Re: Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "Cold Embrace"
This is very short story and no trouble to read online -- which is the way I read it tonight. I know it's not my turn to facilitate so I'll just say a little bit before I forget.
"Cold Embrace" seemed to me almost as powerful as "Shadow in the Corner." If it's not it's because it's much shorter and not worked up as much. It's also much less poignant. It fit in with all the ghost stories by women we've read thus far: as opposed to most men's stories I'm beginning to realize these ghost stories by women really dramatize their sexual and social vulnerability, exploitation, powerlessness and show women getting back. The men's stories are much more concerned with questions of abstract injustice, are more sheerly metaphysical, and in general or usually more violent. It is also a good ghost story -- as some we've read have not really been. We have the paradigm of guilt and justice, the injustice and cruelty which is perpetrated and becomes irretrievable because the person has died. There's a deep frisson and the pattern of the ghost's appearance is repeated in the obsessive way of the ghost story: as Freud said obsessive compulsion is part of a syndrome of anguish.
I'd like to point out two more elements. The women takes her revenge; she shows anger and hatred and takes them out on the male. There is no pulling punches here. Second, the ghost of the dead woman persists in grasping her treacherous indifferent lover around the neck and hanging on there. He betrayed her and thought that if he came back after she had acceded to a forced marriage, he'd find her acquiescent. But now whereever he goes there are these chilled dead arms moving around his neck to embrace him tightly.
Ellen
Date: Sun, 4 Jan 2004
Subject: [Womenwriters] 'The Cold Embrace' by Mary E. Braddon
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
I tried while reading this very short story to imagine myself a Victorian woman sitting reading by candlelight on a cold windy night. But sitting comfortably in a recliner with a cat on my lap, albeit she is black, with good heat and good light by my side, I found it impossible to be frightened by this story. The picture of cold arms coming around my neck and terror entering my heart just wasn't there. But then on the other hand, I could easily see how it could have been for people in another age from ours.
I wonder what it is that frightens up these days?
Joan
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004
Subject: [Womenwriters] 'The Cold Embrace' by Mary E. Braddon
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
Hi, Joan - I'm not sure I exactly found it scary either, but I do think it is a powerful story. I'll hope to write some more about it tomorrow when I'm more awake! It reminds me a bit of vampire stories - the idea of the dead returning to grab on to the living and sap away his life. The way he can't drink or eat at the end reminded me a bit of 'Wuthering Heights', where Heathcliff can't eat or drink either as he is tormented by Cathy.
I also liked 'The Shadow in the Corner', the Braddon story which Ellen mentioned that we read over on trollope-l, and tonight I read 'At Chrighton Abbey', a much longer story by her which is included in the Cox and Gilbert Oxford collection - I don't find this one as intense because it has a lot of realistic detail built up, which somehow takes away from the tension, but I still like it.
I've been trying to think what I would really find frightening and I suppose maybe some of Poe's stories, because they are so dark and so intense. But it's an enjoyable sort of fear.
All the best,
Judy
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004
Subject: [Womenwriters] The Cold Embrace
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
This story didn't frighten me either. I am not usually scared by something that wouldn't affect me personally. This ghost was only out to torment her unfaithful lover, she means no harm to anyone else.
I knew as soon as the young woman told her lover that only suicides would return to earth that it would be her fate to kill herself. This knowing what would happen took away much enjoyment I would have gotten out of the first half of the story.
The action picked up for me with the last half, since I didn't really know what would happen to Mr. Faithless. I noticed how the dog could feel the ghost's presence, or at least feel that something was not right. Animals seem to be portrayed in this manner often.
One thing I did wonder about. The man returned so soon after the projected wedding date that he must have already been on his return journey when the young woman killed herself. So how did she know that he had been unfaithful? Her spirit wouldn't have seen him in Florence, but only on the return trip. She must have had an intimation from his last few letters and how they gradually fell off? Otherwise, it seems to me she could have thought that something had happened to him, that he had fallen seriously ill or been in an accident and might even be dead. Also, she didn't really seem the type to me to take such drastic revenge.
Dagny
To WW
January 5, 2003
Re: Braddon's "Cold Embrace": Creepy Corpse; the Uncanny; Vampires
Joan asks a good question -- because it's hard to answer. I wasn't scared by this story; rather I felt a sense of loathesome dread in the way the arms were depicted. One of the characteristics of gothic horror is said to be breaking physical taboos: I thought Braddon got the sense of a cold corpse, heavy dead flesh slapping around, holding on, gripping and then tightening around the male's neck very well. Corpses are unnerving -- one problem makers of Frankenstein films have is they can't really put a walking corpse in front of us. Instinctively we know the difference.
