897)
DEBDULAL BANERJEE
The Wizard of The North: The Supernatural in Walter Scott’s Guy Mannering
ANNA FANCETT
“I think there’s a ghost in the TV”: Britain’s Televisual Gothic
BRONTË SCHILTZ
A Budget Fairytale and its Gothic Overtones: a Reading of Badal Sircar’s Ballabhpurer Rupkatha
BY DEBADITYA MUKHOPADHYAY
Nehruvian Discourse and The Law-Abiding Ghost of Hindi Cinema
MERAJ AHMED MUBARKI
Uses of the Gothic in Covid-Era Apocalyptic Fiction: Pandemic Fears and Self-Development in Bethany Clift’s Last One at the Party (2021)
MARIACONCETTA COSTANTINI
Contributors
 
For Megha
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
T his book would never have been possible without all of the wonderful contributors who wrote for it. Apart from their impressive repertoire of academic excellence that comes through in every essay in this book, the camaraderie and understanding they all showed in putting this volume together is very heartening. I need to thank my husband Subhasis and daughter Megha in putting up with the hours that I disappeared from their sights to work on this book. And then I must extend a thousand cuddles to my five dogs, Bobbo, Topsy, Simba, Miffy and Juddu for keeping me loving company every moment that I worked in my study on this book.
The world is full of lovely souls. That’s why dreams like this book come true.
FOREWORD
THE GOTHIC – An Author’s Perspective
ABHIRUP DHAR
W hen I think of ‘Gothic’, the following comes to my mind –an old-world setting, strong atmospherics, haunted and secluded castles/ mansions, and the gradual manifestation of fear. However, when we talk about Gothic literature, it is rarely associated with India. While it originated in Britain in 1765 with Horace Walpole’s ‘The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story’ , the supernatural elements in the story led to a completely new genre which took off in Europe. In the mid-1800s, Edgar Allan Poe from America focused on it and his books were highly successful. A few of the most influential and popular 18 th -century Gothic writers were Horace Walpole ( The Castle of Otranto , 1765), Ann Radcliffe ( Mysteries of Udolpho , 1794), Matthew Lewis ( The Monk , 1796), and Charles Brockden Brown ( Wieland , 1798).
The genre continued to command a large readership well into the 19 th century, first as Romantic authors such as Sir Walter Scott (‘ The Tapestried Chamber’ , 1829) adopted Gothic conventions, then later as Victorian writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson (‘ The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ , 1886) and Bram Stoker (‘ Dracula’ , 1897) incorporated Gothic motifs in their stories of horror and suspense.
Elements of Gothic fiction are prevalent in several of the acknowledged classics of 19 th -century literature, including Mary Shelley’s ‘ Frankenstein’ (1818), Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘ The House of the Seven Gables’ (1851), Charlotte Brontë’s ‘ Jane Eyre’ (1847), Victor Hugo’s ‘ The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ (1831 in French), and many of the tales written by Edgar Allan Poe such as ‘ The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ (1841) and ‘ The Tell-Tale Heart ’ (1843).
Gothic literature is now replaced by ghost and horror stories, detective fiction, suspense and thriller novels, and other contemporary forms that emphasize on mystery, shock, and sensation. Twentieth-century contributors include Daphne du Maurier, Stephen King, Shirley Jackson, Anne Rice and Toni Morrison. The question remains – What about the ‘Gothic’ in an Indian context? Not really. There have rarely been any books on The Gothic in India. Horror, yes. But few again. I’d still like to draw parallels between various books written here and The Gothic. Earlier the only writer who used to occasionally delve into horror was Ruskin Bond. While this stands true for English horror literature in the country, the situation was comparatively better in regional literature. There were many greats like Ratnakar Matkari, Narayan Dharap, Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay, Leela Majumdar, Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay, Rajshekhar Basu to name a few who wrote horror. Rabindranath Tagore did it as well and mentioned his experience(s) in one of his works. But I’d like to draw the reader’s attention to Satyajit Ray who is never really acknowledged for his contribution to Indian horror. A visionary maverick director (the first Indian to bring home the honorary and coveted Oscar), the very versatile man was also a writer and storyteller of the highest order. He wrote some brilliant stories in very lucid language and created endearing characters who still linger in our memories; mostly his detective fiction Feluda series, two of which he himself adapted to screen (few others were later done by his son) and the scientist Professor Shonku , a film based on one of his adventures was released last year. But I won’t be writing about his movies here. Most of Ray’s ghost stories had the haunted house as a trope. In ‘Anath Babur Bhoy’ (Anath Babu’s Fear), the narrator meets Anath Babu, an expert on haunted houses who has toured many of them in the country. ‘Brown Shaheber Baari’ (Mr. Brown’s House)was set in a dilapidated house in Kalimpong where a bank employee and his friend spend a night to determine who Simon is, as mentioned in an old diary written by a man called Brown. Then, there were other stories like ‘Conway Castle er Pretatma’ (The Spirit of Conway Castle), ‘Dhumalgorer Hunting Lodge’ (The Hunting Lodge of Dhumalgar), etc. Some of these were told by a fictional character called Tarini Khuro , an aged bachelor probably in his late sixties, living in Beniatola Lane, College Street in the erstwhile Calcutta. He tells his stories to an audience of five children based on his varied experiences gathered throughout all his years of living in many cities across the country, not sticking to any job for more than a year. While ‘Monihara’ was the only movie in which Ray attempted horror, based on Tagore’s short story, there were many that he wrote on paper. Another story I recall reading is ‘Fritz’ , in which a doll comes alive when a man who played with it during childhood visits a circuit house. It wants to play now! ‘Child’s Play’ and ‘Annabelle’ came much later just like Steven Spielberg’s ‘E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial’ which was allegedly plagiarized from a script written by Ray. The other setting in his ghost stories was trains (and railway stations). In ‘First Class Kamra’ (First Class Compartment), the London-returned protagonist falls asleep while reading a detective novel in a railway compartment, wakes up to supposedly come face-to-face with Major Davenport’s ghost who is still stuck in the British era. In ‘Anath Babur Bhoy’ which I mentioned earlier, the narrator first meets Anath Babu in a train to Raghunathpur, where he is going to visit a haunted house. If I have to look at many of these stories now, I sense all the requisites of The Gothic – an old-world setting, strong atmospherics, haunted and secluded castles/ mansions, and the gradual manifestation of fear – albeit, not necessarily explicit. Ray’s stories (and films) were much ahead of their time but come to think of it, he told them with absolute simplicity even if the narratives were complex.
I earlier mentioned about Ruskin Bond and his occasional horror outings. His horror writing, as well as much of the other genres he writes, draws inspiration from the place he stays in — the hills. The most striking aspect of his horror stories are the ghosts themselves — at times melancholic and lost, at times funny too and rarely scary. Quoting him – “Our hill stations have plenty of ghosts. Many of them left behind by the B