DefinePK

Abstract

The presence of physical idiosyncrasies and freakish deformities within English society in the 19th century was a widespread cause of fear and terror. To be odd during that time was taken as some wrong done by God, nature, or society’s side. Darwin’s concept of “Survival of the Fittest” added fuel to the already existing fire. People with a physical deformity, bodily impairment, or simply rebelling were taken as others, and to be deformed or fanatic was a prominent cause of spectacle, which means, to look at those deformed others and ridicule them. Moreover, people who did not follow the constraints of society were considered ‘other’- unacceptable members of society, and these unconventional people were kept under surveillance to find the cause of the deformity and avoid re-happening. In British observation, the deformed felt superior to mainstream people, and the study of vision got important. The vision was part of the corporeal body instead of an outside sense. It was part of the subjectivity rather than objectivity, therefore, uncertain. This research probes into the British writers’ romanticization of societal anxieties through the thematic threads and social context that are further informed by Punter’s theoretical concepts on the Gothic condition, terror, horror, and the role of the psyche. For this purpose, this research opts Frankenstein by Mary Shelly, Lore Byron’s Manfred, The Monk by Mathew Lewis, and Robert L. Stevenson. It concludes that accepting monstrosity, and deformity as members of the mainstream society is a preferable idea, rather than isolating them as others.