Japanese vs American Gothic: Women Are Still Scary

     The main gothic theme of exploring the fears of the past and how changes to our current understanding of the world can be terrifying remains in Japanese gothic. The difference in cultures results in a difference in systems. Different values are more important, different aspects of society have changed or change in ways that are not European, and different cultural expectations affect how a Western reader experiences the Japanese gothic. What remains is that when things change fear is often the result. European and Japanese gothic both place a high value on exploring the role of women in society.

            Japanese and European gothic approach women in similar ways, Matilda and Hippolita type characters still make appearances, and transgressive women are a major source of fear. In “The Chrysanthemum Vow” the monk’s mother is your typical Hippolita, ignorant of the events going on around her and always offering a weak womanly viewpoint on things. Transgressive women are not in “The Chrysanthemum Vow” at all, but their lack of involvement makes as much of a statement about the role of women as a story centering on a woman does. By excluding women entirely the auther is asserting that the only true loving relationship is between two men, and that women are by their nature unable of an honorable loving relationship.

            “The Tattooer” contains a transgressive woman in a stronger role than most European gothic stories. However, the role of the transgressive woman is still the same, to play off of the fear of what happens when people behave, as they shouldn’t. Matilda misbehaves by loving out of her social class, and disobeying her father. Women in Japanese gothic transgress by becoming too powerful. The modernization of Japan spurred the creation of a more independent Japanese woman, which scared men because it was a rejection of the old social order.

            “The Surgery Room” is a classic tale of “the good ‘ole days” with some incorporation of “what have women become?” The main character should be the pure innocent beautiful young woman we experience at the end of the story that the author esteems. Instead the main character, a noble woman (typically gothic), is withholding some dark secret from her husband. The husband in this story is not the tyrannical male of the European gothic but instead the pawn of some larger evil (a la “The Sandman”).

            Japanese gothic is similar to European gothic in that it explores the fear that is experienced when things change. However the things that are changing are different in Japanese culture than in European culture, or at least the response to these changes is different. Reading the Japanese gothic helps broaden the definition of what is gothic. Gothic changed as time went on, changed in the shift from novels to short stories, changed in the shift from European to American, and then again in Japanese. What holds these stories together is the underlying fear that they are exploring, what makes them interesting and valuable is what information the reader can glean about some culture at a particular time. 

Graphic Novels and the Gothic

            In non-illustrated narratives the author must rely on words to communicate his ideas to the reader. This can be beneficial when the reading allows for more interpretation, since the author is presenting a blurrier depiction of the narrative, a variety of imaginings can accompany the words. In an illustrative piece the author uses words, albeit less of them, and illustrations. This combination of words and illustrations allows the author to depict a narrative that is much closer to his imaginings. The author is allowed to more accurately convey their narrative in the way they intended, the story is less likely to get lost in translation. This does not mean that the story cannot be interpreted and appreciated on different levels.

            Commonly the illustrations are able to depict graphic happenings in a way that might be more disturbing to some readers, or prompt reader’s to connect the illustrations to more graphic ideas or images. In a non-illustrated work the author must rely on the words to connect ideas and occurrences. In these works words can only reference words, allusions within the piece or to other works occurs in one dimension. In illustrated works the author and illustrator have another dimension to incorporate ideas and allusions.

            These changes from non-illustrated to illustrated does not make the graphic novel better or worse than the usual written narrative. The graphic novel allows the author to present a very specific mental image, to infiltrate the readers mind and replace interpretation with a crafted depiction of their choosing. This can limit the reader’s role in making the story come alive, and individual to the reader. The story can at times seem more real, more disturbing, and more gothic when the author hits the nail on the head. There is less room for error however, and when the story falters in places, the author cannot rely on the reader to make up the extra.

            Horror by itself is not gothic. Irony is also not particularly gothic. When the two are combined however you get something that is often gothic, especially in the sense of it becoming uncanny. Horror can fail to be horrific at times when it becomes too familiar. This familiarity means that the tactics used to scare are expected, and without the surprise, the sense of terror is lost. When horror is combined with irony, the surprise returns because the familiar horror is made unfamiliar. 

Defining the Gothic: Revisited

Gothic literature is not Gothic architecture, gothic fashion, or gothic music. Gothic literature may contain elements of these other gothic enterprises but a woman with black eye make up; playing a guitar in a cathedral does not necessarily a gothic story make. To explain the gothic you should understand what it is doing, how it does it, what appears Gothic but is not, and why it matters.

To call something gothic should conjure up all sorts of images: gargoyles, women running from abusive barons, ghostly apparitions, and a good bit of fainting. This conjuration that accompanies the use of any word makes defining that word all the more important. Calling a piece of literature gothic should let the reader know that the work deals with uncomfortable emotions, and there likely will not be a typical happy ending. Calling the gothic also should cue other ideas of what one might expect from the story.

           

Gothic tropes include:

Supernatural events – giants, skeletons, ghosts, moving paintings, the undead

Oppression of women – forced marriage, rape, reduced role in deciding one’s own fate

Fear of science

Fear of weather

Fear of the mind – are those ghosts real? Am I imagining this?

A story that occurs in a mysterious or ruined abbey or castle

Oppression by the church

Oppression from one’s past

Forbidden love

Some pieces may contain these elements but are not using them for the gothic purpose. Other pieces may contain only some of these elements.

