Blog for 120

Perfume: The Story of a Murder is a film that fits within the Gothic genre because of the way it introduces horror and terror through the uncanny and sublime.

The uncanny is present throughout the film. Every viewer has experienced the power of scents to evoke powerful feelings and vivid memories. While in real life the strong associations with scents are generally good, in the film, Jean-Baptist’s keen sense of smell drives him to a murderous obsession. I found myself stopping to ask, “Wait, is it creepy that I know what certain people smell like?” The movie makes the viewer uncomfortable by heightening something familiar to a degree that is unfamiliar and deeply unsettling.

The uncanny is also present in the way Jean-Baptist’s strange history is marked by a trail of deaths. His mother, the orphanage woman, the tanner, and the perfumer (Baldini?) all die as soon as his connection with them is severed. Each instance viewed individually is coincidental or predictable, but their combination uncannily suggests a deliberate pattern by an external force.

The sublime is also a driving force in Perfume. The cinematography of the film specifically demonstrates the power of scent to evoke the sublime. Recall how perfume evokes shots of beautiful gardens caressed by warm, light breezes and crowned with laughter, and how we follow Jean-Baptist into envisioning a forest stream and “warm stones” solely from the smell of cut wood. Even more importantly, the driving plot point is that Jean-Baptist is trying to preserve the glorious, intoxicating power of woman’s scent. He is trying to bottle the sublime. There seems to be something inherently wrong about this goal and his cool detachment and methods are both horrible and terrifying.

The uncanny and the sublime in the film come crashing together in the final scenes, in which Jean-Baptist uses his masterpiece perfume to prevent his execution and start a town-wide orgy. Watching the citizens be swept away into sublime ecstasy by a scent is deeply unsettling.

Even more disturbing is the way Jean-Baptist remains detached from the perfume’s power; he has the power to create something human on a fundamental level, but he cannot experience it himself. He enjoys the scents, but in the manner of a scientist, not a connoisseur. Back in Paris after escaping his execution, he douses himself in the perfume, but is still outside its influence. When he cannot join the crowd in their rapture, their fervor kills him.

Jean-Baptist is set uncannily apart – the orphan children automatically see him as different, and there are even suggestions that he does not exist, at least not in any usual way. He possesses no scent of his own, lacking the characteristic the film calls a person’s “essence,” synonymous for a soul. He kills again and again with impunity, walking into private homes and past sleeping animals like a ghost.

Perfume continuously evokes the trademark Gothic emotions of horror and terror through the uncanny and sublime.

In Gabriel Garcia Marques’s short story “The Last Voyage of the Ghost Ship,” the magical realism of the protagonist’s childhood follows him into adulthood. The first line of the story begins a focus on the protagonist’s identity that will continue throughout: “Now they are going to see who I am.” The importance of his coming-of-age is brought out in the very next phrase, “he said to himself in his strong new man’s voice.” The reader learns that he seen the ghostly ocean liner every March for years, and he only ends the supernatural experience by uniting himself with it, placing “his will inside it” and directing it into undeniable contact with the reality he knows, the village (an instance of omnipotence of thought).

Though the story is told in the third person, it is told from the protagonist’s view, and the structure and descriptive language are characteristic of imagination. The entire work is a single sentence, like one long train of thought. In similar fashion, tangents intrude to give background about the protagonist’s mother and his surroundings. Fantastical descriptions like the “rotating light, who gloomy beams transfigured the village into a lunar encampment” and the noise that would have woken “the soundest-sleeping dragons in the prehistoric jungle” appear throughout.

The story deals with imagination made real, blurring the borders of fantasy and reality. The writing style and figurative language reinforce and reflect these themes. The story offers an unsettling commentary on our perception of reality – just because we’ve passed the period of life where daydreams and phantoms are expected doesn’t mean we can put them entirely behind us. Seeking to explain the inexplicable only seems to raise more questions and further uproot our grasp on reality.

“Buried Statues,” a short story by Antonio Benitez Rojo, is connected to the Gothic genre primarily through the centrality of the characters’ claustrophobia. The speaker’s family is physically restricted, isolated on their property in Havana for nine years.  They deny themselves information about the outside by choosing not listen to the radio, read newspapers, or communicate with former friends via letter or telephone. The individual members further isolate themselves, each in their own way. Mamá is an alcoholic, Aunt Esther clings to religion, and Don Jorge remains aloof. They sharply define each person’s role and responsibilities in the household, following “the Code” of “patriarchal commandments” instituted by the deceased Grandfather. Their relationships are confined by the parameters of an agreement made long ago.

