Feminist principles and the gothic in Wollstonecraft and Austen

Gothic Feminism in Wollstoncraft and Austen

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the earliest British activists for feminism, and is well-known and beloved among feminists for her passionate arguments against the patriarchal enslavement of women and their difficult position in her contemporary society. She was certainly not the first writer to point to social harm in society and the plight of women, nor was she the first philosopher in history to argue for equal rights for women. However, she has the fine distinction of being one of the best female writers of her era to combine these two issues with modern literary techniques (such as the Gothic genre) to create contemporary popular reading that incorporated these arguments. Unfortunately, she died in 1797 before finishing what might otherwise have been her greatest accomplishment, the emotionally difficult Gothic/feminist novel "Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman." (the work was subsequently released in its unfinished form by her friend and editor, Godwin)

That six years later, Jane Austen (who would later became famous for her many well-mannered and inoffensive novels of stately love), attempted to publish Northanger Abbey. It was purchased by a publisher and languished in literary limbo for years before being published. These two books have certain elements in common -- both deal with the life and survival of a disadvantaged (but firmly middle or upper-class) female protagonist seeking life and love; both also deal with the way in which the "Gothic" emotions of the era pervade the soul and the experience of women. However, they are also dramatically different books, for Wollstonecraft's work is a very serious piece of Gothic protest literature, while Jane Austen's oevre is a fluffy comedy designed to enchant the novel-reading women of her era. Nonetheless, both are capable of contributing to the modern readers understanding of the relationship between early feminist experience and principles, and the literary conventions of the so-called Gothic movement.

Emerging Feminism in Wollstonecraft... And Austen?

Both books deal with feminist issue for the very simple reason that both books deal with the way in which women living under and within a patriarchal structure manages to survive and even (possibly) flourish. Wollstonecraft's feminism is blatant and it is a large part of the functionality of her story -- the work itself can be understood as an object lesson in the evils of the current patriarchal political situation which disallowed women the right to vote, earn and hold property and money apart for their husbands, to seek a divorce, or to seek and find gainful employment in which to support themselves and their children. Compared to Wollstonecraft's dire image of the life of women in contemporary England, Jane Austen's tale seems absurdly idealistic. However, her storytelling also serves a feminist purpose in that it presents as valid the social and emotional experiences of women who live and love and think and feel with passion and with sense as great as that which is attributed to a man. Wollstonecraft portrays the darkest lives to show the fall which awaits all those who do not have the "prospects" which await the upper classes; Austen seeks to show to those upper classes and their women that it is legitimate to make arrangements based on love and hope and some level of sexual equality (just such a relationship develops, in Austen's book in question, between Catherine and Henry). The portrayal of strong women surviving within the real world is also a legitimate feminist expression. Nonetheless, when merely looking for blatantly or "traditionally" feminist theory, one naturally gravitates towards Wollstonecraft, whereas for a more balanced approach Austen might be appropriate.

Wollstonecraft makes a number of obvious and righteously angry feminist claims in her story, as her characters themselves castigate the male-dominated culture that has abused them. Maria laments "Why was I not born a man, or why was I born at all?" (1.181) and mourns that she ever gave birth to a female child who will be heir to all the evils of this world. There are four basic areas in which Wollstonecraft critiques the state of inequality between men and women: the double standard for sexual purity, society's structure doesn't allow women to support themselves and their children without marrying or prostituting, in marriage women lose all rights and become "property," and finally the very structure of the entire system serves to make women betray themselves. In none of these areas does the author merely complain of inequality, but rather she gives vivid and visceral examples of how these social/philosophical inequalities can lead to physical and social injustices. That the narrator begins the action trapped in what seems like a mythic dungeon, inaccountably handcuffed and confined without knowing her crime or how she came to be here is a vivid metaphor in itself of the position of women in this book -- they are cast into a dungeon by the very act of being born female, and there is no reason or justice to their treatment from there forward.

