Dominant Gender Roles in the Gothic - The Haunted Palace - Essay Example

Q1 Dominant gender roles can be seen as being subverted and/or exaggerated in the Gothic. Discuss with reference to The Haunted Palace. Ans: The Haunted Palace is 20th Century Fox movie released in 1963 which starred Vincent Price and Debra Paget and was based on the novella of H.P. Lovecraft. Classified as a gothic film because of its characteristic horror-and-romance theme, the story takes place in a fictional village called Arkham somewhere in New England and revolves around the story of a warlock who, after being burned at stake by the villagers, makes a comeback a century later by taking over the body of his own descendant. As expected in Gothic films, The Haunted Palace features a sadomasochistic dynamic between a too aggressive male character and too passive female characters. This ever-ubiquitous element of the Gothic style, is represented here by Vincent Price’s characters and the women in the movie. Price played the dual character of the warlock Joseph Curwen who was burn at stake by the villagers of Arkham and the warlock’s descendant Charles Dexter Ward who came to Arkham some 110 years later to take possession of Curwen’s castle which he inherited. As a warlock, Curwen can put a spell on any woman he desires to offer them as sacrifice to a creature he kept in his basement. His beautiful mistress Hester loyally assisted him in the sacrificial rites. Hester’s submissive, unquestioning and devoted loyalty to Curwen provides a stark contrast to Curwen’s dark, overpowering and totally evil aura. Similarly, the pretty young women Curwen inveigles to his castle to be made sacrificial lambs were made docile and almost lifeless by the hypnotic spell he cast upon them. In the second part of the film, the same character dynamic of the dominant male and submissive female is re-presented to the audience. Charles Dexter Ward, Curwen’s descendant comes to Arkham to take possession of his inheritance – Curwen’s castle. Without Ward’s knowledge, this event had been intentionally designed by Curwen’s two henchmen who wanted Curwen to possess the body of Ward, so that they could pursue their demonic plans of opening the door to the beyond and commune with the dark gods. Ward is accompanied by his young wife, the pretty Ann Ward. Ward’s character, although not dominating and commanding initially, changes once the warlock starts to take over his body, changing him into an evil, powerful and domineering character who pushed around the fragile, too-feminine and helpless Ann. Once again, the exaggerated masculinity of Price’s character provides a stark contrast to the likewise exaggerated femininity of Debra Paget’s Ann, who would not dare raise a voice to the domination of her husband even when she sensed that something was terribly afoot. This exaggeration in masculinity and femininity (also, subversion of the female character) is evident not only in the characterisation of the Price and Paget’s roles but also in the physical and vocal differences of the characters. The very tall Price seemed much taller and masculine in the screen frame when standing side by side with the quite petite Paget whose femininity is enhanced by her long, curly locks and laced-trimmed long gowns with low décolletage emphasising her bosoms. Price puts on a deliberately terse and commanding voice whilst Paget almost always speaks in a low, frightened tone. The element of exaggeration and subversion can also be found in the dual characters that Price played. To delineate the differences of the personalities and nature of the two characters, Price delivered an intentionally exaggerated split personality performance. Whilst the evil character of the warlock Curwen was portrayed by Price donning a fierce, grim and forbidding countenance matched by a brusque, autocratic and theatrically forceful voice, his Ward character wears a kind, amiable, at times scared and confused face coupled by a soft-spoken and even-toned voice. Q2 All horror films involve some form of body horror’. Discuss Ans: Body horror is a subgenre of the horror genre which, according to Kelley Hurley, “recombines the cinematic conventions of the science fiction, horror, and suspense film in order to stage a spectacle of the human body defamiliarized, rendered other. Body horror seeks to inspire revulsion - and in its own way pleasure – through representations of quasi-human figures whose effect/affect is produced by their abjection, their ambiguation, their impossible embodiment of multiple, incompatible forms (Napier 2001 43). Put in another way, body horror, which is a staple of the horror films, involves the presentation of the human body in a disturbing and unnatural form and shape in such a way that will inspire repugnance in the audience. The obsession with mangled and mutilated bodies stem from a world that has become paranoid with a constant threat of injury amidst increasing violence and horror films precisely recapitulates this fear of physical harm. As one writer says, watching bodies blown into bits and pieces on the screen is like partaking of an ‘intimate apocalypse.’ Watching body horror however brings a kind of relief to its audience as surviving the apprehension and fear evoked by seeing mangled and disturbingly deformed bodies offers a psychological victory and reassurance that comparatively, reality, surely, could not bring insurmountable harm (Pinedo 1997 66). There are several theories posited however, why filmmakers would choose to present grossly misshapen and mangled bodies and why moviegoers would nonetheless, throng to cinemas and patronise these movies. Julia Kristeva, author of Powers of Horror is a well known theorist in abjection of the female body. Abjection is the process with which an individual or society goes through the ritualistic motion of stamping out or casting off a thing which is perceived to be jeopardising social order and to Kristeva, abjection is a human reaction to one’s inability to distinguish himself/herself from an object one fears or loathes. Abjection then is, through watching films where the human body is presented in a horrific state, a ritual done over and over to constantly remind oneself of one’s distinction and separation from the object of aversion or ’the other’. In Kristeva’s vocabulary ‘the other’ here refers to what men perceived as revolting forms of the body like corpses and the female body. The female body is particularly feared by men because it symbolises menstruation, lactation, sexuality and reproduction and thus many horror films reflect this revulsion and fear. Films like Carrie, The Exorcist, Rosemary’s Baby and the recent Teeth, all show body horror particularly women in monstrous forms. The images of spurting blood, the corpse, rotting flesh, gross vomit, sweat, tears and dripping saliva presented in these films are symbols of women, especially maternal figures, to which moviegoers confront by watching, meeting head-on in effect, their deepest fears and by manifesting their repulsion of what they see, emphatically rejects them (Creed 1993 10-16). The implication of abjection theories like that posited by Kristeva, therefore, is that horror movies almost always involve some form of body horror because there is an innate desire for filmmakers and film-goers to present and watch films that show human body in the shape and form that they most fear so that these fears could be confronted and these state of the body which they fear most could be delineated, classified and set apart from as far as possible from what they see themselves to be. By expressing their revulsion and loathing of the body horror shown in horror films, the moviegoers repeated affirm and confirm to themselves the line that separates them from what they fear allowing them to ultimately express rejection of these objects. Works Cited Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Routledge, 1993. Pinedo, Isabel Cristina. Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing SUNY Press, 1997 Napier, Susan Jolliffe. Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation, Edition: illustrated. Palgrave Macmillan, 2001. The Haunted Palace. Metro Goldwyn Mayer & American International Pictures, 1963. Read More