Their isolation from the world and each other breeds suspicion and fear – the less they know, the more they fear the worst. In one instance, the speaker worries that butterflies are covert weapons used by enemies. Suspicion dominates their lives to the extent that the speaker (who has lived half her life this way) describes her natural surroundings as hostile, encroaching forces. The river is threatening to engulf them, the tall grasses are a “botanic siege,” and storms are “sieges.” Their own mansion pens them in, from the “spiked iron fence” topped with glass to the “warped ceiling” that menacingly drops plaster on their heads. Leaving is unthinkable, equated with “instant death. Moral death, that is.”

The characters in “Buried Statues” are hemmed in both physically and psychologically, warping their worldviews, tainting their relationships, and making their story decidedly Gothic.

Rereading Frankenstein distanced me from the story, so that throughout I asked myself “How plausible is this story?” The scientific question is one thing, but in the characters themselves, in the plot points – how much does it all hang together, and what does that mean for the novel? What do we, the readers, think of Frankenstein’s tale, and how does his perspective shape it?

On one point my faith in the story was particularly tried. Why is Victor so certain that his monster murdered William? Victors treats this point with absolute certainty, without evidence or explanation for his surety. Before the Being has made any malicious move whatever (appearing as a dark shape in the gloom scarcely counts), Victor is sure he is evil and seeking vengeance: “He was the murderer! The mere presence of the idea was an irresistible proof of the fact” (338). Could we find a clearer example of omnipotence of thought? Is this Victor’s self-absorption and obsession with his act of creation, or are his suspicions stronger in the retelling than they were at the time (keeping in mind that the bulk of the novel is Victor’s telling of the tale to Walton)?

Another case that makes me wonder about Victor as a narrator surrounds the characters of the novel. The women are ideal figures, the men romanticized, too. The people whose lives Victor destroys are so deliciously GOOD. Caroline Frankenstein, Justine, and Elizabeth are lovely and saintly, luckily rescued from desperate situations and raised to comfort. Clerval and Frankenstein’s father are exceptionally good, too. Didn’t the Frankensteins ever fight? Didn’t one of these children ever go through a rebellious stage (Clerval did have to convince his father to let him go to Ingolstadt to school, that was it!)? Didn’t Justine ever once exclaim: “I am innocent! There’s a murderer on the loose somewhere and you want to blame me?!” The children William and Ernest are cherubic and have promising futures. The parents share perfect felicity. Justine and Elizabeth delightedly accept their fates as scapegoat and default bride, respectively. It’s not quite real. Frankenstein seems to have glossed over the flaws in his victims and in his past, heightening his tragedy and his guilt.

A more intriguing plausibility study surrounds Frankenstein’s instant repulsion from his creation. Sure, the Being was ugly, but why did that matter? After long hours in slaughterhouses and graveyards, you’d expect Victor to have a strong stomach. The monster did nothing threatening save show he was alive, but Victor ran away in terror, eventually falling into fever and delirium. Why is his success so chilling? The novel takes for granted that human creation of life is horrible, unnatural, even evil.

It is interesting that Frankenstein believes his accomplishment should never be repeated – all his hopes for improving and prolonging human life die with his family members. He fears the reflection of himself he sees in Walton, yet encourages his crew to push on against adversity. I am left wondering about the novel’s message. Does it condemn scientific ambition, saying that human nature confines us to a certain realm of understanding, beyond which we destroy ourselves? Or is it a Moby Dick variant, warning only against obsession? Or is it merely a more thought-provoking, better written thriller – the most enjoyable form of the Gothic novel? I am inclined to conclude the last.

Random Thoughts:
Walton is a foil to both Victor and the Being. We get a prelude of Victor’s obsession in Walton’s lofty description of his goals. He proclaims that “nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind a steady purpose” (270). Like Victor, he sees his course as inevitable his “resolutions” “as fixed as fate” (275). He seeks to accomplish “some great purpose,” declaring “I preferred glory to every enticement that wealth placed in my path” (271). But we also see Walton take up the Being’s voice, as he laments “ I have no friend” and desires “one whose tastes are like my own” (273).

Frankenstein’s given name, Victor, is an interesting choice on Shelley’s part. Even Job’s misery was eventually ended and happiness restored, but Victor goes to death guilty, shriveled, and miserable. His only victory was one over science and the borders of life and death, which led to his complete ruin. He is far from the victor in the novel that bears his name.

Prompt: How is imagination constructed by your author, and what are its effects? What difficulties face the poet (and the imaginative faculty more generally) in that world? In framing your argument, be sure to connect your reading of the Romantic imagination to your understanding of the Gothic.

On Being Cautioned Against Walking on a Headland Overlooking the Sea Because It Was Frequented by a Lunatic (Sonnet 70)

Is there a solitary wretch who hies

To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,

And, measuring, view with wild and hollow eyes

Its distance from the waves that chide below;

Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs

Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf,

With hoarse, half-utter’d lamentation, lies

Murmuring responses to the dashing surf?

In moody sadness, on the giddy brink,

I see him more with envy than with fear;

He has no nice felicities that shrink

From giant horrors; wildly wandering here,

He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know

The depth or the duration of his woe.

