The Gothic and liminality in three contemporary British novels

Abstract : This dissertation explores how conventional Gothic elements are represented in three contemporary British novels by examining the liminality of spectres, madness, and vampires. Throughout my dissertation, I apply Victor Turner’s theory of liminality to determine how each Gothic symbol named above may be considered liminal. Liminality positions initiates on the margin between two different states of existence: spectres occupy the world between the living and the dead; madness oscillates between sanity and insanity in that lucidity is variable; vampires are caught between the realms of “human” and “monster”. I will evaluate liminality as a theoretical framework that characterises the liminal state forming part of rites of passage; additionally, I will relate this threshold to the Gothic elements including spectres, madness, and vampires that I have identified above. I argue for the resurfacing of the Gothic in the work of Neo-Victorian and twenty-first century British writers’ novels. This analysis is carried out through close readings of Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black (1983), A.N. Wilson’s A Jealous Ghost (2005), and David Mitchell’s Slade House (2015). This close reading examines the ways in which, and to what extent, the texts align with and depart from the Gothic genre in their unique representation of Gothic symbols. My discussion evaluates the spectre in The Woman in Black in relation to the manner in which the novel addresses gender inequality. The novel explores society’s treatment of young unwed mothers during the Victorian era while presenting a plot in which the traditionally gendered roles of victim and villain in the Gothic novel are subverted: instead of the conventional, naïvely represented ‘damsel in distress’, the novel’s victim is a male solicitor while the ‘villain’ is presented as a female spectre. My discussion then moves to A Jealous Ghost, in which the representation of madness is strongly entangled with gender and linked to femininity. Here, the familiar Gothic trope of the protagonist as an unfamiliar, arguably uncanny, character to herself is presented. This aspect of the novel is strengthened in relation to its intertextual references to Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1898), and here the female protagonist is characterised as storyteller, victim and villain. I then turn my attention to the vampiric characters presented in David Mitchell’s Slade House, a novel re-evaluating the shortcomings of the present through a postmodern lens while addressing and redressing history and its representations of the vampire figure. Finally, I argue that the texts under study represent the Gothic’s resurfacing in twenty-first century British novels as a means to redress unresolved matters of the past and that their inclusion contributes to our understanding of contemporary Gothic fiction.M.A. (English

Trace fossils in the Ecca of northern Natal and their palaeoenviromental significance

Because of the rarity of body fossils in the Ecca Group fossil burrows, tracks and trails are of potential value in supplementing primary sedimentary evidence concerning the palaeoenvironmental factors of bathymetry, energy level and food supply. The three most important ichnogenera are Skolithos, Corophioides and Scolicia. The first two are restricted to the upper portions or Middle Ecca upward-coarsening regressive cycles attributed to delta progradation. They arc representatives of Seilacher's (1967) Skolithos and Glossijungites communities, indicating shallow water conditions with diastems. Scolicia occurs at lower levels in the cycles and corresponds to Seilacher's deeper water Cruziana community. Meandering trails Helminthopsis and Taphrhelminthopsis in the Lower Ecca belong to Seilacher's deep water Nereites community. Less common ichnogenera include the U-burrows Diplocraterion and Rhizocorallium. It has proved impossible positivelv to identify many trace fossils such as short ramifying burrows, chevron trails, dumbbell-shaped surface impressions, digitate tracks and problematic elliptical casts. Trace fossils have not been recognised with certainty in the fluviatile deposits which comprise the bulk or the coal-bearing strata of northern Natal.CSI

Lacunas, orisons, and attics: David Mitchell’s Slade House (2015) as Gothic locus.

Historically, borderlines in vampire fiction have played a significant role and are often figured as “obstacles [that] protect humans from vampires” (Bubke, 2018, p. 5). Such thresholds are evident, for example, when vampires are unable to pass through the doorway of humans’ homes without invitation. This “threshold-myth” serves to “prevent unwanted guests from entering [and] signifies an insurmountable protection” (6). Such boundaries are “used to protect us, separating humans from monsters by keeping the vampires out” (5). However, in Slade House, the opposite applies as vampires (the Grayer twins) entice victims across the threshold of the “small black iron door” (Mitchell, 2015, p. 10) to cross the borderline by entering the decaying yet expansive Slade House on Slade Alley in downtown London. Such coercion emphasises the imaginary threshold between the human and the monster observed in the house

Evil transgressions and the monstrous female vampire in David Mitchell’s Slade House (2015).

