“The Terror of the Rustics”; or, Witches and Werewolves: Lunar and ecoGothic Monstrosities in Catherine Crowe’s “A Story of a Weir-Wolf”
摘要
Carol Merchant, in her expository text on feminism and nature The Death of Nature (1980) and subsequent retrospective “The Scientific Revolution” (2006) posits how “wild and uncontrollable nature” is notoriously associated with women. Dichotomised as an antagonistic force, nature was perceived as both nurturing and destructive, while women were similarly cast into roles as either the passive virgin or aggressive witch. These concepts that correlate femininity and nature as ontologically bifurcative echo through Victorian literature as Gothic figurations of witches and werewolves. The witch and her associated counterpart the werewolf are sympathetic and symbolic figures of both the natural environment and inherent female “nature”. As two characterisations that function under the mode of the Lunar Gothic, each depicts the underlying sexual passions and violence of women, perpetuated by Victorian medical and pseudo-scientific discourse. As a writer of both social and supernatural stories, Catherine Crowe formulates the significance of nature’s lunar cycles and society’s concerns about formidable women. Published in Hogg’s Weekly Instructor in 1846, Crowe’s short tale “A Story of a Weir-Wolf” exhibits the popular depiction of women and nature through the connection of such lunar monstrosities as werewolves, witches, and pagan priestesses. While containing supernatural elements, the short story coalesces into tales of real-life events affected by Gothic transgressions. This chapter examines how lunar monstrosities are material amalgamations of societal fears against the transgressive, and potentially, feral attributes of women and their connections to nature. Investigating her depictions of alchemical witchcraft, accusations of lycanthropy, and moonlit “heathen forms of worship”, I argue that, when read alongside Victorian texts about inherent “womanhood”, Crowe’s female figurations are representations of the blurred distinction between nature and culture vying for independent expression.