Feeding on Butterflies: Lucille Sharpe as the Monstrous Woman in Crimson Peak
Document Type
Panel Presentation
Keywords
gender, gothic, film
Biography
Payton Salmons is a second year English graduate student at Marshall University. Her areas of study include gender, posthumanism, science fiction, young adult fiction, and film.
Major
English
Advisor for this project
Dr. Squire
Abstract
Gothic literature, which is based in dark scenery, melodramatic narratives, and feelings of dread and horror, often focuses on women and the terror that accompanies their vulnerable position in the patriarchal order. In recent years, the Gothic has been revived, the genre taking on a new light that is referred to as “Neo-Victorian” which takes a contemporary approach to genres of the long Victorian era, including the Gothic. These narratives use and subvert the themes and tropes of Gothic literature to reveal and explore important issues as they relate to both time periods, one example being women’s place in society. In his 2015 film Crimson Peak, Del Toro also takes classic Gothic tropes involving women, such as the “Mad Woman in the Attic,” the home as a site of patriarchal terror, and women’s lack of agency, and subverts them to create a Neo-Victorian narrative that not only focuses on women but is controlled by women. This paper will explore the ways in which the film subverts classic Gothic portrayals of gender to create a narrative that reverses gender roles, specifically regarding the character of Lucille Sharpe. By exploring the character of Lucille using feminist and psychoanalytical lenses, I argue that, through her control over Allerdale Hall and her brother, Thomas, Lucille is shown as a monstrous female figure whose feminine control upsets the patriarchal order by crossing and erasing gender binaries, which is shown through the deteriorating state of the Sharpe ancestral home and Lucille’s untraditional feminine power.
Feeding on Butterflies: Lucille Sharpe as the Monstrous Woman in Crimson Peak
Gothic literature, which is based in dark scenery, melodramatic narratives, and feelings of dread and horror, often focuses on women and the terror that accompanies their vulnerable position in the patriarchal order. In recent years, the Gothic has been revived, the genre taking on a new light that is referred to as “Neo-Victorian” which takes a contemporary approach to genres of the long Victorian era, including the Gothic. These narratives use and subvert the themes and tropes of Gothic literature to reveal and explore important issues as they relate to both time periods, one example being women’s place in society. In his 2015 film Crimson Peak, Del Toro also takes classic Gothic tropes involving women, such as the “Mad Woman in the Attic,” the home as a site of patriarchal terror, and women’s lack of agency, and subverts them to create a Neo-Victorian narrative that not only focuses on women but is controlled by women. This paper will explore the ways in which the film subverts classic Gothic portrayals of gender to create a narrative that reverses gender roles, specifically regarding the character of Lucille Sharpe. By exploring the character of Lucille using feminist and psychoanalytical lenses, I argue that, through her control over Allerdale Hall and her brother, Thomas, Lucille is shown as a monstrous female figure whose feminine control upsets the patriarchal order by crossing and erasing gender binaries, which is shown through the deteriorating state of the Sharpe ancestral home and Lucille’s untraditional feminine power.
