The Supernatural Side of British Liturature

The Supernatural in British Literature
Nicolette Lovell

A portion of the history of British literature covers three time periods: Medieval, Renaissance and Early Modern, and the Restoration. Through reading works from each of these periods, one can clearly witness the existence of supernatural elements. British literature can be read on many different levels and approached from a variation of angles. The supernatural usually stands for something else, often, the author of the piece wishes to make a social commentary through the utilization of unusual occurrences and characters in their works. The three time periods that largely define a portion of the history of British literature include four major works of supernatural subject matter – Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Dr. Faustus, The Duchess of Malfi, and Paradise Lost. These pieces of literature illustrate the prevalent existence of the supernatural in literature through their use of the paranormal to reflect ideas on the flaws from which society suffers and the nature of mankind.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an excellent example of supernatural literature in the medieval period. It is a romantic poem and has a comic feel with playful rhythm and alliteration throughout. However, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight contains deep implications regarding pride and honesty. The poem’s author is only referred to as the “Gawain poet” and wrote this masterpiece around enchanting Camelot with a young King Arthur at the head of the court (161). Sir Gawain is the main character and his ongoing battle with the Green Knight encompasses the tale. The Green Knight enters the court on Christmas Eve and challenges an opponent to a “Christmas Game” (168). The Green Knight explains that he will allow his opponent to deal him one strike, after, the Knight will have the right to hand his opponent the same blow exactly one year later. Enraged at the Green Knight’s swagger and audacity, Gawain stands and accepts his
challenge. Sir Gawain cut the Green Knight’s head of with a single stroke of an ax. The head rolled to the ground but the body of the Knight remained standing. The Green Knight picked up his head and mounted his horse and spoke, “Sir Gawain, forget not to go as agreed, and cease not to seek till me, sir, you find, as you promised in the presence of these proud knights. To the Green Chapel come, I charge you, to take such a dint as you have dealt – you have well deserved.” (171).

Gawain sets off on his quest to find the Green Knight and accept his fate a year later. It is on his quest that the reader witnesses how supernatural literature is capable of possessing a more realistic message. Gawain is set up as a hero figure. His bravery and his placement as a protagonist in the story make him a positive character. He also epitomizes the idea of Arthurian chivalry with his bravery and willingness to go proudly to his certain death (assuming that his head remains decapitated unlike the Green Knight’s). On his journey, Gawain encounters Bertilak, a lord of the castle in which Gawain spends Christmas. During his stay, Gawain is tempted by Bertilak’s wife. Though Gawain refuses her, he accepts her magical green girdle that will keep its wearer from harm. Gawain’s acceptance of the girdle represents a flaw in his chivalric character. Rather than accept his fate, he wishes to preserve his own life with the safety of the girdle. This is a commentary of the weakness of humanity as a selfish and cowardly race. The poem also highlights the importance of honesty. Bertilak told Gawain that he must share everything with him and be honest with him during his stay at the castle. Gawain went against Bertilak’s command when he did not inform him of his wife’s promiscuity. When Gawain finds out that Bertilak is, in fact, the Green Knight, he is humiliated. The Green Knight further demotes Gawain by taking three small swings at his neck. For his petty crime he pays a small penance and is portrayed as a coward. Gawain and the Green Knight is a prime example of supernatural literature with deeper implications regarding the flaws of man in society. The poet comments on man’s moral fragility, a result of human nature.

Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus falls among the tragedies of Renaissance literature. The Renaissance was a time of new ideas and lofty ambitions. Dr. Faustus greatly reflects the time period with its theme that mankind constantly reaches for greatness through knowledge; some men, however, reach too high with sinful ambition. One such man was Dr. Faustus, a doctor of theology whose sinful ambition leads to his pact with the devil. Many of the supernatural elements that Marlowe employs reflect sin and corruption in society. The story begins with Faustus, an ambitious man who turns to the demon Mephastophilis to forge a pact with the devil. Faustus must sell his soul in order to live a life of gluttony and sin. Faustus wishes to be great, to attain great knowledge, and experience great pleasure in life. Faustus moves throughout the play being torn back and forth by the forces of good and evil. In the end, his sins earn him a one way ticket to the Hell in which he must eternally burn.

