According to Ruskin, diseased or deformed bodies in literature were symptomatic of equally diseased and deformed genres, this being the case of sensation fiction, which was in fact considered by his early critics to be “preaching to the nerves”, based as it was on grotesque exaggeration. Wilkie Collins, its main representative, repeatedly depicts disabled characters, who become “powerful emotional catalysts”, whether they are meant to provoke sympathy, like the angel-like deaf and dumb Madonna in "Hide and Seek" (1861), or to provide a thrill of terror, like Miserrimus Dexter - a weird creature, literally “half of a man”- in "The Law and the Lady" (1875). The two novels are part of a “larger history of medical, popular, and literary displays of anomalous bodies”. Miserrimus Dexter, who lacks his lower limbs, is rather “a sensationally gothic individual”, a hybrid who crosses human boundaries. He moves around in a wheel-chair (which is the reason why he is described as “a new centaur”) or, like “a monstrous frog”, he hops on his hands, “in a manner at once wonderful and horrible to behold”, staging, all through the story, a number of startling and puzzling shows centred on his extraordinary body. Even Madonna, whose speechlessness seems to sum up and epitomize the qualities of the silent, innocent, and saintly mid-century fictional heroine, displays a sort of bent for performing, which she seems incapable of giving up completely. The object of the public gaze as a circus artist in her childhood, she is still considered an “interesting sight” by her middle-class adoptive parents’ friends. Both in "Hide and Seek" and "The Law and the Lady" physical limitations and the compensatory mechanisms developed as a result are repeatedly foregrounded. Although the two novels appear to criticize scopophilia, they in fact expose the anomalous body, carefully staging “the spectacle of deformity”, in order to titillate the reader and arouse his curiosity.
Displaying the Anomalous Body. Wilkie Collins's Freak Show
DE GIOVANNI, Flora
2015-01-01
Abstract
According to Ruskin, diseased or deformed bodies in literature were symptomatic of equally diseased and deformed genres, this being the case of sensation fiction, which was in fact considered by his early critics to be “preaching to the nerves”, based as it was on grotesque exaggeration. Wilkie Collins, its main representative, repeatedly depicts disabled characters, who become “powerful emotional catalysts”, whether they are meant to provoke sympathy, like the angel-like deaf and dumb Madonna in "Hide and Seek" (1861), or to provide a thrill of terror, like Miserrimus Dexter - a weird creature, literally “half of a man”- in "The Law and the Lady" (1875). The two novels are part of a “larger history of medical, popular, and literary displays of anomalous bodies”. Miserrimus Dexter, who lacks his lower limbs, is rather “a sensationally gothic individual”, a hybrid who crosses human boundaries. He moves around in a wheel-chair (which is the reason why he is described as “a new centaur”) or, like “a monstrous frog”, he hops on his hands, “in a manner at once wonderful and horrible to behold”, staging, all through the story, a number of startling and puzzling shows centred on his extraordinary body. Even Madonna, whose speechlessness seems to sum up and epitomize the qualities of the silent, innocent, and saintly mid-century fictional heroine, displays a sort of bent for performing, which she seems incapable of giving up completely. The object of the public gaze as a circus artist in her childhood, she is still considered an “interesting sight” by her middle-class adoptive parents’ friends. Both in "Hide and Seek" and "The Law and the Lady" physical limitations and the compensatory mechanisms developed as a result are repeatedly foregrounded. Although the two novels appear to criticize scopophilia, they in fact expose the anomalous body, carefully staging “the spectacle of deformity”, in order to titillate the reader and arouse his curiosity.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