- Charlotte Smith

Free Writing:

In Charlotte Smith’s sonnet “On Being Cautioned…” the speaker uses Gothic and Romantic conventions in creating character of the lunatic. She is not describing a physical person she sees, but instead molding a creature of her imagination, inspired by the warning mentioned in the title. The rhyme and sound patterns, choice of words and images, and overall structure of the poem all contribute to its nature as a spontaneous daydream inspired by the Gothic. The speaker’s imagination drives the work and leads to self-examination.

The two-part construction of the poem fits its character as a daydream followed by rapt reflection. The first octave describes the lunatic slowly; his portrait is compounded phrase by phrase as the speaker’s vision of him develops. The multiple clauses read like thoughtful stream of consciousness. There is even evidence of imaginative revision in the line “with starting pace or slow.” The entire octave is a single question, as if the speaker set out to ask only ‘Is there a lunatic?’ but lost herself in reflection, wondering who the lunatic is and what he feels.

The closing sestet marks a turn, as the author shifts to interpretation of the lunatic’s actions and to examining her own feelings. The ninth and tenth lines – “In moody sadness, on the giddy brink, I see him more with envy than with fear” – include an ambiguity that merges the speaker and the lunatic. The “sadness” and the “brink” apply not only to the lunatic’s conjured situation on the cliff, but to the speaker who identifies with him. Just as the lunatic finds solace in communion with the wild power of the “dashing surf,” the speaker has found a release in her thoughts. The descriptive ambiguity returns with lines 12-13, “wildly wandering here, He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know…” The first phrase is a description of both the lunatic’s actions and the speaker’s line of thought.

The rhyme scheme, meter, and other sound features also contribute to the poem as the product of imagination. The interlocking rhymes of the ababacacdedebb both define two distinct parts of the poem and unite it as a whole. The many punctuation breaks (both inside and separating lines) combined with the rhyme scheme yield a sense of consistent movement forward combined with a meandering impression. Likewise, every line has ten syllables, but the stress varies to prevent constant iambic pentameter. Alliteration appears throughout, but either encompasses only a few words or switches initial sounds – “with hoarse, half-utter’d lamentation lies,” “wildly wandering,” and “the depth or the duration.” The poem shifts linguistic focus, as the author of a daydream dwells on a specific detail, then flits on.

“On Being Cautioned…” utilizes many conventions of the Gothic and exemplifies their connection to the Romantic. The suggestion of a lunatic immediate implies to the speaker the dramatic heights of a “tall cliff” with the danger of the dreadful “distance from the waves that chide below” and the “sea-born gale.” The lunatic is described typically, “with wild and hollow eyes” and extreme torment voiced in “hoarse, half-utter’d lamentation.” In keeping with Romantic tradition, nature serves to frame character and emotion, with the cliff, gale, mountain, and “dashing surf” showing the extremes of emotion and alienation. Another feature consistent with the Gothic is the simplistic purity of the lunatic’s character; he is not just mentally disturbed, he has “no nice felicities” at all. The existence of “giant horrors” – key to the Gothic – is taken for granted. The phrase “uncursed with reason” is particularly akin to the Romantic rejection of the Enlightenment’s rationalism. It is interesting to note, however, that the lunatic “seems (uncursed with reason) not to know the depth or the duration of his woe.” His distance from reason has not kept him closer to his emotion, that is, not in a conscious sense.

Horace Walpole did a rather tremendous thing in setting off the Gothic Revival. He was prominent man in high society- son of the Prime Minister, Member of Parliament, an Earl, etc – attended Eton and Cambridge, and went on the fashionable Grand Tour, but he also seems to have been a bit of a character. He never married, but participated in flirtatious escapades with women and aroused suspicions of being a homosexual. He reminds me of my dear favorite Oscar Wilde!  He built his home Strawberry Hill in what would later be dubbed Gothic/neo-Gothic style – who knows what his neighbors were thinking! He published The Castle of Otranto in 1764 anonymously , probably because of its literary outrageousness. I think he was likely surprised that it spearheaded the movement that it did, and wonder he if did it for a lark (I’m quite sad that Frankenstein came well after his death). I’m intrigued by Walpole, and wish I knew what prompted his fascination with the fantastic to such a degree.

While Walpole’s motivations remain fuzzy to me, I can see more clearly the reasons the Gothic took off. After the Enlightenment stressing rationalism for years, people developed a heightened taste for the dramatic, the carnal, and the supernatural. The genre appealed to a broadening literate audience. After Walpole, authors like Radcliffe brought the Gothic to wider readership, and Austen was one of many skillful writers to satirize it. The Gothic began as an excursion into the human psyche in its various caricatured personas (The dutiful wife, the disenfranchised Lord, the man obsessed with begetting an heir, the long-lost son, the impassioned innocents), and ended as an artistic model often to be emulated.