With the use of supernatural elements and the portrayal of Dr. Faustus, Marlowe succeeds in portraying serious social issues and human fallacies. Faustus is presented as a tragic hero, one that God himself is conspiring against. He is also portrayed as one who can’t grasp the abstract elements of life, he only believes in what he can see and touch. It is for this reason that Faustus is so entranced by the “bells and whistles” associated with the devil. While Satan is bold and present in the tragedy, God remains distant and faint to test Faustus’s faith which he so readily renounced. Throughout the play, Faustus focused only on rewards that would come from his pact with Lucifer, he did not truly consider the loss of his soul and the eternal punishment he was sure to endure for his sins. The rash behavior of Faustus is a negative portrayal and reflects human weakness and greed. With his negative depiction of Faustus, Marlowe succeeds in criticizing humanity’s sinful greed that is a result of utter weakness. Faustus is also overly focused on sex and gluttonous desire throughout the play. When first introduced to Mephastophilis he expressed that he wanted to “live in all voluptuousness” (1031). Through Faustus’s gluttony and flesh-driven desires, Marlowe openly criticizes sinful sexuality in society and highlights man’s fragility. Dr. Faustus is clearly designed to highlight the weakness and gullibility of mankind, through the supernatural plot of one man’s deal with the devil, Marlowe created a great work with deep implications of social issues within society.

John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi is a piece of early modern literature that was written in the Jacobean period. This time period was characterized by dark literature with a focus on death and gore. Webster is known for his macabre style, his dark and tragic play focuses on its heroine, the Duchess of Malfi. Though she is a political figure who is not given a personal name, she remains a very private character throughout the play. The Duchess is a symbol of wholeness and purity; she contrasts with the corrupted and twisted society in which she is trapped. The basic plotline follows the Duchess and her constant battle with her brothers: the Cardinal and her twin brother Ferdinand. She had been recently widowed and her brothers urged her not to marry again. Though the Duchess assured her brothers that she would not, she marries her servant Antonio with whom she has several children. Ferdinand is inappropriately obsessed with his twin sister’s sexuality throughout the play. His obsession eventually leads to the Duchess’s death that is brought on with Ferdinand’s discovery of her marriage and children that she kept so well hidden. The play contains a bleak end with the vast majority of the characters dying, the Duchess, however is a strong female character who lived and died honorably.

Webster makes a strong social commentary on the corrupt nature of authority and humanity through his use of characters and his employment of the supernatural in his play. The lack of morality in the society depicted within The Duchess of Malfi is astounding. A tool villain in the plot, Bosola, depicts the corruption of the Duchess’s brothers quite vividly, “He and his brother are like plum trees that grow crooked over stagnant pools; they are rich and o’erladen with fruit, but none but crows, pies, and caterpillars feed on them.” (1463). This image artfully depicts the disgusting stagnant society that is depicted in the play. The two brothers are authority figures and represent a corrupted government in a stagnant society in which they thrive. Webster delves further into human corruption with his use of the supernatural idea of lycanthropy when Ferdinand believes himself to be a werewolf. When stricken with lycanthropy, Ferdinand asserts that he is a werewolf; he states that though he retains his human form, he is still a werewolf and his hair is on his inside. Throughout the play, the Duchess was depicted as a wholesome character from the inside out; Ferdinand’s explanation on his current state as a werewolf reflects the fact that he is not whole and twisted. His corrupted nature is seen through his constant obsession with his twin sister. He takes their connection as twins and makes it something perverse and disgusting. Through Webster’s utilization of lycanthropy, the reader understands his assertion that mankind is a corrupted race and many individuals are truly tainted on the inside. The evil in the play comes from the inner workings of society – its people. Webster makes this societal flaw clear through his depiction of the characters of The Duchess of Malfi.

