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Review of Gothic Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain
Review Author: Julia P. Kielstra
H. L. Malchow introduces his book Gothic Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain by writing that it "searches an area that lies somewhere in the borderlands between literature and history, between 'representation' and reality. It is a shadowy place" (1). Cross-disciplinary studies such as this do indeed occupy a shadowy place, one whose shadows are not much dispersed by Malchow's light. His hope is that his study "will convincingly establish, not only the likelihood of an underlying racial element in gothic literature, but what is more important, the pervasiveness of the gothic in nineteenth-century racial discourse" (7). Such a task is indeed viable, and Malchow makes some interesting and insightful comments about representations of race in the nineteenth century. However, his reluctance to make assertions (possibly due to his reliance on secondary sources) or define the term "gothic," and his misunderstanding of the way evidence and proof are used in literary criticism (Malchow is, primarily, a historian) obscures those points that are helpful and insightful.
The opening chapter of the book examines Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and "contemporary attitudes toward nonwhites" (9). Malchow draws parallels between the history and development of Shelley's monster and that of Blacks, both free and enslaved. This chapter is one of the most successful of the book as it explores fully different aspects of the argument and substantiates its claims with textual evidence, both from Shelley's novel and from anti-slavery tracts and exploration narratives with little digression. Much of the evidence Malchow cites, however, appears to be from secondary sources, and this results in some factual errors. For example, in discussing the political aspect of abolition, he refers to 806 petitions containing 1.5 million signatures that, within four weeks of contentious proposals being made at the Congress of Vienna in 1814, were sent to British Parliament opposing them. His information is wrong: the petitions were in reaction to the slave trade clause of the First Peace of Paris which pre-dated the Congress of Vienna by several months. This error is due to Malchow's source, which is only secondary and not even one of the standard works in the field. It is dangerous to rely too completely on secondary sources and generalizations, and too often Malchow couches his statements in words such as "probably" and "likelihood" and neglects primary material.
Malchow devotes the bulk of the book to a study of cannibalism and popular culture. The very interesting second chapter identifies many parallels between literature dealing with cannibalism and contemporary social or political issues in Britain, such as the place of the poor or weak in society, rural violence, and female sexuality. He makes the excellent point, for instance, that in literature about cannibalism, "there is a kind of inversion, already seen in the case of women and paupers, whereby a threatening identity may coexist with a contradictory one of vulnerability and victimization" (103). Malchow draws out the implications of this inversion in a further discussion of maritime cannibalism, when European or North American sailors were forced to eat other sailors to survive. His references to images being "gothic," however, are vague and seem almost gratuitous; his idea of what the gothic is seems to be limited to things that are scary or unsavory, and probably sexual. By not defining his literary terms, Malchow's use of a literary genre becomes largely unnecessary and even confusing. It would have been better if he had simply looked at images and portrayals of racism rather than aligning them with a particular type of literature.
Malchow's next two chapters argue respectively that gothic literature focusing on vampires picks up many aspects of cultural criticism and suspicion of the Jews, and that the half-breed, like Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's novel, is represented as a potential source of disease and racial weakening. Again, these chapters bring out interesting points about representations of non-whites in the nineteenth century, but Malchow's use of literary evidence is restricted, as in the previous chapters, to recounting plots and making generalizations about "commonplaces" that are then not supported with appropriate references. By not seeming to understand that literary evidence is founded on textual evidence, Malchow's lack of quotation and direct reference to the texts dramatically undermines his project.
The epilogue is a close reading of the issues surrounding the marriage between a white London woman and a black African. Malchow's reading supports his previous arguments, consolidates many of the points he made at greater length earlier in the book and refers very little to the gothic.
Gothic Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain is worth reading not for any light it sheds on the gothic, nor for a reduction of the shadows in the "borderlands between literature and history," but for its comments on aspects of racial identity in the nineteenth century. It remains for someone else to substantiate Malchow's arguments, to draw them out fully, and to examine completely the implications of those arguments, but Malchow has sketchily mapped the shore of that dark place.
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