Throughout the novel, strong female characters make their entry into the narrative who present a different image than that of the stereotypical female role within the Gothic novel. These characters manipulate others, behave violently, and are sexually aggressive, which previously had been predominantly male characteristics in Gothic fiction. [4] ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. What allows these seductions to occur is the knowledge that the subordinates possess, both of themselves and of their superiors." [12]

Ambrosio spends much of the novel in an attempt to pursue and rape the delicate and innocent Antonia, a character later revealed to be his sister. Dunn, James (December 1998). "Charlotte Dacre and the Feminization of Violence". Nineteenth-Century Literature. Berkley, California: University of California Press. 53 (3): 309. doi: 10.2307/2903042. JSTOR 2903042. Adriana Craciun, Fatal Women of Romanticism, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 111; E.J. Clery, Women’s Gothic from Clara Reeve to Mary Shelley, (Devon: Northcote House), (2000) 2004, p. 107;. Mellor, Mothers of the Nation: Women's Political Writing in England, 1780-1830 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2007).We have to present to the class the structure of the Gothic novel, and I am doing the significance of the Devil and his role in a lot of Gothic books. Zofloya; or, The Moor: A Romance of the Fifteenth Century, often shortened to Zofloya, is an 1806 English Gothic novel by Charlotte Dacre under the nom de plume Rosa Matilda. It was her second novel. Zofloya was published in three parts, and later collected into a single volume. At the time of publication, the novel was heavily criticised for its provocative subject matter, especially its religious and racial themes. Kim Ian Michasiw, ‘Introduction’ (1997) in Charlotte Dacre, Zofloya, or The Moor, (Oxford: Oxford University Press), (1997), (2000), 2008, p. x. a b c Chaplin, Sue (2004). Law, Sensibility, and the Sublime in Eighteenth-Century Women's Fiction. Burlington, Virginia: Ashgate Publishing Company. p.142.

Lisa M. Wilson, ‘Female Pseudonymity in the Romantic “Age of Personality”: the Career of Charlotte King/Rosa Matilda/Charlotte Dacre’, European Romantic Review 9, 3 (Summer 1998), 393–420. Critics have given considerable attention to the enigmatic figure of Zofloya. Sara Schotland explores Zofloya's significance within the context of bourgeois ambivalence toward British imperialism.31 Zofloya can also be viewed as a manifestation of Victoria's subconscious, for he appears in her dreams before he takes on an actively demonic and transgressive role in the narrative. David Sigler devotes a chapter to Zofloya, arguing that the text is not a 'consolidation of subjectivity, but, rather, about its dismantling'.32 His book examines 'the scrupulous management of sexual enjoyment' in eighteenth-century discourse, and argues that 'Zofloya is a masochist, and he fashions Victoria into the picture of cruelty for the purposes of preserving her and filling her with perverse jouissance'.33 George Haggerty, Craciun, and Mellor all focus on both Zofloya and Victoria, examining their interracial, transgressive desire and the ways in which Victoria becomes consumed by Zofloya's sublime presence. Nevertheless, despite these useful and varied interpretations, critics have not explored the ways in which Dacre interweaves the subversive desires of Victoria, Zofloya, and Berenza, characters whose identities are exaggerated by gender and racial categories.34 Consequently, Zofloya portrays masquerade and disguise as an act of commodification, for while the raced body becomes an object of sublime pleasure, the maternal body becomes an object of male consumption. As Hoeveler claims, Victoria and Zofloya perform an act of revenge in poisoning Berenza, demonstrating the threat of the 'alliance' between 'dispossessed subject populations working together, recognizing their mutual alienation and objectification and banding as one in a maniacal and deadly pursuit of the great white father and his property'.35 However, the text examines this violence and retributive justice in scenes of desire in which patriarchal dependency and narcissism are exposed, while monstrous femininity is empowered by the art of masquerade. Some literary critics suggest that Zofloya is not a text which provides readers with any type of moral substance. Literary Journal Monthly wrote, "Zofloya has no pretension to rank as a moral work. As a work of imagination or entertainment it will be read with some interest from the immediate incidents and the manner in which they are treated. Its merits as a whole or entire composition are very slender." [18] Dacre's works [ edit ]Anne Mellor, ‘Interracial Sexual Desire in Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya’, European Romantic Review, Vol. 13, No.2, June 2002, pp.169-173, p.173. Michele Cohen, Fashioning Masculinity: National Identity and Language in the Eighteenth Century (Routledge: London, 1996), pp. 1-13. Victoria and Zofloya converse and meet in a dream-state, engaging in a dialectical exchange that allows trauma to unfold within what French West-Indian psychiatrist Frantz Fanon characterised as the 'psycho-affective' realm.29 In his forward to Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, Bhabha claims that '[t]he colonized, who are often devoid of a public voice, resort to dreaming, imagining, acting out, embedding the reactive vocabulary of violence and retributive justice in their bodies'.30 When Zofloya, as Satan, appears in her dreams, Victoria is presented with a Faustian contract in which she gives her soul to Zofloya in exchange for killing Berenza. The following morning, Victoria meets Zofloya as a noble servant but shortly after, Zofloya disappears because another jealous servant, Latoni, kills him. Nine days later, to everyone's surprise, Zofloya reappears. From this point forward, Zofloya is depicted as a supernatural figure, and he and Victoria conduct a dialogue in a dream-like state in which, in Bhabha's terms, they enact a 'reactive vocabulary of violence and retributive justice' against patriarchy. Engaging in an erotic exchange based in a master/slave dialectic, Victoria finds herself in 'involuntary awe' of Zofloya's 'manner' as You have requested "on-the-fly" machine translation of selected content from our databases. This functionality is provided solely for your convenience and is in no way intended to replace human translation. Show full disclaimer