John Milton’s Paradise Lost is associated with the Restoration period in British literature. Milton’s well-known epic covers the fall of the arch angel Lucifer into Hell and the fall of man from the Garden of Eden. A main focus in the epic is Lucifer’s fall from grace. The reader views Satan as a character of heroic value, he is a superhuman fighter who is not bound to God and relies on himself for success. Lucifer does not succeed, however. Instead, he is thrown from heaven by God, “Against the throne and monarchy of God raised impious war in Heav’n and battle proud with vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power hurled headlong flaming from th’ ethereal sky with hideous ruin and combustion down to bottomless perdition, there to dwell in adamantine chains and penal fire” (42-48). Lucifer is portrayed as one who stood against a tyrant and was brutally defeated. Through reading Paradise Lost the reader is lured into feeling sympathy for the devil’s character. Many thought that Milton a cocky and presumptuous author for placing Satan in such a high and positive position and portraying God as an almighty cruel tyrant. Milton’s intentions went much deeper than superficial reading revealed. His goal was to make readers see the alluring nature of Satan. He wanted the reader to understand how easily the words of the devil could ensnare their victims.

Book I of Paradise Lost is an excellent reflection of Milton’s views on the devil who personifies sin and temptation for mankind. Through his supernatural writing, Milton portrays ideas on the graceful fluidity with which Lucifer creeps into the minds of his victims and conquers them. Through his work, Milton wished to voice the fact that evil is present in every corner of the human mind. Satan whispers to man and attempts to lure him into sin. With his work, Milton illustrates how easily this can be done. Paradise Lost also reflects the idea of the “fortunate fall”. This philosophy asserts that if Lucifer had not defied God, he would have never been cast into Hell to devise his plan to cause the fall of mankind. If Eve had not been tempted by the serpent and eaten the apple from the tree of life, she and Adam would have never been cast from Eden. Mankind would have remained in the Garden, Christ would have never come to Earth and humans would never know God’s love. Through the many supernatural depictions of God, angels, demons, and the devil, the reader witnesses the series of events that led up to the two falls that are a large part of the foundations of Christianity. The idea of the “fortunate fall” can be easily addressed in this work and is a very interesting outlook on the falls of Lucifer and man. Milton causes the reader to ponder the very root of mankind’s existence and the sin which placed them on earth.

British literature is filled with supernatural elements that provide much insight into societal issues and the nature of mankind. Through the analysis of four works over three time periods in literature, one can see the existence of supernatural characters and occurrences that contain deeper implications regarding human beings and the societies in which they live. Often, supernatural subject matter in British literature reflects something negative, dark, or evil that is existent in humanity. The supernatural proves to be an excellent and interesting tool to reflect ideas and opinions regarding deeper and more realistic subject matter. British Literature provides noteworthy pieces that contain thought provoking ideas from which the reader can learn from and draw upon.

So maybe its the feminist in me that sees the female characters as manipulated pawns of men in society... but its pretty obvious. All of the women are given negative titles because of social expectations in society. Winnifred is automatically a whore because of her relations with Clarington who is all too eager to rid himself of responsibility for her. Clarington pays Frank Thorney to marry her... Thorney, assuming the child is his, leaps at an opportunity to marry a woman he loves and make some money while he's at it, so essentially, Winnifred is being sold like a cow on a auction block. Then there's poor Susan... I honestly felt the worst for her in this play. Her marriage was arranged to Frank Thorney who eventually murdered her. It amazed me that before he murdered her, Frank insulted her and called her a whore... AND SHE AGREED WITH HIM!! Now, maybe its just me, but if a man was about to take my life, I would not allow him to take my dignity as well. Susan was just a poor victim caught in the crossfire of the plotting and scheming of men. Then there's the witch. I felt bad for the poor old woman. Society placed a black mark next to her name because of her title of widow, her elderly status, and sharp tongue. Because she went against the grain and was impoverished, she was deemed a witch. Society told her she was a witch, and so she accepted this sentence. She was eventually executed for her "crime" and became yet another female victim of society's manipulation.