Obeah Women, Mediums, and Witches: Spirituality in the Colonial and Postcolonial Gothic (thesis)

Abstract

This thesis traces the evolution of Self versus Other in terms of religion throughout the colonial and postcolonial Gothic. I begin with an examination of colonial Gothic texts which function in the delegitimizing way that Montgomery describes. Chapter one focuses on British writers who have written about Afro-Caribbean spirituality. I begin with an examination of a conventional Gothic novel -- Hamel, the Obeah Man (1827) by Cynric R. Williams -- concluding that it is unsurprising for Obeah to be portrayed in a Gothic manner in this text. It becomes more surprising, however, when hybrid-genre texts like Charlotte Smith's The Story of Henrietta (1800) and Hesketh Bell's A Witch's Legacy (1893) portray Obeah in the same way. These novels are invested in other modes of writing but consistently return to Gothic conventions when describing Obeah. This pattern even extends to nonfiction texts; at the end of the chapter, I turn to newspaper articles and travel writing -- genres that carry expectations of objectivity -- and observe that these so-called nonfiction texts use Gothic conventions in their portrayals of Obeah. I argue that these Gothic portrayals of Obeah attempt to delegitimize the practice due to its threat to colonial power structures. These texts -- both fiction and nonfiction -- uphold the idea of Othering that colonial systems rely upon by representing Obeah in a Gothic manner. The remaining chapters examine a reclamation of Gothic tropes to represent the spirituality of colonized people in a more respectful and accurate manner. . . . Ultimately, this thesis asks how depictions of spirituality have evolved throughout colonial and postcolonial Gothic texts. Why are Gothic tropes so persistent, and how have writers used these tropes to evoke fear of different areas, people, and institutions? In my coda, I return to Midnight Mass and the role of the contemporary Gothic, asking what has contributed to this recent Gothic revival. [From Introduction]