Trauma, madness and hysteria attributed to female characters in gothic fiction: Ann Radcliffe and Bronte Sisters

This study aims to explore and discuss, through the novels, Radcliffe?s The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Romance of The Forest; Emily Bronte?s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Bronte?s Jane Eyre the fact that almost every woman character in Gothic fiction is threatened by a powerful, provocative and bullying male character and that she continually fears and wonders, and that all of these negative representations are the result of the dominant ideology on women of the time.In Gothic fiction, the characters are produced in an atmosphere of mystery and curiosity as the extraordinary and unexplained events constitute the theme. However, there is a big difference between male and female characters? presentations in Gothic fiction. While one or more male characters hold the power in the first rank as a father of a young girl or the protector of an orphan girl throughout the novel, they demand things from women that they can not accept. In these novels, the female characters should face the events that frighten them, make them fainted and burst into tears. The lonesome, thoughtful and the oppressed woman becomes the center of the novel. The Gothic works produced by both males and females create similar types of women characters. When the background sociological and communal facts are the same it is an expected outcome and the contributors to this result are the English and American medical men and clergymen with their increasing influence towards the established Victorian rules. This is the same both in the Gothic works produced by men and in the Female Gothic. The dominant patriarchal society of the age believed that the biological features determine the place of women in the society and it confined women into fertility and within the walls of the home. Women?s reproductory system is considered the determining factor of her in the society. The doctors and mothers of the period preached the daughters that the moment they leave their natural duties such as womanhood and motherhood, their lives would be destroyed. As a consequence, while motherhood, obedience, respect and submissiveness were exalted, the demand for education, the attempt to become a writer and the idea of birth control for women were accepted as the most evil sins that would destroy both women and the whole society. In turn, hysteria, madness and trauma became the most prevalent diseases for the women.Having discussed all these prevalent factors, the scope of this study covers displaying women?s very frequently encountered hysteria, trauma and madness in the chosen Gothic fictions namely with references to Radcliffe?s Emily and Adeline, Bronte sisters?, Catherine, Bertha and Jane characters.