Science's Fictions Debt to Gothic Writing

Jan 1, 2008
13 min read

The Gothic genre has always explored humanity’s unconscious preoccupations and sources of paranoia. When those anxieties are caused by technology, the result is Science Fiction.

In his history of science fiction, Billion year Spree, Aldiss reminds us that ‘Science fiction was born from the Gothic mode’ and has never been able to shake off its inherited background – we could say that the genre of Science Fiction is affected itself by atavism in its throwback symptoms of Gothic conventions, one of which sardonically is the fear of atavism (Clemens, citing 1973).

Science fiction elements can be traced back into Gothic writing: Dr Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll were mad scientists in a genre more usually occupied by mad priests. Equally, Gothic elements litter Science Fiction texts.

In Mona Lisa Overdrive, a cyberpunk novel set in the future, we find what may be a surprising amount of Gothic iconography and lexis. We have a character named ‘Count’ (p.49), who others are worried is a ‘vampire’ (p.49); various ghosts – including Prior, whose name implies he has already had a life before this one, and Colin who is an artificially created ghost to keep Kumiko company (p.9) and a subculture called ‘Draculas’ who are ‘huddled like ravens’ (p.74) (1995). Slick’s robots are all named in the Gothic style too: ‘The Investigators and the Corpsegrinder and the Witch’ – The Investigators reminding us of the evil Spanish Requisition found in early Gothic texts like The Monk (p.83).

Similarities between the two genres show just how much Science Fiction is in debt to the Gothic mode.

Brantlinger says ‘Science fiction writers have perhaps forgotten about eighteenth-century sublimity’ but says the childish wonder caused by stories of space and the future comes close (1980, p.38). However, the distinctive Gothic feeling of the Sublime is carried over in more than a sense of wonder but of dread too: images of infinite time and space convey this. Consider for example the horror of Andrew in Bicentennial Man when he realises that living forever would mean seeing those he loves dies around him. This is not dissimilar from Neville’s experience as the last man on earth in I am Legend we get the impression that the sublime feeling of loneliness is actually worse than the fear of the vampires outside.

The invasion of the body is key trope of the Gothic genre: tales feature rape (The Monk), kidnap (The Italian), vampire bites (Vampyre, Carmilla) and the body, usually female, as an object of exchange, played out in the marriage in Polidori’s The Vampyre and the exchange of princesses in The Castle of Otranto. This has led to much Marxist and Feminist criticism in the Gothic genre.For example, the Matrix Trilogy lends itself to such readings, we discover human bodies exist in the ultimate Marxist nightmare: of giving their life force away while being denied involvement in the ‘real,’ decision making world.

Texts which obviously crossover into both the Gothic and Science Fiction mode carry on this tradition. Jekyll’s potion transforms his body, Frankenstein’s ‘Adam’ is made up of pieces of other dead bodies, similarly, in The Island of Dr. Moreau men are made from the raw materials of animal bodies and in I am Legend we see the body corrupted by disease.

Cyberpunk Science Fiction tends to perceive the body as ‘meat’ only (p.17, 1993). According to Dinello, contempt for the physical world can be traced back to Plato (2005, p.24). However, this derogatory sense of the body is contradicted by Dixie, The Matrix Trilogy and Cyberpunk Reloaded points to the Flatliner’s hatred for his non-physical existence (Gillis, 2004, p.4):

‘How you doing, Dixie?’

‘I’m dead, Case. Got enough time in on this Hosaka to figure that one.’

‘How’s it feel?’

‘It doesn’t.’

‘Bother you?’

‘What bothers me is, nothin’ does…This scam of yours, when it’s over, you erase this goddam thing.’

(Gibson, 1993, p.130).

