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Gothic works seem to be as undead as the characters parading through them. Individual… species might come and go – vampires were trendy couple of decades ago, then we had zombies – but the fact remains: Gothic and horror fiction* will remain relevant, reflecting inner human fears. Gothic characters are merely manifestations of our own fears, both personal and social.
*read my article on the differences between Gothic, horror and science fiction

In today’s article I’d like to show you a sample of just how many secrets Gothic characters might hide. Forgive my somewhat assuming title, but whereas many know of Count Dracula and some might know there is something odd (indeed queer) about his sexuality, how many could claim to know the secrets around, say, the character of Quincey Morris?

Without further delay, let’s begin our list. The Gothic characters I have picked are:

1. Margaret Saville, Frankenstein 
2. Belle, A Christmas Carol 
3. Quincey P. Morris, Dracula 

Gothic Characters: Secrets, Lies, and some Metatextuality

The characters I analyze in this article are, generally speaking, not very well known except by advanced readers of the texts in question. Even people who have read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, probably can’t quite remember who Margaret Saville is. And even if they do, they don’t really recall anything particular about her. The same can be said about the character of Belle from Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol or the character of Quincey P. Morris in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Margaret Saville

The character of Margaret Saville really… isn’t. She does not appear anywhere in the novel in person, and exists only as a ghostly recipient of the letters sent by her brother, Robert Walton. And yet, there is an immense weight of symbolism in this Gothic character.

The Mortal Ghost

Not only is Margaret Saville entirely absent from the Gothic narrative, but like a true ghost she seems to haunt Walton’s trip in many ways. Margaret “exists for the reader beyond Walton as some faceless, incorporeal other who serves as a high tribunal” (Dickerson, Vanessa D. “The Ghost of a Self: Female Identity in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”. Journal of Popular Culture. 27.3. 1993. p. 83).

Although Walton never receives any letter from her, she still seems to affect and influence his thoughts. Still, there is more: in the general complexity of the plot, with stories within stories and horrifying events easily attracting all the attention, few readers realize the importance of Margaret for the narrative: “[A]s the designated recipient of her brother’s writings, she will ultimately hold Robert’s letters which contain Victor’s story which contains the monster’s story which includes the story of the DeLacy’s [sic]” (Ibid, 84).

Metatextual Twists: Here’s Looking at You, Reader

It is a remarkable realization, that the entire narrative is dependent on the hands of a woman. Furthermore, the lack of an omniscient narrator in Frankenstein leaves open all possibilities, including the one that the text of Frankenstein is, after all, edited by none other than Margaret Saville herself. Extending the skeptical hypothesis to its opposite limits, there is nothing to prove Margaret’s existence in the first place. She could as well be a creation of Robert’s imagination, just like the entire narrative. The metatextual twist is, of course, that the entire narrative is a product of the imagination, namely Mary Shelley’s – who shares the same initials as Walton’s sister, MS.

Belle

If you have read A Christmas Carol but still don’t remember who Belle is, I don’t blame you. Despite its popularity, Charles Dickens’s novella has a history of… sloppy reading. In other words, I think readers (and critics as well) have historically paid too little attention to the symbolism beneath the deceptively jovial story. Belle was Scrooge’s fiancée, essentially rejected due to Scrooge’s love for money. Still, Belle has two incredibly powerful scenes that reveal the Gothic essence of the story.

Temporal Intermixing, Part I

When Scrooge visits several instances of his past life with the help of the Ghost of Christmas Past, the latter literally forces him to watch what happened with Belle. First Scrooge has to relive the collapse of their engagement. The sad young woman tells him that a golden idol has displaced her, adding that if Scrooge “were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday”, he would never choose a dowerless girl (Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. London: Penguin Books, 1994. p. 35).

In terms of narrative structure, Belle’s phrase is unorthodox, as the past – “yesterday” – follows the present and future. Perhaps this is a hint at Scrooge’s then future and from the reader’s perspective present time-travel to the past. She adds that “the memory of what is past” makes her wish that Scrooge will be at least a bit sad for their parting, but quickly she admits that this will be “[a] very, very brief time, and [he] will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that [he] awoke” (Ibid).