Harry Potter contains giants, but is it gothic? That element of it fits into the gothic literary genre but you must analyze the piece as a whole.

The gothic should frighten you, or at least make you feel uncomfortable.

Go-Daddy commercials can make you feel uncomfortable, and a beautiful woman kissing a nerdy man is certainly an example of forbidden love but the piece as a whole is not very gothic.

The horror genre contains the same aim as the gothic genre but accomplishes its task in different way. The horror genre may even contain some gothic tropes, but when taken as a whole the piece is called horror. This could be because the piece employs more horror techniques (senseless bloodshed, daisy dukes, large shiny knives, men in masks) but lacks the class and modesty of the gothic.

To call a piece of work gothic, you have to be able to justify it. If you believe Dracula, or Twilight to be gothic you have to follow the evidence. Pieces that are missing some gothic elements may be sufficiently gothic if they don’t pull too much from the horror, or science fiction grab bag. If a key part of the work is intimately gothic then you may deem that piece gothic, even if it takes place aboard a spaceship in the year 2045 and not in a baron’s castle.

There is no checklist for gothic; a piece isn’t gothic just because you have seven check marks in the gothic trope category and only four in horror. Assigning a check mark to tropes does not appropriately represent the significance that the trope plays in the story. Assigning a piece into the gothic genre is not black and white. Something is not simply “Goth” or “not Goth” Instead the gothic represents a spectrum. The Castle of Otranto is very gothic; you can find it just past Beauty and the Beast on the gothic scale. Twilight and James Bond can also be called gothic and you can find those pieces just past Ruby Gloom on the gothic scale.

So in the question should not be “is it Goth or not?” The question should be “How gothic is it?” The previously mentioned black-eyed woman playing a guitar in a cathedral could indeed be gothic. The piece would have to be analyzed for any other gothic tropes, the use of tropes from other genres, the significance of those tropes in the piece, and the purpose of the piece. After all that has been done, one could never decide it is not gothic, one could only decide just how gothic it is.

"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Stetson

“The Yellow Wall Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Stetson addresses the issue of woman’s inability to confront and solve issues imposed upon them by a male dominated society, in a productive and conventional way. Women in this period were denied the means of usual problem solving, because of their role in society. Men of the period believed women were weak, prone to flights of fancy, unable to decide what was in their best interest, and needed a man to direct their life for them.

            The work begins by the Narrator expressing her concern that the house is unusual, and maybe haunted. Her husband, John, laughs at her and the Narrator says, “one expects that in marriage.” The narrator is concerned but her husband will not take her seriously. John believes that he knows what is right.

            Like his belief that the house is okay, John does not believe that there is anything wrong with his wife’s health. However he has recommended a cure that includes isolation rest, and no work of any kind. The Narrator wishes to see her family, and child but John does not think that would be good for her health. John prescribes scheduled naps, and chastises the Narrator for getting out of bed at night. The Narrator is dissatisfied with their bedroom but John does not allow her to change rooms, and attributes her dislike for the room as a fancy, which she must not indulge.

            The room itself represents the Narrator’s, and women in general, place in society. She cannot change the room even though she finds its alarming and revolting. The bed is nailed down, the windows are barred, and the wallpaper forms a prison for a woman, when viewed in the moonlight. Like the Narrator the woman in the wallpaper is trapped. The Narrator tries to help her escape, but rather than the woman escaping out of the wallpaper, The Narrator escapes into it, or rather into her own head, rejecting the world which has resigned her to a nominal role.

            A man in this period would not have been forced to accept bed rest as a cure for a problem that no one believed was really there at all. He would have been taken seriously, and his opinion would have counted. A man would have had the opportunity to decide for himself that he is well enough to work, or visit his family. If a man were unhappy with his room, he would change it. Women were denied the same paths for seeing their will put into effect. They were something to be conducted by men, their decisions contingent on the decisions of the man. The Narrator is denied this options and must resort to a different sort of problem solving. There is no way to seek change within the system, so she leaves the system.

"The Ruins of the Abbey of Fitz-Martin"

The principal gothic tropes in the “Ruins…” include angry, powerful, and manipulative men. This trope manifests itself in the Knight, and the Baron/Vortimer. The Baron is only using Anna to regain the abbey. The current owner of the abbey finds it in ruin, and is forced inside its mysterious interior by stormy weather. Rosaline encounters a supernatural voice, and figurines of death in Anna’s tomb. Anna is imprisoned in this tomb by corrupt church figures, who have been manipulated by the Baron.

The solutions that the author offers are not very hopeful. The women in the story have no way of escaping from these problems in life. The only way out is to die. Even if you run away, you either must return, or you will be tracked down. In death you are free from these problems, and in death you are able to exact revenge. Only in death is Anna able to be free from her father and husband. In death she is also afforded the power to make these people pay for what they have done to her. The anonymous author, a woman, writing in a period in which women had very little control of their life must have been hoping to warn women about the dangers of men and the world in general. Even if you can escape wedding the wrong man, you may find yourself haunted by their power, or forced into a corrupt and unforgiving religious life. Women simply can’t win. Armed with this knowledge women may better control their own fate, or at least see that there are often ulterior motives behind the actions of men.