A similar problem appears in Serial Experiments: Lain in the character of Eiri. He must descend from his position as a god of the Wired and reclaim a human body in order to confront Lain, in the same way Smith too must take on a physical, human body to confront Neo, despite his disgust at its ‘smell’ (Wachowski and Wachowski, 1999). But in the act of embracing Alice and feeling her heartbeat, Lain has the epiphany of the importance of bodily existence (Nakamura, 1998). In doing so, she rejects the route of suicide her PlayStation counterpart succumbs to - linking to ideas of thanatos which we shall come back to later (Serial Experiments: Lain, 1998). The Puppet Master from Ghost in the Shell combines with Kusanagi, (in a scene reminiscent to Neuromancer’s merging with Wintermute). The tagline says AI ‘found a voice…now it needs a body’ again championing the importance of a physical body but also its vulnerability to invasion.

Brantlinger points out that tendencies of necrophilia are common in both the gothic and Science Fiction genres; although he uses the term in the broad sense, indicating a fascination with death, apocalypse and artificiality or a drive to destroy the organic (Brantlinger, p.37). In particular, the bringing back of life from death is seen time and time again. The process of Re-pet in Sixth Day draws on this Frankenstein myth. Like the gothic vampires of Underworld the science fiction Tessier-Ashpool family both spends periods in suspended animation and rotate periods of power and wealth.

It is not just the human body that comes under attack in Science Fiction, the metaphorical body of the city is under threat, in Mona Lisa Overdrive, Sally describes the tube station suffering from ‘arterial plaque’ (p.74). This illustrates one of the differences between the two genres Brantlinger notes. In science Fiction, disintegration is no longer of just the individual mind, but of society on mass (1980, p.35).

A major distinction between Gothic and Science Fiction for Brantlinger is in their shift in worries (1980, p.41). This is epitomised in the contrast between Mary Shelley’s Modern Prometheus and her husband’s Prometheus Unbound. Gothic tales like Mary Shelley’s were often about the fear that egotistic, individualism (such as found in Prometheus Unbound) would lead to unrestrained monsters.

In contrast, as the Gothic’s opposite double, Science Fiction is more usually concerned with the fears of loss of individualism. In Equilibrium people are denied emotions while in The Handmaid’s Tale they are not even allowed names (Atwood, 1996).

The anxiety over losing individual identity is exemplified in Star Trek through the race of the Borg, who seek to 'assimilate' other life forms, in the process threatening ‘human identity, gender, individuality and physical integrity’ (Dinello, 2005, p.145). In I am Legend Neville resists assimilation into the vampire people who now populate earth. The narrator of The Island of Dr. Moreau also fears becoming an experiment, becoming assimilated with the Beastmen.

Fears of past returning in the Gothic become fears of a dystopian future arriving in Science Fiction (Brantlinger, p.43).

However, Science Fiction does actually show signs of still fearing the reoccurrence of the past, especially in the theme of atavism. Dr. Moreau and Planet of the Apes reflect fears of creatures other than man gaining sentience and control. Clemens notes the ‘steadly downward progression in evolutionary terms’ of monsters in gothic and science fiction film – back through apes and reptiles to worm-like creates in Alien and the squid-like sentinels in The Matrix (1999, p.216). Humans themselves are unable to escape their Darwinian origin – in The Fifth Element the animal element is still present in even the perfect human who utters a ‘guttural growling’ (Besson, 1997).

Just as much as the fear of regression is the fear of evolution itself, for it creates the bacteria which cause apocalypse in I am Legend and leads to the invention of evil machines. In fact, the Sprawl Trilogy and Johnny Mnemonic (1995) could be seen as a direct prequel to The Matrix Trilogy – the rational conclusion of Wintermute/Neuromancer being – the A.I. even declares ‘I’m the matrix’ (Gibson, 1995, p.316). This idea was also explored in the film I, Robot and With Folded Hands, where the ‘inevitable logic of robotic benevolence leads robots to assume complete control of humanity’ (Dinello, 2005, p.70).

Luddite paranoia and technophilla both result in the coining of new words in Science Fiction, hybrid puns that show the link between technology and evil. For instance, Neuromancer is a combination of necromancer – a communicator with the dead, (like Flatliner) and neurology - the nerveous system, something we usually only associate with organic life. Other examples include Re-pet (in Sixth Day), infornography (title of an episode of Serial Experiments: Lain), Nymphomation (Title of J.Noon novel 1997) and ‘Extinctathon’ in Oryx and Crake. The last describes a kind of death drive race (Atwood, 2003). These words reflect the hybrid nature of the genre.

