"(These
stories) fill you with a kind of psychic dread. They address the
soul."
-----Barbara
Steele
While
the genre of Romance Fiction cuts a wide swath between the
happily-ever-after Chick Lit comedies to the strains and stains of
Dark Erotica, the Gothic Tale cuts a winding moonlit path right
across the middle. From Charlotte Bronte's Jane
Eyre to Daphne
DuMaurier's Rebecca
to Stephanie Myer's Twilight
series, Gothic Romance
seeks to explore the mysteries of love, paying special attention to
the dark side.
Through
my 20's I wondered a lot about what people meant when they used the
term dark side.
Some would say it was sexual, others that it meant
secrets----especially scandalous ones. Or it had to do with forbidden
impulses, transgressive desires, those things we dare not speak
about. Darkness describes the Unseen, as in the uncanny dimensions
where spirits dwell. I began to realize there was a great rabbit hole
of darkness. That what tantalized from the shadows, could lead to the
abyss.
The
Gothic novel as we know it, was born in the 18th century at a time of
social upheaval, when revolutions were tearing down familiar social
structures and leaving many aristocratic families decadent and
penniless in their crumbling stately homes. Those of the literate
class, able to spend their days writing and studying and thinking,
spun tales describing what they'd lost, what they missed, what they'd
been, and what they'd become. Their great, empty mansions were
haunted by ghosts, their families by madness, their religious faith
deteriorated to fantasies of undead lovers and corpse brides.
There
was death a-plenty all around: in the theater of war, in the home,
and in the soul. Under some of these old houses were crypts and tombs
where people might be buried alive, or might clank their chains in
hell, their howls echoing through the night.
A
quick read of some of the classics in the genre will prove much of
this. From Poe to Wilde to Stoker, we find aristocratic vampires and
werewolves stalking their great halls and gardens to ravish the
beautiful heroines. We find hidden crimes and scandals. If we're
lucky we get an old cemetery, a Gothic cathedral, a castle, damask
walls, wingback chairs, huge fireplaces, and libraries of arcane
books read by dripping candlelight.
Oh,
lost... and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again...
-----Thomas
Wolf
It
should not be surprising that in our time, this 21st century, when
humanity seems to be on the precipice of losing everything, that
Gothic Fiction should be making a comeback.
For
all those who celebrate the Zombie Apocalypse, or enjoy excursions to
Dystopia, there are those of us, the True Romantics, who mourn the
loss of beauty and art and love in the world.
Did
I say love? The L-word?
In
much of what passes for Romance in fiction these days Love seems to
be missing. There is sex all over the place, page after page after
page. But love? Some stories, in attempting to be full of positive
virtue and love from the heart, are often corny, cheesy, or shallow.
How about some good old sexual tension? Chemistry, intrigue, mystery?
Neither of these polar opposites is even close to what the Gothic
reader seeks.
The
fan of Gothic tales is primarily interested in mystery, in the
mysterious, what is hidden in the dark. That is why you will find
lots of passion in Gothic Romance, but little explicit sex. It's not
about the sex act. It's about parting the curtain over the beloved's
soul.
"The
driving force of drama is the dark side."
-----Barbara
Steele
Rebecca
by Daphne DuMaurier was one of those books that made me want to
write. By all accounts it's a Romance novel with Thriller
elements---though you don't find that out until the last third of the
book. If it had been a nice May-December story about a mousy young
girl falling in love with a rich old man who harbors a dark secret,
it might have done well in its time, but I doubt we'd still be
reading it.
What
has given Rebecca
its power to endure in the Gothic. The title character haunts
Manderly, a remote stately home in Cornwall. Truly haunts it. Though
Rebecca is never described as ghost, she functions as one. And she is
a great enemy to our nameless heroine, coming back into her husband's
life, via her little boat called Je
Reviens, or I
Return, with lethal
power. Then of course there is the witchlike Mrs. Danvers, through
whom the dead Rebecca seems to act, Mrs. Danvers who, every day,
brings Rebecca back to life in a kind of necromancy.
I
can't say for sure, but as an author myself, I am convinced that
DuMaurier was haunted by Rebecca, by Manderly, and Mrs. Danvers long
before she built the other, nicer, characters around them.
I
don't believe a writer can mature as an artist unless and until they
allow the dark side to express itself in their work. The battle, or
dance, of Light and Dark is the fuel of drama. The moral questions
that arise as the author works this alchemy of imagery and language
into something memorable, empower the work and lead to deeper thought
in both writer and reader alike.
In
engaging the Gothic, we tear the curtain away from our own mystery,
our own madness, our own relationship with love and loss and death.
On the other side is transformation. In all the old fairytales, which
are also Gothic, redemption is always accomplished by love.
Note:
In case you don't know of her, Barbara Steele is a British actress
who made a series of Gothic Horror films in the 1960's in Italy. Her
words of wisdom reflect a lifetime of working with these themes.
Find
two of these, Black
Sunday and Long
Hair of Death in the
Gothic Library on my blog:
Alyne deWinter.com
***
Oh
my, what a delicious account of what it is to love the Gothic
Romance in all it's dark, gloomy, damasked and mysterious element.
I
so enjoyed this generous post from the very talented deWinter. What
a glorious guest post! You'll be hearing lots more of Alyne de
Winter in just a short couple of weeks as I review one of her most
popular books and interview the writer, herself!
I'll
resume my regular posting schedule next Tuesday/Thursday with fresh
installments of House of Hollow Wind.
Happy Reading!