Review: Ellis, The Contested Castle (1989)

[truepenny]

The Contested Castle: Gothic Novels and the Subversion of Domestic Ideology by Kate Ferguson Ellis

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book, about the Gothic from Walpole to Shelley, with a great epilogue on Emily Bronte, is arguing that the Gothic is about the Fall, and about the way the Fall changes the enclosed space of the Garden (represented by the home---she also talks a lot about the ideology of separate spheres and about changing theories of child-rearing in the 18th century); it becomes either a prison you can't get out of or a refuge you can't reach, and changes from one to the other depending on where you are. (So it may start out as a refuge you can't reach, but when you overcome your trials and tribulations to reach it, it becomes a prison.) It also depends on whether you are male or female. Women are mostly imprisoned; men are mostly exiled. I found her lens extremely useful as a way of sorting out what happens in Gothic novels---and of course immediately thought of Hill House, which is the epitome of both the home post-Fall and the prison you can't get out of.

It is a theory-informed book, but it is not theory-heavy. It's a LITTLE on the dense side, but extremely readable for an academic book.

Four and a half stars, round up to five.



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