| Since the late eighteenth century, there has emerged a fierce revolt against the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was widely known for its ideal beliefs, that is to say, liberty, fraternity and rationality. The fierce revolt influences every walk of life and the literary circle reacts fiercely to it. Under this strong revolting fashion, many literature genres appear, like sentimental fiction, the graveyard school, romantic poetry and Gothic fiction. Among all those genres mentioned above, Gothic fiction receives unparalleled popularity. Gothic fiction, as one of newly emerging English literature genres, is famous for its magnificent environmental descriptions and bloodcurdling plots. However, Gothic fiction is not simply horror fiction. Its outbreak and prevalence, in fact, have a profound social background and realistic significance. In this paper, The Mysteries of Udolpho, one of the most representative British Gothic fiction in the 18th century, will be analyzed and researched thoroughly. Ann Radcliffe writes this novel. As a female Gothic writer, Ann Radcliffe comes from a middle-class background. She is one of the chief shapers of Gothic fiction, kindling the flames of Gothic fictions in the 18th century. John Keats refers to her as "Mother Radcliffe", and, largely, the 1790s Gothic writing happens within her shadow. The novels written by Ann Radcliffe are more representative and mature than other Gothic novelist of the same era. Apart from that, Ann Radcliffe’s works are of realistic evaluations for literary scholars and critics.This paper will put the focus on the tight relationship between middle class and The Mysteries of Udolpho with the use of Marx’s literary theory. This would be an entirely new direction for Gothic literature researches. The reason why the paper chooses such a thesis argument is that Gothic novels have a unique literary position in the history. Its author is one of the members of the new middle class; its emergence background situates among the disordered society;and its content has a great amount of realistic reflections for the real society and people in the 18th century.The thesis has four chapters in total.The first chapter serves as a general introduction role, including the Marx’s literature theory, the origins of Gothic fiction, a brief introduction of The Mysteries of Udolpho, the relationship between Marx’s literature theory and Gothic fictions, and the realistic significance of combining Marx’s literary theory and The Mysteries of Udolpho. This part gives a full picture of Marx’s literary theory and Gothic fiction, and prepares for the rest.In the second chapter, there is a detailed analysis of the society in which the middle class was born in The Mysteries of Udolpho. Based on its political, economic and cultural backgrounds, it is evident to see the strong middle-class characters behind the outbreak of Gothic fictions. That exactly conforms to the Marx’s literary theory on the relationship between social life and literature.The main content of the third chapter is the analysis of positive and negative characters of The Mysteries of Udolpho. In most cases, the positive character of Gothic fiction is usually set as a female with qualities, such as weakness, kindness and beauty. While, on the contrary, the negative character is usually a greedy and lustful man, who is called Gothic villain in the literary circle. It seems that positive and negative characters would have extremely opposite properties. However, it is actually not. Besides contradictions and conflicts, there are also numerous common points between them. A comprehensive comparison would be given in the chapter. Unlike other Gothic writers, the positive characters from Ann Radcliffe have awakening female consciousness, which will also be presented in this chapter.The fourth chapter, also as the most thought-provoking one,shows a detailed summary on the implicit reflections of The Mysterious of Udolpho in three aspects, which are environment, plot, and theme. Environmental descriptions play a major role in Gothic novels, especially the natural world description. The environmental descriptions on features and functions in The Mysteries of Udolpho will be involved in this chapter. As for plots, there are some common plots of Gothic novel, like murder, prosecution and violence. Nevertheless, what is the real goal behind those plot settings? Based on the analyses, this paper will conclude some significant themes that Gothic writers would have conveyed in their works, but confined by their time view. |
