Well for the first time I read a piece of the after book analysis and I wasn't horribly disappointed by the over wordy nature of the piece, then again maybe that was just by some perceive witty remarks that I thought I found in there. Either way Michael Davis gave us a lot to think about. However since talking about everything that he went over would be not only longer than necessary, it would also most likely be duller than a doorknob. So on to the meat and potatoes.
One of my favorite bits in Davis' piece (including witty commentary) comes very near the end of page 232 and the top of page 233. Davis points out "Indeed Carmilla and her enigmatic messages, together with the anagrammatical lability of her ‘name’, are like the chimeras sold by the hunchback, ‘compounded of parts of monkeys, parrots, squirrels, fish, and hedgehogs, dried and stitched together with great neatness and startling effect’ (265); part of nature and yet beyond conventional meaning. (And is it too fanciful to suggest that ‘Carmilla’ and ‘chimera’ sound quite similar?) Thus, through the allegorising selfreflexivity of Le Fanu’s text we can see that Carmilla and the Gothic are chimerical hybrids, a stitching together of heterogeneous and thus profoundly enigmatic signifying materials." Personally I think that this is one of the most inherent things behind a truly Gothic piece of literature, being something horribly innocuous and yet totally terrifying. I decided to go and see what Wikipedia had to say about Gothic Literature, and sure enough they had a nice big list of the Prominent features of Gothic Fiction and, needless to say, the overwhelming majority of the list took place right here in Carmilla.
Now I'll jump around a little here, but that because I haven't taken enough psychology classes to make much sense some of the way that things worked out here, so I'll just stick to what I know for now. I'm not a big fan of Freud, but I know of a lot of his work. I am a big fan of Shakespeare, and I know a lot of his work as well. So when Davis stared explaining the Oedipal situation of Carmilla my mind started recognizing what he was talking about (right after it made a short leap to Oedipus Rex). Now I'll admit I was a little surprised to see the Oedipus references in this analysis, but that's mostly because I didn't see that type of relationship between Laura and her father. I saw and understood the slightly maternal interactions and relationship between Carmilla and Laura but I hadn't made the leap to Oedipal for her father, and it I missed something that he makes seem fairly obvious, I wonder where I missed it exactly.
Now one last note. I mentioned in my piece last week that I hadn't seen much of the interaction with Ireland in the stories or the characters, nor did I see an overt amount of Ireland in the stories that we had been reading. This isn't to say that I didn't see some of the political ramifications, nor the persecution of the relationship between the British, I just thought it wasn't the forefront of the pieces sometimes. I also made the point that, perhaps I wasn't seeing it because I wasn't part of the originally intended audience, and that's something that we often miss when reading over these pieces. We have the luxury of looking back on history and seeing what was going on at that time, but we weren't living it. We weren't living the subtleties of the daily interaction with the writers culture, as much as I wish I could have sometimes. So who knows, we all may be way off base with our analyses, and somewhere the authors are having a good ole giggle at us in the afterlife, or maybe we're dead on the money. Just things to contemplate as the nights wane by.
WS
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Hi Kayla,
ReplyDeleteFirst off I commented on the exact same passage in my blog.
“Thus, through the allegorising selfreflexivity of Le Fanu’s text we can see that Carmilla and the Gothic are chimerical hybrids, a stitching together of heterogeneous and thus profoundly enigmatic signifying materials” (233).
At first I had no idea what the heck this passage meant. Then I decided to break it down word by word. In the Enigmatic Signifier, Davis says, “"Indeed Carmilla and her enigmatic messages, together with the anagrammatical lability of her ‘name’, are like the chimeras sold by the hunchback, ‘compounded of parts of monkeys, parrots, squirrels, fish, and hedgehogs, dried and stitched together with great neatness and startling effect’ (265)
I have never heard of the word Chimera before so I decided to do a little bit of research. This is what I found from the following website:
http://www1.unifi.it/surfchem/solid/bardi/chimera/origins.html
“So, the Chimaera is in the end a grotesque and deformed image of the mother goddess and it embodies all the evil that men can think about women. In classical times and middle ages, this concept was sometimes explicitly expressed. In the "Malleus Maleficarum" (15th century) Kramer and Sprenger, in a most politically incorrect series of statements, pile up injury after injury on women, culminating with the report of this passage by Valerius (1st Century AD), an author much fashionable throughout the middle ages. "You do not know that woman is the Chimaera, but it is good that you should know it; for that monster was of three forms; its face was that of a radiant and noble lion, it had the filthy belly of a goat, and it was armed with the virulent tail of a viper". The comment of Kramer and Sprenger is that Valerius "means that a woman is beautiful to look upon, contaminating to the touch, and deadly to keep".