Her words are doubly ironic: firstly, she mentions Scrooge waking up from a dream, with his then-future-now-present self being, in all effect, trapped in one. Secondly, this very brief time turns out to be literally true for Scrooge, the viewer from the future, as the Ghost immediately and despite his protest shows him a later scene from the past.

Temporal Intermixing, Part II

There, Belle is married and has children. Scrooge notices whom he initially thinks to be Belle, but instead it is her daughter. Effectively, the daughter does not merely allude to the future, but also to a version of the present – which for Scrooge, the viewer, is still the past.

It is only fitting that someone outside time and space is the one who voices thoughts that should not be expressed so explicitly. Scrooge notices the numerous children. That this daughter possesses the double function of being Scrooge’s potential daughter as well as being seen as the younger Belle, only emphasizes the idea of transgression, underlining the taboo nature of the situation. This is further accentuated by Scrooge vicariously experiencing the scene also as one of the children.

Temporal Taboo

Essentially, this visitor from the future exists in three temporal states simultaneously: as a child, seeing the daughter as a mother figure; as a partner, seeing her as his lover; and, implicitly, as a father, seeing her as a daughter that could have been his:

[The daughter] got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn’t for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn’t have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to save my life.

As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I couldn’t have done it; I should have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; (Ibid 36)

Victorian Sexual Conflicts

In this quite remarkable excerpt, Scrooge very obviously describes a conflict. It is the conflict between sexual desires and the pureness and pristine nature of domestic life. What is important to realize is that this gender-related conflict is expressed through a temporal one.

In particular, Scrooge is able to notice and acknowledge the presence of his desires through the hindsight offered by his time-travel. It is the distortion of space-time that allows him to spot the conflict between the normative domestic life and the unacknowledged but pressingly existent acceptance of the woman as a sexual being. Belle, like so many other Gothic characters, signifies a rich nexus of ideas in her short and perhaps partly unwritten presence.

Quincey P. Morris

Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a text replete with symbolism of all kinds. For the purposes of this article I would like to focus on the connections between this famous Gothic novel and aspects of capital. Quincey Morris is one of the members of the so-called Crew of Light: the vampire hunters attempting to destroy Count Dracula. Quincey Morris, an American, has a particular stake (no pun intended) in Dracula’s demise.

American Trade Wars

According to Moretti (Moretti, Franco. Signs Taken for Wonders: On the Sociology of Literary Forms. Translated by Susan Fischer, David Forgacs and David Miller. London: Verso, 2005), Quincey Morris dies attempting to replace Dracula and assume control of his capitalist model:

Morris enters into competition with Dracula; he would like to replace him in the conquest of the Old World. He does not succeed in the novel but he will succeed, in “real” history, a few years afterwards … America will end up by subjugating Britain in reality and Britain is, albeit unconsciously, afraid of it … For Stoker, monopoly must be feudal, oriental, tyrannical. It cannot be the product of that very society he wants to defend … For the good of Britain, then, Morris must be sacrificed. (2005, 95–96; emphasis in the original)

Gothic Characters Are Always Suspicious

As Moretti argues, the death of Morris appears rather puzzling and unexpected, considering the narrative logic of Dracula. The explanation lies in the fact that Morris is a vampire, at least metaphorically. The American is a mysterious figure, albeit in a charming way, just as Dracula is at first. Morris also appears so young that one cannot comprehend how he has been to so many places, having seen so many adventures that remain untold and, similarly, so many other details about Morris’s life are not given (Moretti 2005, 95).

The death of Morris, quasi-accidental and unexpected, by the hand of a gypsy, allows the narrative to neatly sweep these issues under the proverbial rug. Morris dies a hero, and order is ostensibly restored.

Note

For more on Gothic Characters and time you can also take a look at my doctoral dissertation, “Time is Everything with Him”: The Concept of the Eternal Now in Nineteenth-Century Gothic, which can be downloaded (for free) from the repository of the Tampere University Press. For a list of my other academic publications, see here.