The Gothic always featured hybrids too – zombies and vampires that were half dead, half alive; werewolves which were half beast half man; not unlike cyborgs who are part human part robot - blurring again line of what is human. This is played out in Texhnolyze but extends beyond humans in Oryx and Crake – we see other animals denatured, like the ChickieNobs: chickens grown without heads, feathers or nervous systems so as to make them profitable, ‘humane’ food (Atwood, 2004, p.238).

Are there any positive examples of Science fiction that are not paranoid or use technology positively?

Assimov fought for a more positive view of robots, surely ‘safety factors would be built in’ (Dinello, 2005, p.63). Clemens says that any ‘positive’ examples of science Fiction are not Gothic, Blade Runner for example does not follow the Gothic narrative. Brantlinger’s examples of positive Science Fiction include Close Encounters, Star trek and Star Wars, where scientists are not Faustian magicians but ‘exorcists’ of evils in the universe (p.34).

But often even the positive technological futures presented are balanced by dystopian elements, such as in Back to the Future II.

Where do we place the non-Gothic examples of science fiction we found? I suggest they should be seen as a sub-genre of quest romance, detective fiction or Western rather than by uniting them by their shared elements.

Definitions of humanity and therefore society are changing as our understanding changes, humans can be reduced to biological robots and AIs gain equal status to organic minds, likee David in A.I. ands the replicants in Bladerunner. The Merovingian's chocolate cake affected woman is just a slave that reacts to a cause in The Matrix Reloaded (Wascowski and Waskowsci, 2003).

In The Fifth Element the mystery of humanity is reasserted because we find out science cannot explain every thing, the fifth element is humanity. It is odd that in a secular age much science fiction seems to be looking for God. For example there are Christian themes in The Matrix and The Fifth Element - both Neo and ‘Leeloo’ (whose name translates as the chosen one in French) are messiah fugures (élu, 1972, p.86). Wintermute/Neuromancer declares it is now ‘everywhere…the whole show’ this creates the image of the A.I. as God (Gibson, 1993, p.316).

It is not just A.I. but also Man trying to make himself god as seen in the title of Sixth Day.

In science fiction men are replacing not just God but woman as a creative force, retelling old myths of the homunculus. The male creator is always a negative, overreaching villain or at the very least anti-hero. It is also interesting to note that the antagonist of The Matrix trilogy is named Smith – as in a someone who makes things, a creator.

Different kinds of knowledge are in conflict in I am Legend – with Neville’s table, we find not all aspects can fit into science column, elements of gothic, superstition and supernatural left over - he is not even sure what causes this except that it is not scientifically explainable, hence heading the column with a question mark – the unknown does not even have a name (Matheson, 1999, p.85). The age of enlightenment suffered a similar problem – the age of reason was also the age of the Gothic romance, all that new knowledge did not banish irrational fears. In particular, there is paranoia there is knowledge being kept from you, which is carried over into Science Fiction such as in The X-files and The Matrix.

The legacy of doppelgangers from Gothic fiction becomes clones, double personalities (Anderson and Neo for example), or multiple personalities in Lain. These fractured selves are a result of modern society, which demands need us to be different people in different roles, whether in jobs, as parents or online personas.

An example of the Double in Science Fiction is the glitches in the matrix, this is the past refusing to be done with, ‘a ghost, or an angel. Every story you've ever heard about vampires, werewolves, or aliens is the system assimilating some program that's doing something they're not supposed to be doing’ (Wachowski and Wachowski 2003).

Other doubles include Wintermute and Neuromancer – who are two halves of same whole and the cat déjà vu in The Matrix. In the scene where Neo trains with Morpheus but is distracted by the 'woman in red' the crowd is cast from sets of identical twins. There is a really complex kind of doubling found in Mona Lisa Overdrive, Mona, Angie, 3Jane and Tally, at one point referred to as ‘Tally-Angie’, who all share each other's dreams and simstim experiences (p.62).

