Angelina Bauer

The Repressed Strikes Back: an Analysis of the Doppelgänger Motif in 19th Centurygothic Fiction Based on Jung's Notion of the Shadowand Baudrillard's Concept of the Simulacrum Angelina Bauer

Novels ranging from 1818 to 1890 will be scrutinisedand provide for an overview over 19th century Gothicfiction. Each novel is unique, but what all of themhave in common is that each protagonist createsanother being to complement his own self. The focusof analysis will be put on the relationship betweenself and creature, especially the power therespective creatures exert over their producers, i. e. the nameless creature of Mary Shelley's Frankensteinor, The Modern Prometheus (1818), the opaqueHeathcliff and Catherine of Emily BrontÑ''s WutheringHeights (1847), the painting of Dorian in OscarWilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) and Mr Hydein Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekylland Mr Hyde (1886). All of them stand for the dualityof their creator's personality , forself-preservation; their actions grasp the wholeconcept of the repressed, and as they mature in thecourse of their respective stories, they seem to growincreasingly into the role of the bête-noir. Subsequently, the refined count as the apex ofmonster evolution of Bram Stoker's homonymous novelDracula (1897) will be dealt with from the Jungianand Baudrillardian angle as well.