In the area of a double standard for purity, Wollstonecraft gives multiple examples of how this double standard destroys lives. Without a doubt the most tragic examples comes from Jemima's life. Her parents were both servants in the same home, and both participated equally in fornication -- though her mother was eager to marry and her father was not, which actually makes him slightly more guilty. However, when the mother was found pregnant out of wedlock, she was cast out of the household and made to give birth in a cold garret where she soon died. The father, on the other hand, "after a slight reproof, was allowed to remain in his place." (1.79) Nowhere is the double standard more terrible than when it comes to the consequences of a pregnancy, which always comes down on the shoulders of the mother and child. Jemima feels this double standard in her own body later when she is repeatedly raped by her employer's husband -- and then fired from her position and cast penniless into the street, while the husband goes about his life punished only by the discomfort of giving her a few coins and a phial with an abortive drug in it. She is punished by society as he goes free. Similarly, in Maria's marriage she quickly finds that her husband is free to be unfaithful to her -- in fact, he claims to do so frequently. He even has a bastard child to whom Maria finds herself sending money. Yet when Maria herself finally renounces the marriage and takes a lover, she finds herself dragged before the courts and charged with adultery. With words surely drawn from the sentiment of her author, Maria decries this state in saying: "I exclaim against the laws which throw the whole weight of the yoke on the weaker shoulders." (2.147-148)

The fact that society's structure doesn't allow women to support themselves and their children without marrying or prostituting makes this unequal yoke doubly hard to bear, and may be a virtual death sentence to unwed mothers and their children, and to all those unwilling to sell their bodies to survive. At least three of the structural issues working to prohibit women from supporting themselves are mentioned by Wollstonecraft -- the lack of work which is legal for woman to do, the strict regulation of work which is available to women based on "character" references, and the inequality of inheritance rules which leave orphaned girls without resources. The first issue is one which is lamented by most of the female characters. As Jemima says, "A man with half my industry, and, I may say, abilities, could have procured a decent livelihood, and discharged some of the duties which knit mankind together; whilst I, who had acquired a taste for the rational, nay, in honest pride let me assert it, the virtuous enjoyments of life, was cast aside as the filth of society." She legitimately complains against the assumption that a person who wishes to get work will be able to find it, and says that it is patently false in the case of women who lack a sterling reputation. The issue of reputation is the second threat to women's ability to support themselves and their families. "The want of a character prevented my getting a place," (1.109) Jemima writes, when despite her experience as a housekeeper she cannot get a good recommendation from those who inherit the property from her former master. Wollstonecraft mentions other women who, after becoming pregnant, are dismissed from good paying positions without character reference -- they too, one assumes, will be unable to find employment. The final of the three issues clearly discussed here in terms of the difficulty of women's employment is that of inheritance, as woman "are chased from the paternal roof, to make room for the first-born, the son, who is to carry the empty family-name down to posterity..." (1.172) in many cases, the only options available to women are marriage or prostitution, and these two are shockingly similar -- for women retain no right to deny their husband sexual favors and their upkeep is directly attached to their obedience to their husband.

The lack of rights within marriage that makes women basically "property" to the man is obviously central to this story, as indicated by the way in which Maria is imprisoned. There are a variety of ways in which this most disturbing of issues is addressed in the book. Women who are married loose control over their own bodies, and are required to submit to caresses to which their soul does not consent. One woman in the madhouse is, in fact, there specifically because she could not tolerate her husband's caresses. "she had been married, against her inclination, to a rich old man,... In consequence of his treatment... she had... lost her senses." (1.39) Not only is a woman prone to institutionalized rape, but she also has no right to require the man to remain as he was before they wed. Maria declaims bitterly of how her husband deteriorates into a brutal, drunken slob and yet she cannot legally leave him. When she does attempt to leave, finally, she is hunted down like stolen property to be claimed, or as an escaped slave. More-over, a woman's husband has the legal right to take anything which belongs to her, and so even an industrious woman (such as one of her temporary landladies) may tell stories of a husband who repeatedly drove her to the brink of starvation with his legalized thefts of her checks and savings. Women are legally disallowed the freedom to commit adultery and to divorce, and they are forced by law to obey their husbands in all things, regardless of his wisdom or intelligence.

