Getting Their Knickers in a Twist: Contesting the ‘Female Gothic’ in Charlotte Dacre's<i>Zofloya</i>

Davison, Carol Margaret

doi:10.7227/gs.11.1.5

Cited by 4 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…Using Zofloya as a prism to reconsider the Female Gothic, Carol Margaret Davison positions Victoria as the development of Radcliffean anti-heroines such as Signora Laurentini in The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794): a woman without a moral compass who, nevertheless, is depicted as a protofeminist who 'functions as a powerful, sexually desiring female subject'. 43 Emma, like Victoria, is celebrated as a powerful, sexually desiring female subject in Austen's novel. However, Austen strips the Gothic femme fatale of her histrionics in Emmaalthough, from a certain perspective, Frank's equivocations resemble Zofloya'sreformulating Gothic tropes in comic vein with her protagonist.…”

Section: Labyrinths Of Conjecturementioning

confidence: 99%

Labyrinths of Conjecture: The Gothic Elsewhere in Jane Austen's Emma

McInnes

2016

Gothic Studies

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In recent criticism, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey has been reconsidered as a comic rather than mock-Gothic novel, shifting its mockery onto a variety of other targets: domineering men, unwary readers, the violence underpinning English domesticity. I argue that Austen continues her engagement with the Gothic, beyond Northanger Abbey, using Emma as an exemplary case. Emma not only includes explicit mentions of Gothic novels such as Ann Radcliffe's The Romance of the Forest, but implicitly reformulates the relationships between Female Gothic figures: finding a frail, victimised heroine in Jane Fairfax and a seductive femme fatale in Emma herself.

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Section: Labyrinths Of Conjecturementioning

confidence: 99%