David Mitchell’s Slade House (2015) provides a contemporary representation of the role of the female villain in Gothic fiction, revealing how her monstrosity is considered frightening in relation to patriarchal society’s conception of female characters. Mitchell’s female villain is represented through the time-honoured generic Gothic villain – the vampire (in this novel, Norah Grayer). Historically, women in fiction are characterised as victims; however, Barbara Creed’s (1993) monstrous-feminine subverts this one-dimensional stereotype by challenging such patriarchal representations of women. I will apply Creed’s theory as it relates to the female villain in the novel, while demonstrating the ways in which Norah Grayer surpasses female stereotypes into the realm of evil female villain. In Slade House, Norah’s embodiment of the monstrous-feminine occurs in her characterisation as a contemporary form of vampire who sexually dominates, and thus terrifies, men. Thus, her role directly subverts Margaret Atwood’s notion that “men fear that women will laugh at them, while women fear men will kill them” as she intercepts this binary through her role as vampire/murderer. My discussion will argue the ways in which Norah Grayer transgresses societal limitations, placed on her by seizing power over her victims and ultimately, triumphing in the novel as female villain – filled with evil. Such reconstructions of female identity serve to counteract patriarchal representations of women while acknowledging the need to challenge these oversimplifications in contemporary fiction

Adapting representations of death from page to screen in Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black (1983)

Abstract Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black (1983; 1998) has been praised as a novella demonstrating a “gradual development of exquisite suspense” and distinguishing, in its subtlety, “the true ghost story” (Bann cited in Scullion, 2003: 296). This article examines James Watkins’ 2012 film adaptation with particular focus on representations of the complex relationship between death and screen, which will be addressed through a close reading of the novella alongside its filmic adaptation. Both Hill’s (1983) novella and Watkins’ (2012) adaptation are littered with representations of trauma, death, and the experience of dying, predominantly by women and children, who functioned on the outskirts of Victorian society and whose existence remained largely confined to the margins. As such, this article serves to establish how the film adaptation upholds the Gothic through the representations of trauma, death, and dying in relation to Hill’s (1983) novella with particular focus on the supernatural spectral haunting of Jennet Humfrye and the death that surrounds her at every turn. In terms of Watkins’ (2012) film adaptation, my discussion will focus on those previously oversimplified representations of gender to demonstrate Watkins’ critical commentary on the marginality of female trauma

Note-taking by nursing students: the case for implementing writing strategies to encourage best practice

Background: Note-taking is an integral component of professional nursing practice. If students are to complete this effectively, a range of teaching, learning and assessment strategies are required to support their development of this skill. Objectives: This study aimed to identify lecturers’ perspectives of students’ note-taking on placement to identify factors that limit the development of this skill; these perspectives could be used to explore strategies to support students to develop this skill while at university. Design: A qualitative study taking a phenomenological approach was carried out. Participants: Three senior nursing practice visitors agreed to be interviewed. Methods: Semistructured interviews were carried out and thematic analysis carried out to explore lecturers’ perspectives of students’ experiences of note-taking while on placement. These interviews were intended to obtain detailed accounts of note-taking and allow challenges to be explored. Results: Each participant observed and supported students’ note-taking within practice placement settings. Three main themes emerged from the data: limitations to students’ vocabulary and literacy; inconsistency between trusts resulting in an inability to articulate experience; and note-taking clarity and accuracy. Conclusion: Note-taking is central to nurses’ education and professional documentation to support best practice and high-quality patient care. Variations in processes between trusts, stringency of standards required by the trusts where students attend placements, and students’ writing abilities differ widely, which directly affect the consistency and accuracy of written notes

Cultural pillages of the leisure class? : consuming expressions of identity.

Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2011.Society ‘obscures itself’ by presenting a world that is self-contained and logical (Barthes, 1973) – a world underpinned by a transparency of its underlying systems of meaning. This formulation maps the theoretical location of the dissertation, by which an investigation into tourism, as an economic and political expression of contemporary culture, occurs. More specifically, the dissertation addresses the type of tourism that bisects narratives of history and of cultures – that popularly described under the label of cultural tourism. Thus it employs an array of critical tourism and cultural theory, to offer an exposition on how best to understand the articulation of meaning in the consumption of ‘place’, formations of heritage and Otherness. The study also explores the epistemological nature/agendas of the so-called ‘Image of Africa’ and the ‘Absolute Other’, and how these are recycled in the parameters of modernity. Using a genealogical approach to studying discursive formations articulating some kind of Zulu Otherness, the dissertation grounds these conventions of identity predominantly in the symbolic practice of a colonial Western society. This exposes the arbitrary, constructed nature by which contemporary society governs itself. Methodologically, the research applies participant observation and semiotic analyses, predominantly in the cultural/filmic village of Shakaland, near Eshowe, KwaZulu-Natal, to explore how the constructions of identity manifest and are negotiated and consumed in the activity of this tourism

