The story of humanity has in large part been a history of spirituality. From the earliest civilizations to today, religion has played a prominent role in society. Religion has taken forms ranging from isolated paganism to massive organized denominations. Its role has shifted repeatedly. It has ruled countries, such as the Holy Roman Empire or modern-day Saudi Arabia and Iran. Faith has led to wars, social movements, and everything in between. It has an undeniable influence on history. Today, especially in the western world, the idea of God tends towards the pillars of his omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence. However, the coexistence of these three traits breaks down with the simple presence of evil within this world.
How can an all-powerful and all-good God allow bad things to happen? if bad things happen and God has the power to stop them but doesn’t, then he can’t be omnibenevolent; on the flip side if he can’t stop them then he isn’t omnipotent. This dilemma and its implication have been long debated in circles of various religions. For many people of faith, this creates a sense of vulnerability. It opens up the possibility that something to which they give so much weight could be utterly and entirely wrong. This then ripples into undermining their fundamental sense of self, security, and the world as a whole. To prevent this, those people often, whether consciously or subconsciously, develop a defense mechanism.
The mechanism in question here is the conjuring of something else that is easy to blame for the events that are perceived to be in direct violation of God’s omnibenevolence. This conveniently provides a way to justify the existence of evil: if it’s outside of the realm of God, then he couldn’t have stopped it, omnibenevolent or not. Gothic literature stems from this need to preserve the notion of a benevolent God by finding any scapegoat upon which to place the blame for events that don’t fit the limited schema that we have of God; Gothic literature is, therefore, a manifestation of a deep-seated human fear that there is no God.
127 our experts are availableright now
Even though this false blame was especially appealing to writers and readers of times past due to their limited understanding of the natural events surrounding such tragedy, the use of such imaginary causes can still be seen today. This phenomenon is notably featured in Watkins’ Woman In Black. Throughout the horror movie, children are compelled to commit suicide by “The Woman in Black,” the ghost of a mother, Jennet Humfrye, who lost her child in a tragic accident. This obviously causes significant trauma, to the child, the parents, and society as a whole. The trauma is evidenced by Humfrye, played by Liz White, coming back as a vengeful ghost. This theme is indicative of a large trend in history before and during the Victorian era: premature child death.
Terrible and heartbreaking, it sparked considerable resentment amongst those affected. It would be completely understandable to turn one’s anger towards God in such a scenario. However, God may also serve as a source of comfort and hope in such trying times. In order to still have an outlet for their animosity, others must be found to blame. Woman in Black offers exactly that. It provides a specific thing to blame: the supernatural. In the remote village where the film takes place, the parents can have the small peace of mind that there is something beyond God making these things happen. While not every town will have their own Jennet Humfrye, the mere thought of the supernatural at work in this world is enough to give an outlet besides God. This path of thinking staves off the need to consider the possibility of the fallacy of the church.
Across the world and centuries in the past, the need to find reason in undue suffering was mirrored almost exactly, only this time focusing on the abuse and exploitation of vulnerable young girls. The prolific Russian author Nikolai Gogol tackles this in his The Terrible Vengeance. He too chooses to take the route of the supernatural is explaining away the bad in this world. In the story, the main characters, Katerina and Danilo, are terrorized by Katerina’s father, a sorcerer. The sorcerer had been absent from Katerina’s life for over twenty-one years and returned only to attempt to marry Katerina. He attempts repeatedly to push this incestuous relationship on his daughter, only to be refused. After repeated rejections, his violence escalates until “a terrible deed was done: a father killed his mad daughter” (Gogol 34).
Although this work touches on several other themes, such as child death, the main one is the abuse that Katerina suffers at the hands of her father. Even though this type of behavior was prevalent in the time period, these abominable acts are justifiable by no religion or set of ethics. Since God did not stop them, there must be something else behind it, so the logic of those seeking explanations in Gothic literature goes. In this case, magic and its corrupting influence are the root causes. Traces of xenophobia and anti-Semitism are thrown in, but there is still consistently some reason other than God that is expressed. This deflection of responsibility is consistent with that seen in other Gothic works in order to dissolve God of his role in evil in the world.