Regarding all these issues Wollstonecraft's narrators speak out with anger and with recognition of the bigger issues at stake. This book's claim to being a feminist novel -- and quite possibly the most radical feminist novel of its time-- is based on the way in which it presents and deals quite seriously with these issues. Many books before and since have dealt with social injustices, particularly describing the problems with industrialization. Wollstonecraft is unique int he way in which she speaks of women's problems as a woman, and integrates the stories and complaints of many women into the sequence of events she portrays.

As for Jane Austen, her book Northanger Abby does very little to address any of those specific cultural problems, even though she was certainly aware of them. Her book deals mainly with virginal unmarried protagonists, so it is hardly a treatise on the marginalization of women within the married relationship. However, this is not to say that Austen does not address issues of inequality. There are two significant areas in which inequality is an issue within the tale: first, that the women are in all these cases dependent on the will of the men in their lives and cannot choose for themselves, and secondly that there is an overarching communication inequality which dictates how women may address men and respond to men within the boundaries of decorum -- an inequality which disallows the female full rights of refusal or of initiation of contact. Additionally, though its direct effect on the lives of the women involved is seldom made explicit, it is evident that the girls all live in a culture which is built on sexual inequality which (as Wollstonecraft explicates) leads to the treatment of the body as a commodity, and which limits the full scope of a girl's options.

It is this culture of inequality which assures that Catherine must be sent to Bath in the hopes that she will find a boy to marry, and which (in the end) dictates that she cannot marry Henry until his patriarch agrees. This culture associates shame with riding alone in a carriage, and thus she is shamed when the General sends her home. It is inequality which creates an environment where she must scheme to see Henry by befriending his sister or casually hinting about dancing, rather than confronting him with her desires. The degree to which the female characters must be subservient to the will of the men in their lives is of course a part of this sexist milieu, but it is to some degree also above it as a more significant infringement on personal liberties than the mere vagaries of courtship rituals and relations. While the characters themselves do not complain about it, the reader can clearly see the ways in which these girls are handed from one authority to the next till the very act of being left unhanded is considered a shame.

Catherine, for example, goes from her Father's command to Mr. Allen, and from him to the General, and eventually to her husband. In the meantime, one notices the continued theme of domination by males, as shown metaphorically at the balls where a woman is in disgrace or considers herself shamed if she is not under the command of a male. The wording used to describe appearing to be uncoupled while actually "engaged" sound remarkably as if the narrator were describing the state of being apparently pregnant with an illegitimate love child when one had actually been raped and was entirely personally innocent: "disgraced in the eye of the world, to wear the appearance of infamy while her heart is all purity, her actions all innocence, and the misconduct of another the true source of her debasement..." Likewise the way in which a woman "engages" herself to a man to danse becomes riddled with layers of inequality, "man has the advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal... they belong exclusively to each other [though the man, as the scene makes obvious, can walk away]." The dancers, handed from man to man, seem to symbolize the way in which women are perceived as property to be traded rather than courted.

Austen also betrays inequality in the break down of communication that occurs between men and women, which Austen shows being stifled and broken by the woman's need to be submissive. For example, Catherine has great difficulty saying no to John Thorpe when he practically kidnaps her (keeps driving the buggy when she is screaming to be let down), or insists on dancing with her or talking to her when she has no interest in him. Isabella claims to have the same problem on occasion, but appears to be scheming enough to avoid it.

