“Freud and gothic literatures are like cousins, both respond to the problems of selfhood and identity, sexuality and pleasure, fear and anxiety, in the nineteenth and twentieth century.” Freud argued that humans are not unified wholes, but internally ruptured and alienated from nature and himself (Martin 41). “The goal of the Freudian analyst, like that of Victor Frankenstein, is to re-member the dismembered parts of our fragmented selves, to cure us by making us whole. To do so he must achieve a delicate balance of scientific objectivity and sympathetic identification, remaining detached from the patient, even as he tries to understand his (or usually her) mind. (Martin 41) The striking similarity between Freud’s dismembered selves and the
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Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic. New York Times described Hyde as having the appearance in aspects resembling an ape, from protruding teeth, long eye teeth, unkempt thick hair, thick eyebrows, hairy arms and hands, and a broad nose with large nostrils (Balio 303). King Kong was modeled in part on H.G. Well’s The Lost World. King Kong was a fifty-foot ape, and representative of prehistoric monsters. Furthermore, Frankenstein is described as having the appearance of a beast-eyes gleaming with animal cunning. This is possibly echoing the fear that human beings are nothing more than evolved animals, created by science. The beast-like monsters could be a reflection of the repressed fears of Darwinism, and the idea that human beings are simply evolved animals. Much like the melacholia Freud addressed, and the dismembered self, the loss of identity as a repressed fears haunts these films by way of beastly appearances in monsters (Martin 41). On the other hand, Murders in the Rue Morgue of 1932, features Dr. Mirakle, a demented Darwinist. Dr. Mirakle cried, “I tell you I will prove your kinship with the ape: Erik’s blood shall be mixed with the blood of man” (Frayling 123). Dr. Mirakle represents the stereotypical mad scientist- isolated from the scientific community, crazy, impractical in his experiments, extremely dedicated despite ridicule, and unwavering in his belief in science (Frayling 124). The mad scientist is often
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, adapted from Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic. New York Times described Hyde as having the appearance in aspects resembling an ape, from protruding teeth, long eye teeth, unkempt thick hair, thick eyebrows, hairy arms and hands, and a broad nose with large nostrils (Balio 303). King Kong was modeled in part on H.G. Well’s The Lost World. King Kong was a fifty-foot ape, and representative of prehistoric monsters. Furthermore, Frankenstein is described as having the appearance of a beast-eyes gleaming with animal cunning. This is possibly echoing the fear that human beings are nothing more than evolved animals, created by science. The beast-like monsters could be a reflection of the repressed fears of Darwinism, and the idea that human beings are simply evolved animals. Much like the melacholia Freud addressed, and the dismembered self, the loss of identity as a repressed fears haunts these films by way of beastly appearances in monsters (Martin 41). On the other hand, Murders in the Rue Morgue of 1932, features Dr. Mirakle, a demented Darwinist. Dr. Mirakle cried, “I tell you I will prove your kinship with the ape: Erik’s blood shall be mixed with the blood of man” (Frayling 123). Dr. Mirakle represents the stereotypical mad scientist- isolated from the scientific community, crazy, impractical in his experiments, extremely dedicated despite ridicule, and unwavering in his belief in science (Frayling 124). The mad scientist is often