Gothic literature also directly addresses much larger issues facing people in order to cleanse their God of any complicity, namely disease. Disease has antagonized living creatures ever since said creatures came into existence. The viruses and bacteria that ravaged civilization seemed to be divine: unexplainable and virtually total in their power. Even though the collective understanding of these phenomenons has gradually changed from theology to biology, sickness nonetheless remains disturbing and dreadful. However, within religious circles, this raises problems. God’s omnipotence puts him in a position to stop this horrific occurrence, and his omnibenevolence gives him not only reason but obligation by nature to do so.
Still, disease remains conspicuously not eradicated. Instead of questioning the underlying assumptions about religion, people turned to other explanations. Gothic literature conveniently and perfectly fulfills that role. Most notable of the works that deal with this complicated topic is Masque of the Red Death, which takes place in a monastery converted by Prince Prospero to be a stronghold for his fellow constituents of the class to wait out the Red Death plaguing his country. The nobles and elites hiding from the fictional “Red Death,” largely understood to represent tuberculosis, which killed Poe’s mother and wife, encounter an Earthly manifestation of the Red Death. Poe artfully crafts an image of a figure that is strikingly otherworldly, described as “tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave” (3).
Poe furthers this visual by telling of the unexpected visitor’s mask, which “concealed the visage … so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat” (3). This illustration of tuberculosis as from some other realm and evil furthers the concept that it is something outside of God’s control. This outlook reconciles the happenings with the previously mentioned conflicts arising. This perfectly exemplifies the methods of rationalization used by both the authors and the readers of Gothic literature. If God doesn’t have dominion over a certain person or occurrence, then he can’t be held accountable for it. The ability to shift the blame from the God which they so value helps generate a massive appeal for Gothic literature.
Even in the face of the above evidence, the point could be raised that the Gothic body of works cannot relate to any of the major religions affected by the paradox due to their apparent deviations from traditional values and teachings of the church. On the contrary, the stories in many ways are consistent with the moral lessons from these institutions. Even in the aforementioned Masque of the Red Death, there are elements in line with the principles of religion. The most prominent is that of justice. While it may be hard to find much that appears justifiable in this work, it exists mainly in the form of characters ultimately getting what they deserve. Prospero experiences this first hand, when “one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall” (Poe 4). He has attempted to evade death on the basis of only his wealth. It is therefore easy to see the death of him and his revelers as just.
While their subjects withered away in the misery of the plague, watching their friends and family die before succumbing to the Red Death, these leaders who were supposed to be setting an example and providing hope for their people were instead partying. This obliviousness furthers the case for why their eventual downfall fits in with the ideals of religion. A similarly decidedly religiously aligned concept is expressed in the sense of honesty and accountability, as shown in The Tell Tale Heart. The narrator, after killing an old man with whom he lived, begins to hear “a strange sound in my ears” while talking to police officers (Poe 67). It grows progressively louder and louder, “ Louder, louder, louder!” (Poe 67), until “suddenly [the narrator] could bear it no longer” (Poe 67).
This loud and regular sound that seems to be emanating from the heart of the victim is symbolic of the narrator’s guilt, and it pressures him into confessing that “yes! Yes, I killed him” (Poe 67). He could not stand the pressure of his own guilt, and so confessed. This plays into the justice of the Masque of the Red Death but also contributes to a new sense of accountability. The aspect of confession and guilt are also common in religious settings, and so further the religious themes within these pieces to contribute to their standing as defenders of faith. The downfall of the sorcerer, the instigator of all the issues in The Terrible Vengeance, also adds to the overarching religious motif. The knights from heaven that vanquish the sorcerer attempt to reassure the readers of the ultimate glory of God, which follows the Bible and other sacred religious texts in their depiction of God. Together, the retention of morals and justice under a larger religious connection advances the notion that they do bear some religious meaning.
Through each individual piece, the concept of a God with all the prescribed qualities is preserved by providing other explanations for the occurrences in both the works and society as a whole. This proves critical to those who profess faith, as the fundamental idea of God as they know it could and would be called into question were these not to be presented. Furthermore, each story holds steady other values to be expected in any texts giving religious commentary. This played and may even still play a valuable job in society, as a large portion of the population subscribes to some form of religion possessing the beliefs about God examined here. The Judeo-Christian background of many authors as well as the similar demographic among readership led to this fixation, subconscious or otherwise, with finding others upon which to lay the blame for the bad of the world without implicating their allegedly omnibenevolent God. Gothic literatures provides a way out for theists that protects their fragile concept of God.
