The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction. Dorothy Scarborough
of the ghost, we see the influence of the dramatic rather than of the epic tradition. He is akin to Calderon’s wonder-working magician and Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus rather than to the satanic creations of Dante and Milton. He is not a dread, awe-inspiring figure either physically or as a personality, though he does assume terrifying, almost epic proportions in the closing scenes of The Monk and Zofloya. Neither is he as human, as appealing to our sympathies as the lonely, misjudged, misunderstood devils in later fiction. We neither love nor greatly fear the Gothic demon. Yet he does appear in interesting variants and deserves our study.
In Hogg’s Hunt of Eildon the devil comes in as a strange old man who yet seems curiously familiar to the king and to everyone who sees him, though no one can remember just when he knew him. There is a clever psychologic suggestiveness here, which perhaps inspired a similar idea in a recent play, The Eternal Magdalen. Later he is recognized and holy water thrown on him.
The whole form and visage of the creature was changed in a moment to that of a furious fiend. He uttered a yell that made all the abbey shake to its foundations and forthwith darted away into the air, wrapt in flames. As he ascended, he waved his right hand and shook his fiery locks at his inquisitors.
There is nothing dubious about his personality here, certainly!
Satan appears dramatically in The Monk as well. His first visits are made in the form of attractive youth. Ambrosio, who has been led into sin by the dæmonic agent, Matilda, is awaiting death in the Inquisition cell, when she comes to see him to urge that he win release by selling his soul to the devil. But the repentant monk refuses her advice, so she departs in a temper of blue flame. Then he has a more dread visitant—Lucifer himself, described as follows:
His blasted limbs still bore the marks of the Almighty’s thunders; a swarthy darkness spread itself over his gigantic form; his hands and feet were armed with long talons. … Over his huge shoulders waved two enormous sable wings; and his hair was supplied by living snakes which twined themselves with frightful hissings. In one hand he held a roll of parchment, and in the other an iron pen. Still the lightnings flashed around him and the thunder bursts seemed to announce the dissolution of nature.
Ambrosio is overawed into selling his soul and signs the compact with his blood, as per convention.
The devil doesn’t keep to his agreement to release him, however, for Lewis tells us that taking his victim to the top of a mountain and “darting his talons into the monk’s shaven crown, he sprang with him from the rock. The caves and mountains rang with Ambrosio’s shrieks. The demon continued to soar aloft till, reaching a dreadful height, he released the sufferer. Headlong fell the monk.” He plunges to the river’s brink, after which a storm is evoked by the devil and his body swept away in the flood.
A similar dæmonic manifestation occurs in Zofloya. Victoria has been induced to bind herself to the Evil One, who has appeared as a Moorish servant of impressive personality and special powers. He grants her wishes hostile to her enemies, holding many conferences with her in the dark forest where he is heralded by flute-like sounds. He appears sometimes like a flame, sometimes like a lightning flash. He comes with the swiftness of the wind and tells her that her thoughts summoned him. At last, he announces himself as Satan, and assumes his own hideous form of gigantism.
Behold me as I am, no longer that which I appeared to be, but the sworn enemy of all created nature, by men called Satan. Yes, it was I that under semblance of the Moor appeared to thee.
As he spoke, he grasped more firmly the neck of Victoria, with one push he whirled her headlong down the dreadful abyss!—as she fell his loud dæmonic laugh, his yells of triumph echoed in her ears; and a mangled corpse she fell, she was received into the foaming waters below.
The devil is seen in Vathek as a preternaturally ugly old man with strange powers. James Hogg has rather a penchant for the demon, for he uses him in The Wool-Gatherer, and in Confessions of a Justified Sinner, which is a story of religious superstition, of the use of diablerie and witchcraft, introducing a satanic tempter. On the whole, the appearances of the devil in Gothic fiction lack impressiveness, are weak in psychologic subtlety, and have not the force either of the epic or of the dramatic representations. Nor have they the human appeal that the incarnations of the devil in later fiction make to our sympathies.
In addition to the unholy powers possessed by the devil and given by him to his agents, the witches, warlocks and magicians, we see in Gothic fiction other aspects of dæmonology, such as that associated with animals and with inanimate objects. Supernaturalism in the horror novel is by no means confined to human beings, but extends to beasts as well. Animals are supposed to be peculiarly sensitive to ghostly impressions, more so than men, and the appearance of a specter is often first announced by the extreme terror of some household pet, or other animal. Gothic dogs have very keen noses for ghosts and howl lugubriously when an apparition approaches. Ravens are represented as showing the presence of evil powers, somewhat as the Southern darkey believes that the jay-bird is the ally of the devil and spends every Friday in torment. And one does not forget the snaky coiffure that writhed around the demon’s head in The Monk.
Maturin’s Albigenses introduces the story of a gruesome loup-garou, or werewolf, which figures extensively in folk-tales. In this case the husband of a beautiful young woman is a werewolf who during his savage metamorphosis tears her to pieces then disappears to return no more. This is suggestive—with a less satisfactory ending—of Marie de France’s charming little lai, Le Bisclavret. Professor Kittridge has shown the frequency of the werewolf motif in medieval story, by the variants he brings together in his Arthur and Gorlogon. In The Albigenses a lycanthrope also is described, a hideous human being that fancies himself a mad wolf.
There is much use of animal supernaturalism in James Hogg’s romances. In one,[18] Sandy is saved from going over a precipice by the warning of a hare that immediately after vanishes, having left no tracks in the snow. In another,[19] the two white beagles that the king uses in hunting are in reality maidens bound by enchantment, who are forced to slay human beings then transform them into deer for the king and his company to eat. The other dogs are aware of the unnatural state of affairs, while the men are too stupid to realize it. The clownish Croudy is changed into a hog, which brings amusing and almost tragic complications into his life. His old dog knows him and follows him pathetically, and a drove of cows go off in a stampede at his approach, for they, too, sense the supernatural spell. Croudy is put on the block to be killed for pork, when the fairy changes him back suddenly to the consternation of the butcher. But Croudy does not behave well after his transformation, so he is changed into a cat with endless life. He may resume mortal shape one night in the year and relate his feline experiences.
In the same story the king of Scotland is proposing a toast when his favorite dog dashes the cup from his hand. This is repeated several times, till the king learns that the drink is poisoned, and the dog has thus by supernatural knowledge saved his life. An innocent young girl, sentenced to death for witchcraft because a fairy has taken her form and worked enchantment, and her lover are transformed into white birds that fly out of the prison the night before the execution and live eternally on the shores of a far lake.
The ghostly power extends to inanimate objects as well as to human beings and animals. Armor and costumes seem to have a material immortality of their own, for it is quite common to recognize spectral visitants by their garments or accouterments. Armor clanks audibly in the terror scenes. In The Castle of Otranto, the giant ghost sends his immense helmet crashing into the hall to shatter the would-be-bridegroom and the hopes of his father. The head-gear has power of voluntary motion and moves around with agility, saves the heroine from danger by waving its plumes at the villain and generally adds excitement to the scenes. Later a titanic sword leaps into place of itself, after having been borne to the entrance by a hundred men fainting under the weight of it, while a statue of Alfonso sheds three drops of blood from its nose and a portrait turns round in its frame and strolls out into the open.
Pictures in general take a lively part in horrific fiction. The portrait of a murdered man in The Spirit of the Castle picks itself up from the lumber heap where it has been thrown, cleans itself and hangs itself back on the wall, while[20] a portrait in a deserted chamber wags its head at a servant who is making the bed.