Feminine Fortitude and Elements of the Gothic

-.Heather Crook

Prof. Cooper

Eng 315/515

10 May 2012

Feminine Fortitude and Elements of the Gothic

        There are examples of feminine fortitude and elements of the gothic in Clara Reeve’s The Old English Baron, Ann Radcliff’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Christabel,” and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. In this essay I will focus on a woman’s feminine fortitude in the face of separation from her beloved. I define the feminine as the performance or execution of expected domestic duties associated with being a woman. Feminine would refer to maintaining one’s virtue, marrying for position, child bearing, being socially adept, and being a general caretaker of people. Fortitude is the mental and emotional strength the woman finds to continue to perform these duties in the face of some adversity. By separation from a beloved, I refer to a physical, emotional or social separation from the man she loves: a husband, betrothed, or one she has courted.

        A woman’s feminine fortitude in the face of separation from her beloved is shown through various Gothic elements in each of my selected works. In The Old English Baron the Lady Lovel is seen showing feminine fortitude in the face of being separated from her husband through a nocturnal landscape when she leaves the castle in labor, at night, to go off by herself to deliver her baby, knowing her husband has been murdered by his heir who has offered, so graciously, to marry her in his stead. Emily shows feminine fortitude in The Mysteries of Udolpho in the face of Valancourt’s poisonous effects of guilt and shame when she maintains her own virtue by initially rejecting him after he returns from his treacherous stint in Paris, even though it means being separated from him forever. In “Christabel,” the title character shows feminine fortitude while separated from her “betrothed knight” (28) in a nocturnal landscape when she steals out to the forest at midnight to pray and, in finding Geraldine, cares for her by bringing her back to the castle. Catherine in Northanger Abbey demonstrates feminine fortitude in the face of being separated from Henry Tilney in light of the Gothic conventions of unspeakable and nocturnal landscapes when around eleven o’clock at night General Tilney announces her departure from Northanger Abbey by seven o’clock the next morning, with no explanation other than a forgotten engagement. Catherine remains feminine because she readily recognizes that even a forgotten engagement must not be missed if it is remembered at all in time and her fortitude is in her explanation of this to Eleanor, Miss Tilney. It is unspeakable because, due to the sudden nature of the announcement, Eleanor and Catherine are both speechless and caught off guard, and it is nocturnal due to the late nature of the hour when the general arrives and tells the girls. The feminine fortitude of a woman in the face of horrors experienced during the separation from her beloved in Gothic literature makes a statement about the mental fortitude of women in general. It is my theory that the authors subjected their female characters to these tribulations because it was important for a woman to maintain her femininity and virtue regardless of the horrors it caused for her in the meantime, while she waits for a reunion with her beloved. By horrors, I refer to the trials and tribulations that create a situation where a woman’s femininity and virtue could be called into question depending on how she handles the situation. The horrors could come in the form her beloved’s loss of virtue, her beloved’s demise, an evil spirit corrupting her sexual virtue, or simply putting her social graces to the test. The horrors called for these women to demonstrate femininity and virtue by maintaining their poise and composure in light of these many difficult situations. By femininity, I mean her ability to continue to maintain her virtue, to get married, to bear children, to remain socially adept and a caretaker of people in light of any situation. Virtue refers to her maiden sexual virtue as well as her social virtue meaning her ability to continue to conform to social expectations in light of very challenging situations. The moral is that through a show of feminine fortitude, she will be reunited with her beloved. Reunited meaning in life, or in death. Gothic literature is especially suitable for communicating this moral message because it is through the use of the Gothic conventions, such as dreams and apparitions, the unspeakable, and nocturnal landscapes that the author can illustrate the reunion of the heroine and her beloved.

In The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve, Lady Lovel is seen leaving the castle, “the very night they said she died, [Roger] saw her come out at the garden gate into the fields; that she often stopped, like a person in pain, and then went forward again until he lost sight of her. Now it is certain that her time was out, and she expected to lay down every day: and they did not pretend that she died in childbed” (Reeve 44). The phrases “her time was out” and “she expected to lay down every day” could refer not only to her being pregnant and ready to deliver but that her time was literally running out for her own life. Yet she had the wherewithal to leave the castle so that Walter, her husband’s cousin and heir, because Arthur did not have a son, would not harm her child in the event that it was indeed a boy, and it was a boy. Certainly, Walter never would have expected the Lady Lovel to steal out in the night, alone, to have her child, nor did he expect her to think that he would have killed her for not marrying him or the baby for taking away his right as Arthur’s heir. But Lady Lovel maintained her virtue by not allowing Walter to usurp her or the child from her husband the way he was usurping his land, property and title. Furthermore, through her show of feminine fortitude, she is reunited with her husband, even though it is through her death.

In Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, Emily’s beloved Valancourt has fallen from grace through carousing and gambling in Paris. When Emily discovers this, she confronts Valancourt and he confesses to the truth of it. “There were moments, when all her fortitude forsook her, and when remembering the confidence of former times, she thought it impossible, that she could renounce Valancourt” (Radcliffe 488-489). She ponders her dilemma overnight and the next day tells Valancourt, “We are now parting for ever” (Radcliffe 490). The word “confidence” has a dual meaning, first it can mean to have trust in someone or something, but it can also mean to swindle someone out of their belongings. When we take this second definition into account, it calls into question Valancourt’s motives from the beginning. The fortitude required of Emily to renounce Valancourt speaks directly to her fortitude to maintain her own virtue by separating herself from him. In the end, Emily’s show of feminine fortitude allowed her to ultimately accept Valancourt and marry him. Her strength in virtue was enough to offset his weakness in virtue.