My feeling is to scare people today most of the time you need the resources of film. We're just too inundated with overwhelming phenomena some of which should be scary but we've learnt not to fear (planes) and by technology in films that is viscerally effective. One film that did scare me -- and still does when I allow myself to remember it -- was The Woman in Black. It was the still sudden appearance of that women, her face green with hatred, fierce, all so silent. I keep thinking if I turn around there she'll be. Two students have told me they are similarly haunted by its suggestiveness. Yet two summers ago I had this respone to Stoker's Dracula. I got nervous. I didn't want to turn around. You might say the strong archetypes of the Woman in Black (mother-figure which is murderous with violence and rage, who wants to destroy and rape too) and Dracula (fierce misogyny, blood, the animus itself) are part of this. But a couple of Christmas's ago for Trollope-l I read a story by M. R. James and began to get nervous. He creates a psychological mood of uncanniness which lets me at any rate feel I can call these things up with my mind. Fear of madness is probably at the heart of what he can pull out of me. Yet his stories are not violent on the surface -- they are if you are reading with attention :)
On the story itself and in response to Dagny, I felt the betrayal was not that he had had another woman but that he had permitted her to marry. He hadn't stopped this terrible thing from happening. Remember Trollope's "La Mere Bauche" where the young woman commits suicide just after she is married rather than have to go to bed with a man she doesn't love, has a distaste for. The guy came back after the wedding. He thought that she'd get over it and accept it. That was the betrayal.
Vampire stories are often more violent. A rare one to feature a woman is unforgettable: F. Marion Crawford's "For the blood is the life"
Cheers to all,
Ellen
Date: Tue, 06 Jan 2004
Subject: [Womenwriters] Braddon's "Cold Embrace": Creepy Corpse; the Uncanny;
Vampires
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
Ellen Moody
On the story itself and in response to Dagny, I felt the betrayal was not that he had had another woman but that he had permitted her to marry. He hadn't stopped this terrible thing from happening.
I was reminded here of 'Romeo and Juliet', where Juliet is prepared to die rather than marry Count Paris when Romeo does not come back in time to save her. Thinking of this, I wondered if Braddon is suggesting that the couple's secret betrothal has included a sexual relationship - the descriptions of him as "reckless, unbelieving, heartless" suggest he would have little respect for conventions of polite society.
The ring he puts on her finger also suggests sex, with that "massive golden serpent" - it might be a "symbol of eternity", as Braddon says, but the serpent also has other resonances, bearing Genesis in mind, and there's a sensuousness about "he puts the betrothal ring upon her finger, the white and taper finger whose slender shape he knows so well." Although it isn't spelt out, and there is no pregnancy to make this definite, my impression is that they have had plenty of warm sexual embraces before that "cold embrace" of the grave.
As well as being reminded of 'Romeo and Juliet', the opening with the description of the student, "He was an artist - such things as happened to him happen sometimes to artists" and "He was a German - such things as happened to him happen sometimes to Germans," to me suggested Faust and so reminded me of Gretchen.
There's that feeling that he (I don't think either of the lovers is named, which helps to give the story an odd, eerie quality) wants to experience and try everything, as Faust does.
I was interested to see that the woman kills herself by drowning, in just the way which is discussed as being archetypically female in a book about suicide which is online at the Victorian Web - I know Ellen has read part of this, as I have, but the title slips my mind just now. This book suggests that suicide was taboo in the 19th century and the word was not often written - I've often noticed it in texts since reading this, but maybe each time the author is conscious of breaking a taboo.
I'm not sure if there is an ambiguity here as to whether the ghost "really" exists or is just conjured up by the student's fevered brain. He is the only one who feels the ghost - but the dog's reaction suggests that there is something there. I think Braddon's style is very powerful in this story - stripped down almost like poetry, with none of the detail and realism which are piled up in 'At Chrighton Abbey'. I like this one very much, but what I like most of all is the title - 'The Cold Embrace'.
Has anyone read other good Gothic stories by Braddon, apart from those we've already mentioned?
All the best,
Judy
Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004
Subject: [Womenwriters] Braddon's 'The Cold Embrace'
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
Not quite yet caught up on all the reading yet, but I did read 'The Cold Embrace' and much appreciated the comments on it so far that I've seen.
Judy has convincingly drawn our attention to the Faustian elements in the story; its ending reminded me of another legend that has fascinated the Germans (and not only them) since the Middle Ages: der Totentanz or Dance of Death. It's normally portrayed as a wild parade of figures dancing with Death, but I have seen other versions where a single individual literally dances himself into a frenzy of death, as here.