The gothic novel is a "safe" place to experiment with interactions between dark-skinned men and fair-skinned women. The genre of the Gothic has long enabled both its practitioners and its readers to explore subjective desires and identities that are otherwise repressed, denied or forbidden by the culture at large. [10] Zofloya and interracial/cross-gender relationships [ edit ] Victoria de Loredani is the beautiful, spoiled daughter of the Marchese di Loredani and his wife, Laurina. Victoria, her brother Leonardo, and her parents reside in a palazzo in Venice, Italy. They live in happiness until the Marchese's friend, Count Ardolph, visits from Germany. Ardolph, who takes pleasure in destroying the reputations of virtuous women and breaking up their marriages, appeals to Laurina's vanity and he seduces her away from her husband. The two disappear from Venice together. After Laurina elopes, Leonardo disappears from Venice without explanation, leaving only Victoria and her father in the palazzo. One year later, the Marchese encounters Ardolph in the streets of Venice. They duel, and Ardolph fatally stabs the Marchese. Laurina pays him a final visit, and the Marchese expresses his dying wish that Laurina will find Leonardo, reclaim her children, and leave Venice. We discussed Dacre’s motivations for this and where her political sensibilities may have lain, although were unable to reach consensus. Scholars have also debated this point. Long Hoeveler highlights the ‘racist’ and ‘xenophobic’ themes of the novel, arguing that it should be seen as part of a wider Colonial project. [17] For example, the novel can be read as highlighting the perceived threat to England from outsiders through the devastation caused by Zofloya. However, as Nayar asserts, the real threat to English domesticity in the novel comes not from Zofloya but from both Victoria, and her mother, because they followed their own desires. And Nayar is keen to highlight that Victoria is not merely seduced by the Moor, rather she is following her own ‘quest for sexual agency.’ [18] Although my focus here is on abolitionist verse, many of the same characteristics feature in other abolitionist genres, including, or especially, the parliamentary oration. Lord Grenville’s speech to the House of Lords on 24 June 1806 is a remarkably extensive tour through abolitionism’s narrative and affective commonplaces. See Substance of the Debates on a Resolution for Abolishing the Slave Trade (London: John Hatchard, 1806) pp. 88–110. The analogous but more metered terms of abolitionist argument in the works of the movement’s key spokespeople, Thomas Clarkson and Anthony Benezet, and discussed by Peter J. Kitson, ‘“Bales of Living Anguish”: Representations of Race and the Slave in Romantic Writing’, ELH 67 (2000), 515–37. As a common characteristic of Gothic novels, Dacre employs the use of characters that fit into a hierarchy chart; there are both characters of high-ranking status and characters of low status. Some critics suggest that Dacre's novel Zofloya acts as an inversion of this social, patriarchal hierarchy where the characters of lower status hold the dominant power in the novel. The reversals of the servant/ master role eventually lead to the high ranked character's demise. "Subordinates, who are assumed to be totally transparent to their beneficent keepers, are actually the location of disguised and threatening knowledge; in Zofloya, this leads to one transgression after another as social and familiar underlying use the mask of harmless, familiar submission to disguise their insurrectionary aims." [11] Knowledge, power, and sexuality [ edit ]