Seasonal food insecurity among farm workers in the Northern Cape, South Africa

Very little is known about seasonal hunger in South Africa, or about the food security and nutritional status of farm workers. This article identifies a pathway to seasonal hunger—through intra-annual fluctuations in agricultural employment and income—that is underanalyzed in the literature. We report on findings from a year-long data collection process, comprising baseline and endline surveys and monthly monitoring of three food security indicators, with a sample of 195 female farm workers in the Northern Cape province in South Africa. The three monthly monitoring indicators—the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS), Dietary Diversity Score (DDS), and Coping Strategies Index (CSI)—which measure di erent aspects of food insecurity, are analyzed to determine whether and to what extent food security fluctuates seasonally in our sample. HFIAS results show unambiguous evidence of seasonal food insecurity, with the highest prevalence (88 percent experiencing severe food insecurity) and severity during the low employment winter period, and lowest prevalence (49 percent) and severity during the summer harvest, which corresponds with relatively higher employment and earnings. The DDS results show evidence of highest dietary diversity during summer and the CSI results reveal the need to employ coping strategies to deal with intensified food insecurity during winter

Differential Responses of Calcifying and Non-Calcifying Epibionts of a Brown Macroalga to Present-Day and Future Upwelling pCO2

Seaweeds are key species of the Baltic Sea benthic ecosystems. They are the substratum of numerous fouling epibionts like bryozoans and tubeworms. Several of these epibionts bear calcified structures and could be impacted by the high pCO2 events of the late summer upwellings in the Baltic nearshores. Those events are expected to increase in strength and duration with global change and ocean acidification. If calcifying epibionts are impacted by transient acidification as driven by upwelling events, their increasing prevalence could cause a shift of the fouling communities toward fleshy species. The aim of the present study was to test the sensitivity of selected seaweed macrofoulers to transient elevation of pCO2 in their natural microenvironment, i.e. the boundary layer covering the thallus surface of brown seaweeds. Fragments of the macroalga Fucus serratus bearing an epibiotic community composed of the calcifiers Spirorbis spirorbis (Annelida) and Electra pilosa (Bryozoa) and the non-calcifier Alcyonidium hirsutum (Bryozoa) were maintained for 30 days under three pCO2 conditions: natural 460±59 µatm, present-day upwelling1193±166 µatm and future upwelling 3150±446 µatm. Only the highest pCO2 caused a significant reduction of growth rates and settlement of S. spirorbis individuals. Additionally, S. spirorbis settled juveniles exhibited enhanced calcification of 40% during daylight hours compared to dark hours, possibly reflecting a day-night alternation of an acidification-modulating effect by algal photosynthesis as opposed to an acidification-enhancing effect of algal respiration. E. pilosa colonies showed significantly increased growth rates at intermediate pCO2 (1193 µatm) but no response to higher pCO2. No effect of acidification on A. hirsutum colonies growth rates was observed. The results suggest a remarkable resistance of the algal macro-epibionts to levels of acidification occurring at present day upwellings in the Baltic. Only extreme future upwelling conditions impacted the tubeworm S. spirorbis, but not the bryozoans

Transmigration, space and time in Slade House

David Mitchell’s Slade House is a haunted house tale that has been described as “the ultimate spooky nursery tale for adults.”1 In his novel, Mitchell re-evaluates the shortcomings of the present through a postmodern lens while seeking to redress history’s representations of the vampire figure. He does so while critically commenting on the state of humanity’s connectivity and addressing the transmigration of souls across temporal space. Slade House incorporates postmodernity, speculating “what the human could become in a future society”, thereby foreshadowing the transitory state of the contemporary moment.2 With this novel, Mitchell repositions the seemingly inconsequential individual within the larger context of the “cosmic process of self-recognition.”3 He does so in an effort to warn readers against the risks of isolation while critically commenting on the impacts of power dynamics, coercion, and exploitation evidenced through transmigration. One of Mitchell’s vampiric figures, Jonah Grayer, captures the theme of transmigration in the novel