Jane Austen also has a certain positive feminism, which is quite unique in relationship to Wollstonecraft, in that it presents women not as positive equals of men (though Austen does occasionally imply that truth), but actually presents situations in which the protagonists consider men to be inferiors. They are referred to as the "fickle sex," and Isabella speaks of the importance of humiliating men in order to keep them in hand. Women and men are both shown having weaknesses which are unique to their sex, and also specific strengths, and to some degree this is an important aspect of Austen's thought.

In conclusion, both authors may be considered feminist writers to some degree, if only because they take for their subject common women in uncommon times, and try to portray their strength and power in those difficult situations. However, Wollstonecraft takes her feminism in a direction which Austen does not, using her best acrimony to argue for the equality of treatment which the inborn equality of the sexes has earned.

Gothic influence in Wollstonecraft and Austen

The novels which feature so prominently through-out Northanger Abby, with their legends of haunted castles and grim ghosts, graveyards and clamy hands in the dark, lovers raised from the dead, and other such extremities are prime examples of a contemporary art movement known as the Gothic. Gothic art ran parallel to and as a part of romanticism, and it heavily influence the writing both of Northanger Abby and of Maria's story. The primary elements of Gothic fiction are as follows:

dark and foreboding setting, extreme emotional experiences and prose, the optional presence of warped, genius, or antiheroic protagonists and antagonists playing a significant role, supernatural or freakish elements are likely to be present or at least hinted at (these elements may include magic, science, sentient environments or objects, religion, ghosts and monsters, madness and mutation, or any combination thereof), and a preoccupation with the morbid and with mortality. Gothicism also tends to have a set of specific but flexible attitudes towards its female characters -- these will be addressed in more detail in the next subdivision. In any case, the story may or may not have a "happy" ending, a "moral" to the story, or any "redeeming" features other than entertainment.

Using this definition, it is clear to see that Maria or the Wrongs of Woman is clearly a work of Gothic fiction, being entirely and perfectly suited to the genre. The forebodding setting of an insane assylum, particularly one which is made of crumbling stone and which appears to overlook the ocean, could not be more Gothic in nature. The extreme emotional experiences and prose are highly evident from the first lines: "ABODES of HORROR have frequently been described, and castles, filled with spectres and chimeras, conjured up by the magic spell of genius to harrow the soul, and absorb the wondering mind. but, formed of such stuff as dreams are made of, what were they to the mansion of despair, in one corner of which Maria sat, endeavouring to recall her scattered thoughts!" (1.1) This high style is carried through-out, though the level of histrionics varies. Freakish elements are quite obvious in the setting itself, for this piece is staged against an insane asylum, and between the madness of the inmates and the Kafka-esque confusion regarding Marie's journey hence, the Gothic demand for the bizarre is clearly fulfilled. The preoccupation with the morbid and with mortality is made clear too in the stories which are told through-out of those who have been killed and lost to the three, including Marie's own child. Marie's eventual fall into suicide (hinted at by the end notes) certainly qualifies as morbid as well.

Northanger Abby, on the other hand, is not a Gothic book. It is a book about a girl who reads too many Gothic books. Subsequently, the story (which is told largely from her third-person point-of-view) becomes somewhat tainted with Gothic elements without ever lapsing into actually being Gothic. For example, the majority of the last third of the paper takes place at an old abby which has been renovated for modern use. The rooms are all actually relatively modern seeming, with wall paper and overstuffed furniture. Here and there are pieces of older historical value, but the building is far from being Gothic. "To be sure, the pointed arch was preserved -- the form of them was Gothic -- they might be even casements -- but every pane was so large, so clear, so light! To an imagination which had hoped for the smallest divisions, and the heaviest stone-work, for painted glass, dirt, and cobwebs, the difference was very distressing." So the setting is not precisely foreboding, but Catherine's active imagination works overtime for most of the next two chapters to invent a certain terrible mystery which might be lurking in this building. Likewise, all the characters play at falling in love and having grand intrigues, but there is very little actual passion involved, and the books which the girls read are actually more interesting to them than their interest in boys, as demonstrated by the conversations in which Isabella and Catherine continually leave off their womanly talk to speak of Radcliffe's heroes. Likewise at the end one has the grand and rather unemotional confession... not of love, but of "attachment." As the narrator says, "Henry was now sincerely attached to her, though... I must confess that his affection originated in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a serious thought." There is nothing grotesque or supernatural in this story, other than the character's own uber-goodness, nor is there a clinging sense of mortality and the macabre. Catherine thoroughly repents her Gothic romanticism ere the end, and marries sensibly. Nonetheless, one is obliged to have some understanding of the Gothic to fully understand this text.