The fear of the power of science often shows itself as nuclear apocalypse, examples of this are in Godzilla, Matrix and I am Legend. In Mona Lisa Overdrive as Petal says you ‘Couldn’t get it, after the war. Rain blew in from Germany and the cows weren’t right’ (Gibson, 1994, p.121). This links back to I, Robot and Freud’s theory of death drive.

The death drive, also known as thanatos, was defined by Freud in Beyond Pleasure the Pprinciple: he noticed "an urge inherent in all organic life to restore an earlier state of things" (Piven, 2004, p.15).

We certainly see this in Neuromancer, during the final showdown Case is driven by the ‘singleness of his wish to die’ (Gibson, 1993, p.309). Smith seems to be driven by thanatos too – even though he hates the smell of humans, he is willing to go into the real world to destroy Zion so that he can be free of existence (his role in the matrix is purely to eliminate freed, hacker humans) (Wachowski and Wachowski 1997).

The Gothics message that even the home is not safe has also been retained in Science Fiction. In the same way Lewis’ Ambrosio gets away with rape and murder in Antonia’s own home, Big Brother infiltrates the home space in Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 and cyberpunk heroine Lain uses her powers to spy on Alice, not unlike the hacking of the matrix found in The Sprawl Trilogy.

Science Fiction ditched the old Gothic stock characters in favour of modernised ones: aliens over mad scientists, computer jockeys over monks and priest but vampires still remain.

New settings appeared too: the spaceship and the laboratory are favored over castles and churches.

Clemens gives us a suggestion as to why America is now the ‘biggest national producer of Gothic nightmares’, moving away from the traditional settings of Southern Europe: because as the country with the most powerful say in politics, it has the ‘biggest “ego”’, resulting in the biggest repressed doppelgänger (Clemens, 1999, p.212).

Brantlinger denies extrapolation as the primary source of science fiction impossible (P.38). In science fiction the Science elements are sometimes wrong or technically impossible, for example in ‘Them’ there are Giant ants and the ‘greasy solar atoms’ in The Fifth Element could not exist. (Besson, L. 1997).

Is Sci-fi a type of escapist fiction? Gothic romances quite escapist but dystopian sci-fi usually amplifies the problems of this world one would hope to escape from, usually without offering an answer to the issues raised.

About 1998 a lot of films of this kind came out eXistenZ (where again God is encoded in sci-fi, this time literally, ‘isten’ being the word for God in the Hungarian. The epigraph to Gibson’s Count Zero sums up ‘Millenium Bug’ and ‘Second Coming’ prophecies that perpetuated at this time, bringing technophobia and God-seeking to the forefront of public imagination (1993, p.7).

Distopian novels show Rules and Laws that don’t work: examples are Well's Island of Dr. Moreau, Assimov's Third Law of Robotics and Orwells Animal Farm allegory. There is a new societiy and new laws in I am Legend but they have already gone wrong because they enjoy killing. The I, Robot film shows that the end result of logic is that humans will have to lose all positive freedoms in order to be protected from themselves (2005, Dinello)

Our investigation shows that Science fiction is really the opposite, it is Anti-science Fiction in its negative portrayal of Science (Brantlinger, 1980, p.39). Even Gibson wrote Neuromancer on a typewriter. His first computer terrified him (McCaffery, 1988).

The parallels between Gothic and Science Fiction then are many, and the few distinctions between them identified by Brantlinger actually breakdown under scrutiny and merge together – like Derrida's 'differánce' and Freud's 'unheimlich' the defnitions go full circle and collapse. Science Fiction then should be considered not as a separate genre merely in debt to the Gothic, but a part of it. Both are ‘apocolyptic nightmare fantasy’ (Brantlinger, p.42). An example of criticising current trends in society is in the spoof gothic science fiction Shaun of the Dead – where the people were metaphorically zombies even before they are infected - the opening shows the drone like citizens lurching about half asleep.

Whether we go forward in time with Science Fiction or backward with Gothic, the important thing is not how realistic the science or setting is but that it happens in an ‘imaginative temporal displacement that allows for the expression of otherwise taboo material’ (Clemens, 1999, p.213).

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