Women in gothic literature are depicted and treated differently in different periods of the gothic genre. Their roles are also subverted at times to achieve certain aims of the gothic novels. Basically, women are often placed in the bad light of society where they may either be weak or corrupted and treated badly by male characters. However, their roles changes as society progresses.
In early gothic, women are depicted as foolish and helpless as they are often under the oppression of man. Gothic literature develops the character of women such that they are indecisive and submissive. For example in “The Castle Of Otranto”, Hippolita is depicted as an obedient wife of her husband who is a tyrant where “she would not only acquiesce with patience to divorce, but would obey, if it was his pleasure, in endeavouring to persuade Isabelle to give him her hand.” This shows how weak women are portrayed as they do not have their own stand but even support polygamy at the expense of her own marriage.
Moreover, women are also often depicted as vulnerable and lost. This is due to the oppression of man whereby the women always try to escape from their clutches
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For example, in “Dracula”, Lucy was transformed into a raving vampire vixen. Thus the stupidity is on her when she creates terror through her own imagination and faints at the end when she sees the picture. The existence of female characters are also said to be “women off him as best we could, for they were as wild as harpies” where harpies represent women to be evil. Even she had an identity it was of a whore where she was treated like an object of temptation shown in “She was not Eve but, herself, the forbidden fruit, and he has eaten her!” Moreover, in other gothic text such as those by L. For example in “The Castle Of Otranto”, Isabelle tries to escape from Manfred and in “The Mysteries Of Udolpho”, Emily tries to escape from Count Morano.
In modern gothic, women are depicted as alluring and sexually seductive such that they possess unnatural beauty. The weird sisters who were three beautiful vampires are also depicted as voluptuous and sexually aggressive to undermine the foundations of a male-dominated society. ” They are all images of perfection and are seem superior to man resulting them to be destroyed since man view them with terror and awe fearing that they would be more superior.
The women are also presented as virgins so that their virginity is a form of power over men where in “The Company of Wolves” by Carter, where her virginity saved her from being killed. For example, in “Ligeia” by Edgar Poe, she was described to be “features of Ligeia were not of a classic regularity-although I perceived that her loveliness was indeed ‘exquisite’.
In contemporary gothic, women are depicted into two extremes of either submissive or dominant. The women are also depicted to be with no identity resulting them to be treated as objects such as in “Black Venus” by Carter, Jeanne had no identity as “she was like a piano in a country were everybody has had their hands cut off”. Traditional roles of women are subverted where now they are depicted as the stronger gender and they possess powers greater than man such as in “The Bloody Chamber” by Angela Carter, the hero who saved her from the clutches of her husband was her mother shown in “she raised my father’s gun, took aim and put a single, irreproachable bullet through my husband’s head”.
