Is the Gothic racist? Part I

Yes, sometimes

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that the Gothic can be pretty racist, and today I’m exploring that topic in more detail. This is a two-part post: today I’ll explain why racism is fundamental to many Gothic novels, and next week I’ll argue that it doesn’t have to be.

This post is a little nerdy and a bit longer than usual, but if I lose you at any point there’s a tldr below.

***contains major spoilers for Jane Eyre***

Us vs. Them

When I say the Gothic can be racist, you might be thinking, “but aren’t all old British books racist? What’s special about the Gothic?”. And yes — many older British books reflect the prejudices of their time. But that’s not what I mean here. While other books may contain racist language or opinions, in Gothic literature prejudice is often essential to the plot.

Let me explain. What moves plot forward in the Gothic? Fear. It could be the unease of Gothic terror, or the outright disgust of Gothic horror, but either way fear drives the story. And where does that fear come from? In many Gothic novels, fear comes from a threatening outsider or someone who is markedly different from the rest of the characters. In other words, many Gothic novels rely on an “us vs. them” structure in which the “us” will only be safe when the “them” is finally defeated.

Let’s think about some examples of this. In Dracula, the source of fear is the Count, whose native Transylvania is described as backwards and utterly foreign. In Jane Eyre, the source of fear is Bertha (remember the woman in the attic?), who grew up in the Caribbean and is possibly biracial. In Jekyll and Hyde, the source of fear is Mr Hyde, who resides in a part of London strongly associated with immigrants, poverty, and criminality. In each of these examples, the threat comes from outside middle-class England — even if, as in Jekyll and Hyde, “outside middle-class England” means the next neighborhood over.

At first glance, it may seem that the characters are simply afraid of a vampire, a lunatic, or a serial killer; but you don’t have to look too far beneath the surface to see that the larger cause for concern is whether “civilized” English life will be able to continue as before, or whether the threatening outsider has already caused too much damage.

Scientific racism, colonialism, and the Gothic

At this point maybe you’re thinking, “okay…but aren’t all those villains white? How is that racist?”. And yes — with the possible exception of Bertha, they are. Nonetheless, Dracula, Bertha, and Hyde are all described using language that maps neatly onto 19th-century theories of race — in particular, the idea that some people are less human than others.

For instance:

• Dracula is a “filthy leech” who “crawl[s]…just as a lizard moves along a wall.”

• Bertha is a “wild beast” and “tigress” who “snarl[s]” and “snatch[es]…like a dog.”

• Hyde is “hardly human,” an “ape-like” and “troglodytic” figure who “snarl[s]” and “hiss[es].”

There are so many more examples from all three texts, but you get the point. Dracula, Bertha, and Hyde are all described as subhuman — as animals. And this is precisely how many white Europeans thought about other races in the 19th century: less human, bestial, and sometimes monstrous.

19th-century theories of race

There were two main theories of race in 19th-century Britain (and, to be clear, both are hogwash):

1. Degeneration. In this theory, all humans are part of a single species, but some people were thought to have “degenerated,” due to climate, culture, and other factors. Degeneration requires that you think of humans as existing on a spectrum: on one end, the best and most “civilized” of the species; on the other end, the more “primitive” and bestial. Who was on which end? You guessed it: the English imagined themselves as “civilized” and the people they colonized as “primitive.”

2. Polygenism. In this theory, different races are considered different species. Similar to degeneration, there’s a hierarchy in which certain “species” of humans are considered superior to others, with white Europeans at the top.

Both theories are part of scientific racism: the idea that white European superiority is observable and measurable, like any other scientific phenomenon.¹

If you took a degenerative view of race, it was possible for people to move along the spectrum; in particular, so-called primitive people could become more civilized through the influence of a “superior” culture. Unsurprisingly, this idea was used to justify British colonialism, with proponents arguing that colonized people would benefit from British rule.

But — and this is important for the Gothic — it was also possible for so-called civilized people to become more primitive. In 19th-century Gothic literature, you see a lot of anxiety that, through contact with the colonies, people of color, or the working classes, British society itself could degenerate. The horror!

Okay…I think I’m following, but give me an example

This anxiety about degeneration is visible in all three books above, but let’s look more closely at Jane Eyre. In Jane Eyre, Jane and Rochester are in love, and they want to marry and live out their days at Thornfield Hall, Rochester’s ancestral home. But their happiness is almost ruined — and Thornfield Hall is burned to the ground — by Bertha herself: the woman in the attic, Rochester’s first wife, and, as mentioned, a biracial woman from the British colonies.

(What’s that you say? You want to argue that maybe Rochester is at fault for imprisoning his wife in an attic and then trying to marry a much younger woman who is also his employee while his first wife is still alive? I’m sorry, but I don’t think you’ve been paying close enough attention — proper British men are never to blame!)

If you think about this metaphorically, the dangerous outsider (Bertha) sets fire to Englishness itself (Thornfield Hall) — the colonies are destroying the homeland. Lucky for England, Bertha is also consumed by the fire, so the homeland isn’t any further imperiled by her presence.

Even if we don’t think Bertha is biracial, the fear of degeneration still applies. Many scientists in the period believed that racial characteristics were strongly influenced by climate; thus, Bertha’s exposure to the Caribbean heat corrupted her European bloodline and she, in turn, threatens to corrupt everyone back in England.

The fear of degeneration is even clearer in Jekyll and Hyde, in which an upstanding, middle-class citizen turns into a “troglodytic” serial killer. In this case, the source of corruption is the city itself: many 19th-century texts represent London as a crime-ridden place where the middle class must live dangerously close to the working classes and immigrant populations.

You could argue that both Bertha and Hyde represent the fear of our own primal desires and what would happen if those desires were allowed to run rampant (and they definitely do represent that!). But even so, in making Bertha and Hyde the embodiment of those desires, both texts suggest that the outsider is someone to be feared, controlled, and eliminated, thereby reinforcing the racist worldview of many people in 19th-century Britain.

TLDR: What makes a Gothic novel racist?

The villain is a threatening outsider.

That threatening outsider is described as subhuman, bestial, and monstrous. Even if this outsider is ostensibly white, these descriptions map onto racist theories in which people of color are considered more animalistic than their white European counterparts.

The threatening outsider must be defeated or removed in order to protect white, middle-class British life, thereby reinforcing the xenophobia and racism of the time.

In conclusion

There’s a lot more I could say here, but I think that’s probably enough for today. Next week I’ll get into Gothic novels that challenge the distinction between “us” and “them,” and others that flip the script, representing white Europeans as the threatening outsiders. Until then, let me know in the comments if you have thoughts or questions, and I’ll see you Friday with recommendations. This week: witches! 🧙🔮

1. I’m talking about the 18th and 19th centuries here, but scientific racism is by no means limited to that period (see this article on its persistence in the 21st century).