The Gothic and Gothic Monsters, briefly defined

THE GOTHIC: a category of the ROMANCE genre, which includes medieval romances, science fiction (originally, “scientific romances”), horror fiction, ghost stories, among others.  A minimal definition of Romance: a quest plot, along with elements of the fantastic or supernatural. 

Of specific interest for us is the GOTHIC further defined by contemporary scholarship as a   narrative/dramatic meditation on modern POWER in all its forms.  Around 1800, the GOTHIC genre takes off in popularity and literary production.  Its early practitioners used elements of Romance and the fantastic to expose in high dramatic relief social and political inequities and injustices (for example: economic exploitation, class divisions, sexism).  The social-critical, rebellious, revolutionary spirit of Gothic continues to the present day, albeit the Gothic also can elaborate xenophobic, reactionary or conservative attitudes; or, as is often the case, conflicted and ambivalent social values.     

1. In reference to SOCIETY, the Gothic often implicitly criticizes dominant ideologies as represented by tradition, authority, everything that is assumed and reinforced as “natural” and “normal” and “the way things have always been” (targets: aristocratic/upper class power; church and religion power; later, middle-class ideologies, free-market capitalism, corporate and institutional power and systems). 

2. In reference to THE FAMILY, the Gothic often exposes in a critical light the family's socialization functions and its enforcement of social and gender roles; the unstable dynamics of modern “nuclear” and postmodern family; also highlighted are familial psychosexual tensions including bad and good mother and father figures (targets: patriarchy and male domination; confining /imprisoning social and gender roles, heterosexism; insecurities of the postmodern family).

 3. In reference to the NATION, the Gothic critiques and/or participates in the imaginative process whereby nations and nation-states are defined against various demonized and marginalized “others” inside and outside their boundaries (targets: imperialism/colonialism; racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia).

 4. In reference to a given SOCIAL CLASS or SOCIAL group, the Gothic critiques and/or participates in defining a superior position by projecting various “lower”-class others as fearful monsters and projecting as well various “higher”-class monsters of all kinds (targets: class domination and privilege; in-groups and out-groups; social and economic injustice).

 5. In reference to SEX and SEXUALITY, the Gothic exposes and/or critiques a system of things in which eros/desire is regulated and channeled by social norms into dominant constructions of gender, marriage, the family, “normal” sexuality (targets: family, society, and state as rulers over sexual desire and its unruly energies).

 6. In reference to KNOWLEDGE, the Gothic exposes/critiques the power/knowledge in society, family, and state.  The monster as category-shaker and the intensity of affect in terror and horror highlight the political investments involved in knowledge, how knowledge supports power (targets: society, family, state, dominant paradigms in Western philosophy, religion, and the sciences.)

 7. In reference to PSYCHOLOGY, the Gothic has been interpreted in terms of fundamental psychological structures: the power of parental figures in constructions of selfhood and identity; the Oedipal triangle and the “family romance”(Freud); good and bad father and mother figures; femmes fatales and tyrant males; infantile complexes; intersection of sexual energies and language/ideology (targets: dominant ideological/cultural constructions of self, gender, eros/desire) 

GOTHIC MONSTERS--

Rebellions, Subversions, Hat Tricks

Gothic monsters are excessive signifiers, in one definition WRONG in terms of established social categories (a human cannot also be a wolf; or a zombie both dead and alive). Therefore the monster TESTS and UNSETTLES cultural and ideological formations.  The abnormal messes with what everybody assumes is normal. 

The game: the monster opens the door to criticizing and questioning ideology, the way things always have been or the way the majority says they always have to be.    

With its affective charges of TERROR and HORROR, the monster proposes a zap, a jolt, a rush, and, so to speak, a "deprogramming" of standard ways of thinking and feeling. Subversive and transgressive Gothic follow this track.

However, the monster may shake up the social norms only to RESET and REINFORCE the dominant social program. There is a strong conservative strain in Gothic even as it is a rebel genre. Much Gothic storytelling does both: shakes up the program in subversive ways, but reinforces its categories. An ideological workout, say.

In either case, monsters and horror engage by virtue of intense AFFECT:

 TERROR: anticipation, suspense, supercharged affect with an emphasis on MIND and the IDEAL/SPIRITUAL. Exalted, “high” Sublimes (mental/intellectual scenarios of sensory overload and self-loss).

 HORROR: supercharged affect with an emphasis on BODIES and MATTER.  Debased and “low” Sublimes physical/corporeal scenarios of sensory overload and self-loss).