"Rude as Savages": The Hypocrisy of Imperalism in Selected Gothic Literature

Abstract

This article explores how Victorian concerns of reverse imperialism can be revealed and critiqued in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847) and Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872). ‘Reverse Imperialism’ rose to prominence in the British social psyche in the mid-to-late 19th century and centred on the idea that immigrants from the British colonies who gained wealth and social status within British cosmopolitan society threatened the existing social order and were taking wealth away from British men. Brontë’s novel draws attention to the ‘imperial gaze’ by positioning Heathcliff as a personification of the colonised who emigrated to Britain. He is scrutinised and marginalised by his “superior” white counterparts (Brontë 5). Similarly, in Carmilla, our titular character is able to use her pale complexion to integrate into Laura’s English family, whose prejudiced attitude towards local Styrian knowledge and folklore makes them ignorant of Carmilla’s vampirism. The colonised characters inhabit Freud’s concept of the ‘uncanny’: they are human yet are different from the rest of British society in the white colonial mindset, thus making readers feel uncomfortable and evoking gothic horror. Both authors use ideas of imperialism to highlight the negative effects of colonial prejudice on both the colonizer and the colonized. The novels can act as a warning for contemporary British readers; the ‘antagonists’ Carmilla and Heathcliff subvert the English imperial ideology, such as the imperial gaze, assimilation policies, and eugenic prejudice, in order to damage colonial families. Le Fanu and Brontë suggest that British imperialism is not sustainable by drawing on the darkest fear of British Imperialists – that they will lose power over their colonies.