I wanted to write about Gothic villains, specifically about great ones. What makes them great. How to write a great villain. What all great villains have in common. But when I pulled up my list of Gothic books and sat back to consider the villain in each tale, something quickly jumped out at me:
Many, if not most Gothic stories have the same villain.
That’s right. The exact same one. Keep in mind that I’m talking about traditional Gothic novels and some of the more modern classics like Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. There are some contemporary Gothic novels that do not employ this villain and frankly, that might explain why some of them just don’t impact us all that much. I’ll show you why.
Let me illustrate with ten Gothic novels that have the same villain. Then I’ll tell you why this villain is so powerful that you’ll want to use him or her in your writing.
Note: there may be plot spoilers ahead!
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
In this story, Dr. Jekyll suffers from something of a split personality. By night he becomes Mr. Hyde and lives out every debauched fantasy he has. By day he increasingly struggles to suppress Mr. Hyde and return to his upstanding self as Dr. Jekyll.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Frankenstein is a great example of a Gothic (aka: irrational) theme married to a tangible trope. Victor Frankenstein is consumed with the notion that he can overpower death, reverse it, and bring those he loves back to life. But when he succeeds, the monster he reanimates – a symbol of his attempts to play God – takes on a life of its own and becomes his worst enemy.
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
It would be easy to read Rice’s first installment in her Vampire Chronicles and to struggle to point to a villain. After all, the characters are all villains. Louis, Lestat, Claudia and the ancient vampire, Armand, are all killers. And they all battle one another in various forms and at various times. But our protagonist, Louis’s journey is really one of self-understanding and acceptance. He doesn’t know what he is, who he is, or to whom he belongs (the God or the devil, though he’s uncertain that either of them exists). His villain is his own nature as a vampire.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Du Maurier’s modern classic, Rebecca, features an unnamed protagonist, the new Mrs. de Winter, who struggles with a paralyzing sense of inferiority as she compares herself to everything she believes her husband’s first wife, Rebecca, was. The tangible villain in this story, the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, who’s really just a manifestation of this self-doubt, spends the story emphasizing Rebecca’s perfections and driving the protagonist deeper into despair.
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
What is it? By that I mean the something wicked that’s coming? Because that’s the villain. It’s aging and death. This story has two components to it – a coming-of-age story about Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway, and a mid-life crisis for Will’s father, Charles. All of them are face-to-face with the fact of their future deaths and are confronted with solutions…that are really just attempts to hide from the inevitable. Mr. Dark is a symbol of the oblivion that they expect from the grave.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
In Jackson’s haunted Hill House, Eleanor Vance attempts to find a refuge from her own unstable mental state. Instead, the house parallels her own mind and becomes her antagonist, leaving her increasingly disoriented and confused.
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
In Waters’s brilliant exploration of the uncanny, she gives us a main character, Dr. Faraday, who has what she will deem a little stranger. She characterizes this terrorizing force as an extension of the subconscious, something that acts out a person’s greatest desires apart from his overt knowledge of it. In Faraday’s case, his little stranger acts against the members of the Ayres family until he isolates Caroline. What does he want? Their wealth and their social standing, of course.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Dorian Gray is a beautiful young man who’s curious. He wants to explore all of the dark and forbidden things of the world. As he does, his portrait – a symbol of his unseen soul – grows more and more grotesque while he remains visually unchanged.
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
The Turn of the Screw features an unnamed protagonist, a governess who takes over the tutelage and care of two young children at an estate in the English countryside. Once there though, she discovers that something is wrong with the children. There are ghosts haunting her, and the children themselves oppose her, but in the end, it’s actually the governess, as a metaphor for the ways in which even the most well-meaning adults invariably rob children of their innocence, who is the children’s greatest enemy.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
And last but not least, my October favorite: Wuthering Heights. This book fascinates me. In it, Heathcliff is both protagonist and antagonist. He is opposed by and in return, oppresses the other characters (particularly Hindley, Edward, Isabella and Hareton). But we love him. Why? Because he’s consumed with Catherine and their undying love for one another redeems him in the reader’s eyes. But in the end, it’s Heathcliff who is his own enemy.
I think you can see what I’m getting at: in each one of these the villain is part of, a symbol of, or an extension of the main character. They are their own villain.
That’s powerful for at least three reasons.
- There’s No Escape
First, when the protagonist is his own villain, whether that takes on a literal form such as in the case of Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde, or a figurative one such as in Rebecca and Frankenstein, there’s no where the character can go to get away. They’re backed into a wall in every situation in life. Dorian Gray’s soul is powerless to flee from the actions and will of Dorian himself.
Readers feel that. We watch as Dorian acts, knowing the impact that it’ll have on what was once a beautiful portrait. We see the ruin he’s effecting. But there’s no where to go. There’s less hope and more conflict with this type of villain.
2. The Antagonist Naturally Grows in Strength
Second, this type of villain naturally grows in strength as the protagonist does. Since they’re intrinsically linked, as your protagonist struggles to overcome his foe (aka: some aspect of himself), that very enemy tends to rear his ugly head in tandem.
Consider Charles Halloway at the beginning of Something Wicked This Way Comes. He has a niggling sense that something isn’t right in his life. He’s discontent, unhappy, and part of him can point to his mid-life angst. But it isn’t until he sees it for what it is that Mr. Dark’s carnival sidekicks (especially the Witch) begin to hunt him. When he goes after them, they threaten everything he loves.
This also increases the conflict, but in addition, there’s a parallelism here that resonates in writing. We know it should be so and we try to incorporate it with all of our villains. But it’s so much more natural when it comes to those internal villains.
3. It Bears Evidence of the Truth
Why is it so natural? Because there’s a profound truth to this type of villain. Every human being knows that there’s part of us that wants to triumph over the darkest parts of our souls. But there’s also part of us that wants to hold onto that part. Maybe we even want to relish it, to give it more space to run rampant. Our own personal Mr. Hyde.
As we attempt to suppress or defeat this part of us, it rages more strongly, unwilling to die. So we fight harder and our own dark side retaliates in full force.
Whether readers realize what you’re doing – which they may not if you utilize a tangible form of this internal enemy like Jackson does with the house acting against Eleanor Vance – it resonates with them because it’s true. That’s the writer’s job according to Ernest Hemingway.
All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.
Ernest Hemingway.
I agree. Through our writing, we should show readers something true about themselves, the world, relationships, faith, you name it. And this internal villain reflects a deep truth that almost all readers will perceive at some level.
That makes this type of villain incredibly powerful and one that will stand the test of time.
If you enjoyed this post, share it with your friends!