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As the progeny of an adulterous mother, Victoria must, in the logic of the gothic mode, sacrifice her own blood to prove her worth. Though her virginal purity is compromised as Berenza's mistress, the spilling of blood and act of sacrifice redeems female virtue for both generations. Victoria's sense of worth, however, is wounded after learning that Berenza's offer of marriage is conditional: we are told that 'pride ha[d] always kept her from surmising the struggles of Berenza upon her subject, and that he had not till this period offered to become her husband, because till this period he had deemed her unworthy to become his wife' (p. 126 emphasis in original). Zofloya is a text that invites conflicting interpretations, constructing a space for critique while articulating conventional gender codes. Despite what is depicted as her misplaced pride, for she is a fallen woman, Victoria is nonetheless portrayed as a victim of patriarchal abuse, as she discovers her worth is conditional on her willingness to sacrifice her own life for his. Upon discovering Berenza's false love, Victoria finds that she is seen as possessing no intrinsic worth, and therefore, has no real sexual power. Rather, she becomes enslaved in marriage, as it is the only outlet in which she can be 'afford[ed] [...] protection' (p. 134). Necessity dictates her decision to marry Berenza as a compromised woman, first marred by maternal sin and later dependent on patriarchal authority. Margaret Garner, ‘The Anapestic Lyrical Ballads: New Sympathies,’ Wordsworth Circle XIII, 4 (Autumn 1982), 183–8. Il Conte Berenza: lover and later husband of Victoria. He is wary of her character, but gives in to his love for her. He loses her love to his own brother, Henriquez. Zofloya has no pretension to rank as a moral work". [3] Challenging feminine roles of the early 19th century [ edit ] There is something somewhat belated about Dacre’s exercise in the genre. Charlotte Sussman has argued persuasively that abolitionism peaked in 1792–93 and like other radical causes suffered a diminution in the years following. ‘Women and the Politics of Sugar, 1792’, Representations 48 (Fall 1994), 48–69.

Joseph Addison, The Spectator, 45 (21 April 1711) [accessed 2 May 2020]. Dunn, 'Charlotte Dacre and the Feminization of Violence', Nineteenth-Century Literature, 53.3 (1998), 307-27 (p. 308). Homi Bhabha. 'Of Mimicry and Man: The Ambivalence of Colonial Discourse', October (Discipleship: A Special Issue on Psychoanalysis), 28 (Spring 1984), 125-33 (p. 128).Both Zofloya and The Monk were criticised in their time for employing scenes of sexual transgression seen as offensive in the late 18th and early 19th century; However, Zofloya was received with greater criticism because its author was female. "When Lewis wrote The Monk it was not welcomed, but it was conceivable that a man could write this sort of infernal thing; however Dacre's crime was greater because it was inconceivable that a woman could even imagine such horrors and use such voluptuous language," Moreno wrote. [5] Critical reception [ edit ] Marriage and motherhood are conventions that Dacre's text explores as coterminous products of domestic ideology. As I argue in this article, Zofloya subverts the marriage plot presented in Samuel Richsardson's novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740), a popular eighteenth-century text. Pamela became a media event, attracting both positive and negative attention, and prompting parodies and spinoffs, like Henry Fielding's Shamela (1741) and Joseph Andrews (1742). In Richardson's novel, virtue and sexual restraint provide the heroine with cultural capital, emblematising the rise of a middle class that attempts to distinguish itself from the 'vulgar' classes below it and the 'depraved' classes above it.20 Pamela wins the heart of the aristocrat Mr. B-, who she also tames and civilises. Her efforts to appeal to Mr. B-'s heart and reform him reiterate the points made in the pedagogical literature of the period. Men were required to learn the language and nature of the world, while women learned the language and nature of men's desires.21 In Zofloya, Dacre inverts this gender code by demonstrating a failed reading of female desire, which leads to an unhappy marriage. Both gothic and domestic novels end with marriages, to signal a 'happy ending'. Novels by Walpole, Radcliffe, Frances Burney, and Jane Austen often conclude with such marriages. However, Zofloya does not progress toward an ending in which narrative events lead to marriage after a series of moral tests and trials. Rather, Victoria murders her husband after five unsatisfying years of marriage without children. In transgressing the moral rubric of the eighteenth-century novel, the text constructs a space for interrogating domestic and normative gender codes, for Victoria does not care to win Berenza's heart nor does she wish to make a home with him. This is a fantastic story. Zofloya, or the devil made flesh, is undeniably sexy as Dacre renders him and there is no denying the attraction which Victoria feels for him, almost simultaneously with the fear he invokes within her. His supernatural nature is subtly rendered for the reader - filling Victoria's chamber with silvery mist just before he materialises at the end of her bed and all those mysterious appearances and disappearances, just when he is wanted most. Most critical works have focused on Victoria and Zofloya's miscegenistic and transgressive desire. These include Diane Long Hoeveler, 'Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya: A Case Study in Miscegenation as Sexual and Racial Nausea', European Romantic Review, 8.2 (1997), 185-99; Ann Mellor, 'Interracial Sexual Desire in Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya1, European Romantic Review, 13.2 (2002), 169-73; George Haggerty, 'Female Gothic: Demonic Love', in Unnatural Affections: Women and Fiction in the Later Eighteenth Century (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), pp. 171-78; and David Sigler, 'Masochism and Psychoanalysis in Zofloya, or the Moor\ in Sexual Enjoyment in British Romanticism: Gender and Psychoanlaysis, 1753-1835 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2015), pp. 151-80.