There's another link to Goethe, too, as he took it as his theme in a well-known poem of that name, one that links eros and thanatos in a much more overt way than Braddon seems to have dared do and even has an, admittedly somewhat different, retribution element as well. Here's a link to an illustrated site that provides an alternating German and English version of the text.
Fran
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004
Subject: [Womenwriters] Braddon's 'The Cold Embrace'
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
One thing I forgot to mention in that last post on 'The Cold Embrace' was that the ending is also a kind of reversal of the related Death and the Maiden scenario.
Fran
Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2004
Subject: [Womenwriters] The Cold Embrace
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
On Sunday, Dagny wrote:
This ghost was only out to torment her unfaithful lover, she means no harm to anyone else.
I must be alone in this, but I didn't see the ghost of Gertrude as malevolent or vengeful at all. She's just REALLY committed--she's got the ring, and to her (we learn early in the story) that means forever, beyond death and all. If the only way to fulfill that commitment, in the face of her impending marriage to the wealthy suitor, is to commit suicide, she's game. If she can be with her German betrothed as a ghost, or better, bring him over to her side by exhausting him to death, that's all just motivated by her (literally) undying commitment. Bad luck for the young man, of course, that he's chosen such a single-minded lover, but it's not the same as vengeance.
I agree, it's not a scary ghost story, but I did like the rhythm of the opening sentences, drawing us into the story-world with repetition (He was an artist...He was a German...He was young...And being young...He was an orphan...). That repetition returns when Braddon describes Gertrude's thinking (The date...The date...The date...), and is seen a third time when the German student returns to Brunswick on the day of the wedding (It is not a funeral...It is not a funeral...It is not a funeral...). It's like incantation, like magic, like hypnotism. It's got the regularity of a heartbeat, or a death knell.
Penny R
Date: Wed, 07 Jan 2004
Subject: [Womenwriters] Braddon's "Cold Embrace"
Reply-To: WomenwritersThroughTheAges@yahoogroups.com
Judy's commentary on the implict suggestions of sexual intercourse between the engaged couple through the use of imagery of the ring, the finger, the warmth made me realize that in the opening two chapters where we first meet Lady Glencora McClusky and Burgo Fitzgerald (Trollope's Small House of Allington), a very similar set of images are used. The forced breaking off of the engagement forces on her having to give back the ring and the imagery is repeated. When we again meet her, now married to Palliser (and bedded by him) she refers back to that ring and Burgo's embraces more than once. Such coded imagery is worth paying attention to. I mention this too because this is such a central "realistic" novel for Victorians.
Gretchen is one of the significant figures of the 19th century. We've lost some of our connection with her today. Death and the Maiden is more in our mode.
Braddon was an effective stylist. The title and rhythms are effective; the latter encapsulate the movement of the arms. She wrote enormous amounts, novels, stories, was a journalist. She came from nowhere to support herself, 6 children and help Maxwell keep his empire afloat. The picture Dagny had on showed a strong determined woman. She's fingering some kind of chain in it. A square face. Not conventionally pretty at all. I don't have any other of her ghost stories in the anthologies I own. I find I have two copies of "At Chrichton Abbey." She did do an oddly half-hearted vampire story, "Good Lady Ducayne" and that's online (I can't succeed in getting the URL) and also in The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories. It is simply true that vampire stories tend to be masculinist, written more by men, and frequently misogynist -- though I think "For the Blood is the Life" is powerfully woman- centered an on a female vampire and so too Le Fanu's "Carmilla." "Evelina's Visitant" is also online; I've never read it. So too Lady Audley's Secret. "At Chrichton Abbey" is worth talking about as so built up, but I've no more time today.
Ellen
Mary Elizabeth Braddon's "At Crichton Abbey" (1871) The Braddon is printed close to Amelia Edwards's story and uses similar techniques. It takes place in a vast abbey, and is a story of unexplained (unjustifiable from anything the family has done) deaths of the heirs of a family who live at Crichton Abbey. It is told by a female who is a lower status member of the family come back from her employment as a companion/governess; she is given a room in a far away part of the abbey where she witnesses a repeating scene. This scene re-enacts and foreshadows the death of the young hero in the story.
I think this tale is not as powerful as Braddon's "The Shadow in the Corner" which we read on Trollope-l because we don't go inward into the mind of the person persecuted by, susceptible to the malicious revenants. Also it takes too long and is too leisurely a build up.
Ellen