SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...
SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...
SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
130<br />
the castle is there primarily to set the melancholy mood and to be a symbol visible to the<br />
audience of the influence that past guilt can exert on the present (268). Thus the<br />
‘character’ of the castle has a dual nature, one that fits the ambiguity associated with the<br />
Gothic—and with incest.<br />
Kilgour’s description of the castle paints it as a place both dangerous and<br />
symbolic of more than just the residence of a family. <strong>The</strong> castle “bears the whole weight<br />
of the ages of man’s drift away from an ideal state; and it becomes a lasting<br />
representation of the torments of the subconscious pressing upon the conscious mind and<br />
making a prison of the self” (48-49). Furthermore, Freudian ideas now familiar to<br />
today’s readers make it easy to see the symbolism of the castle as representative of the<br />
human psyche. Atmospheres of suspense and mystery, stairways and passages leading to<br />
unknown places, and mazes of hallways within the castle may easily be recognized as the<br />
works of dreams and the subconscious. Subterranean passages are often the most<br />
forbidding, as things that are the most dangerous are usually buried deepest. Escape is<br />
difficult, and if the walls are broached, the outside environment is equally forbidding.<br />
<strong>The</strong> castle analogizes the body on many levels. It may represent the body of<br />
society, with a ruling lord responsible for the well (or ill) being of his people; the<br />
patriarch as head of his household; or the subconscious of which the individual is, or<br />
should be, master. Furthermore, while the castle may represent the power of the<br />
patriarch, it may also symbolize the female body. Patriarchy’s “rules” regarding the<br />
“family, marriage, the proper relation of man to woman, of legitimate succession, and so<br />
on, are also the ruling principles of the human activities we think of as historical: politics