Demons of the Body and Mind: Essays on Disability in Gothic Literature

✍ Scribed by Ruth Bienstock Anolik

• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 245
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The Gothic mode, typically preoccupied by questions of difference and otherness, consistently imagines the Other as a source of grotesque horror. The sixteen critical essays in this collection examine the ways in which those suffering from mental and physical ailments are refigured as Other, and how they are imagined to be monstrous. Together, the essays highlight the Gothic inclination to represent all ailments as visibly monstrous, even those, such as mental illness, which were invisible. Paradoxically, the Other also becomes a pitiful figure, often evoking empathy. This exploration of illness and disability represents a strong addition to Gothic studies.

✦ Table of Contents

Acknowledgments......Page 8
Table of Contents......Page 10
Introduction......Page 12
Part I: Monstrous Deformity......Page 32
A Space, a Place......Page 34
“Colossal Vices” and “Terrible Deformities” in George Lippard’s Gothic Nightmare......Page 46
Ominous Signs or False Clues? Difference and Deformity in Wilkie Collins’s Sensation Novels......Page 58
The Dangerous Mr. Casaubon......Page 72
Folk Medicine, Cunning-Men and Superstition in Thomas Hardy’s “The Withered Arm”......Page 79
Lucas Malet’s Subversive Late-Gothic......Page 91
Encounters with the Monster......Page 108
Part II: Visible Specters......Page 120
Revising Ophelia......Page 122
The Case of the Malnourished Vampyre......Page 130
“The Monster Vice”......Page 140
Invasion and Contagion......Page 153
Knights of the Seal......Page 168
“The Secret of My Mother’s Madness”......Page 181
“Don’t Look Now”......Page 192
Deviled Eggs......Page 208
“Journeys into Lands of Silence”......Page 228
Contributors......Page 238
Index......Page 242