The Intersection of the Gothic and the Feminist

Gothic fiction is primarily concerned with the bizarre and the grotesque. As such, it has a sort of automatic license to bend the rules of ordinary reality for effect. Among those lines prone to being adapted are the cultural guidelines for proper gendered behavior and the relationships between the sexes.

Sexuality -- and thus, necessarily, gender -- is an issue of some perversion and renovation in Gothic literature. Several trends co-exist in Gothic literature's treatment of women as subjects.

Women may be predatory, powerful figures, portrayed as ghosts, vampires, or evil fae beings. Alternately, a mysterious elderly woman may serve as a powerful crone figure, such as a tarot-card or palm reader. Returning to young members of the sex, women are very often seen as the subject of sadism -- a theme in which men sexually prey on women, sometimes after having seduced their will into submission. Women may also be seen as pure and innocent figures who are attracted to heroes, anti-heroes or villains. Of course, there are also women who are "fallen innocents," those who have become prostitutes or murderers out of the goodness of their own hearts.

It is possible to see the instances of women who are predatory, or (for that matter) willingly going over to the side of an evil seducer, as a subversion of patriarchy and an embodiment of man's fear of woman. However, it is also possible to see the many stories which entail horrific harm to women as a nightmarish sort of wish-fulfillment tale in which male readers can partake in order to feel a catharsis of their own violent feelings towards women. Wollstonecraft and Austen both deal with many of these Gothic-feminism themes, albeit with differing degrees of feminism and Gothicism in their treatments.

Maria and Jemima are in close competition for the "most Gothic" characters in these two stories. At first appearance in the story they seem to represent radically different Gothic-female stereotypes. Maria, with her wrists bound and her daughter stolen away from her, seems like the ideal victim character. She is intelligent, innocent, pure of heart, and under the sadistic torment of a brutal male her happens to also be her (demonic?) husband. To some degree, this image is upheld through the remainder of the written text, as she speaks of helping to rescue widows and orphans, remaining entirely loyal to her husband through all his deprivations, and then responding against him only when he tries to sell her into prostitution. However, if one reads the end notes, they seem to outline her transformation into some other, less pure sort of archetype -- she becomes a fallen innocent, an adulterer and a mother who kills her own (unborn) child.

Jemima certainly starts out the story appearing to be a predatory figure. She is black and stark; like a crow she gloats over Maria's little cell. However, as one begins to catch glimpses of Jemima's past, she slowly is transformed from a predator to a crone, and eventually to a victim. She is actually a fallen innocent. Her purity was ripped from her as a child, and she has struggled to keep alive even a spark of humanity while serving in the most degrading ways. She has been a sexual slave, a thief, a jailer, and abortionist -- and yet she is still a wise woman and an innocent one who merely needs love. (How Gothic! one might say) Both of these Gothic archetypes are also feminist archetypes, albeit ones which the feminist is not yet entirely certain how to use. The falling innocent, for the feminist, is the woman who is the most vulnerable and who is at this moment being crushed by the patriarchy. She is evidence of the sins of man and the need for women to rise.

The crone represents the wisdom which women hope to bring to one another from their suffering -- it is the positive feminism. The innocent and the fallen innocent both are states which illustrate the way in which women have been marginalized by men -- either by so isolating women that they have no knowledge of true life, living inside a male-enforced bubble, or by destroying her to such a degree that she cannot be self sufficient.