A chimera is described as part lion, goat, and snake and Davis compares Carmilla to a chimera. I find it interesting that the above passage says a chimera is said to be female and that “a woman is beautiful to look upon, contaminating to the touch, and deadly to keep.” Doesn’t that accurately describe Carmilla?
You’re right this theme of being “something horribly innocuous and yet totally terrifying.” Seems to be a theme in gothic literature. Gargoyles which are sort of Chimera’s themselves also seem to originate from the gothic era. Interesting stuff to ponder.
Hey!
ReplyDeleteMichael Davis DID give us a lot to think about, that’s for sure! Carmilla is definitely full of “the Gothic” and could very well be the very definition of it. Death, darkness, monsters, vampires, sickness, etc. I liked how you mentioned that although you didn’t know much about Freud, you knew much about Shakespeare and I thought your quote, “…when Davis stared explaining the Oedipal situation of Carmilla my mind started recognizing what he was talking about (right after it made a short leap to Oedipus Rex). Now I'll admit I was a little surprised to see the Oedipus references in this analysis, but that's mostly because I didn't see that type of relationship between Laura and her father.”
This is interesting how you could easily make this relation; I’m don’t know very much of Shakespeare’s work, and I wish I did so that I could draw that conclusion/connection.
I agree with Lucy’s comment, “A chimera is described as part lion, goat, and snake and Davis compares Carmilla to a chimera. I find it interesting that the above passage says a chimera is said to be female and that “a woman is beautiful to look upon, contaminating to the touch, and deadly to keep.” Doesn’t that accurately describe Carmilla?”
This is definitely describing a parallel to Carmilla. She is beautiful to look at, her touch is both repelling but somehow tantalizing, and she’s a vampire, so she’s deadly. Well said.
I still feel lost as far as the Oedipal references. My eyes were drawn to the phrase, as I'm familiar with it (having read Oedipus Rex in high school and discussing the Oedipal Complex i detail) but I could not see how it fits into the story! I definitely did not see it between Laura and her father. I suppose I'm also confused on if you are saying you were able to find that connection, or if you were still trying to piece it together like me? I'm thinking when you said you missed something that he seemed to make obvious that you were saying you still didn't understand it (I'm sorry if I'm completely off track here, I think my brain is in overload right now and I'm starting to second guess myself!)
ReplyDeleteWhen you said, "I saw and understood the slightly maternal interactions and relationship between Carmilla and Laura but I hadn't made the leap to Oedipal for her father" I was drawn to comments I made last week regarding the maternal bonds presented between Laura and Carmilla (and also Laura and Bertha) Basically I explained then how I feel that Carmilla used this as a ploy to gain favor in her victims eyes- by exploiting the fact that they were motherless and had that void that she could fill. Again, however, I just am not able to draw the connection to the Oedipal Complex...
WS,
ReplyDeleteI like that you're challenging Davis's arguments surrounding the Oedipus Complex. I'm actually surprised that he didn't make more reference to french feminist Luce Irigaray's ideas about the "murder" of the mother in western narrative by patriarchy. Irigaray notes that in western narrative, from myth to the modern novel, that there are quite a few female orphans. Why is that? She states that this is symbolic of men destroying the transference of "female" knowledge via the mother and replacing it with patriarchal knowledge. Here's a link to a brief discussion of Irigaray's ideas. Scroll down to Mother-Daughter Relationships http://www.iep.utm.edu/irigaray/#SH4c
Really, one could argue that Carmilla is an extension of this narrative structure. Carmilla's initiation of Laura into vampirism *could* be argued to be a seduction into "female" knowledge, which is thwarted by the male, patriarchal figures in the text--the General, the Baron, and of course, her father. It's ironic that as hard as these men work to anihilate Carmilla, Laura is kind of ambivalent about her in the end. It's almost as if Laura *wants* to become a vampire (and some critics argue that she actually *does* become one. Note in the beginning of the text that Laura had "died in the interval" (243)).