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Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is able to fudge the line dividing the inner psychic world from the outer

material one in ways that are troubling. Would you agree with this assessment of Green Tea and Carmilla from In a Glass Darkly? In both of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanus Gothic stories Green Tea and Carmilla from In a Glass Darkly, he fudges the line dividing the inner psychic world from the outer material one through presenting distorted awakened comatose senses, violated and flexible societal reference points and contoured memory and reality. Both Mr Jennings and Laura as the protagonists of their stories are positioned as having paradoxically awakened and distorted comatose senses whereby they are in a state of deep unconsciousness caused by an illness/disease namely Green Tea/hereditary suicidal tendencies and vampirism. The allure of desire in Carmilla and allure of paganism in Green Tea results in their disconnection from reality, which leads to their deep state of unconsciousness. The unconscious is Applied to mental or psychic processes of which a person is not aware but which have a powerful effect on his attitudes and behaviour, spec. in Freud's psychoanalytic theory, processes activated by desires, fears, or memories which are unacceptable to the conscious mind and so repressed. ( OED Online). Lauras desire, fear and memory of Carmilla results in her awakened comatose senses, which map the physic/unconscious onto the material world highlighting Le Fanus pastiche of psychic and material worlds. Laura is simultaneously trying to awake from her coma to orientate her distorted senses while attempting to awaken her sexuality. In Green Tea Jennings is also trying to awaken from his coma/deep unconsciousness and orientate his senses and his religion due to his desire and fear of paganism. The foregrounding of the unconscious results in their distorted awakened comatose senses as their repressed anxieties over sexuality, paganism, Darwinism and even the AngloIrish identity, causes their sensory inputs to become overpowered by psychic

uncertainty which distorts their senses and the material world. Their heightened comatose state of unconsciousness with their distorted awakened senses reflects this dislocation from the boundaries of reality as the line dividing worlds has been trampled. Le Fanu also tampers with the line between worlds through reconfiguring and violating the characters perceptions of societal reference points such as literature, science and religion. Le Fanu finally contours the line between psychic and material worlds through shaping reality and past memories. Le Fanu ultimately destabilises the precarious and liminal sensory self, warps the societal foundations of reality and molds memory and reality creating a self-centred hybrid psychic/material world, which is troubling in its permeability. Le Fanus pastiche of psychic and material worlds is alarming through its rupture of reality. This can be seen through the symbolic framing figure of Dr. Hesselius as an indeterminate metaphysical doctor as well as through the dead patient narrators. The blurring of characters perspectives within these stories is embodied through the external Gothic figures of the monkey and Carmilla. As Fred Botting argues regarding Gothic fiction, animated representations of the disturbing parts of human identity became the stock devices. (11). These figures represent the confluence of psychic and material worlds as they dredge the inner psychic world and appear in the material world, illuminating an alternative hidden world submerged beneath the surface of both worlds. As Botting states these devices increasingly destabilised the boundaries between psyche and reality, opening up an indeterminate zone in which the differences between fantasy and actuality were no longer secure. (12). Insecurity characterises Le Fanus troubling fudged perimeter of psychic and material worlds. Sigmund Freud argues that the unconscious or psychical reality transfers an unconscious sense of lack of being into desire (Rosalind Minsky, 4). This can be seen

through Jennings lack of religious certainty and through Lauras lesbian desire. Freud further states that subjects find a part of themselves, which is unacceptable and painful, then projects those painful insecurities onto other people and then feel attacked by them (Minsky, 5). This aligns with both Jennings and Lauras projections on the monkey and Carmilla. As Minsky further argues These same people then represent the alienated part of ourselves that we have thrown out into the external world. (5). The monkey and Carmilla both represent the alienated other and their demise therefore parallels with the protagonists demise. Le Fanu distorts, violates and contours the line dividing the inner psychic world from the outer material one in both Green Tea and Carmilla which presents the characters and the reader with an unsettling worldview. In Green Tea distorted awakened comatose senses play a key role in Le Fanus contortion of the line dividing the inner psychic from the outer material worlds. Jennings is presented as residing within a paradoxical awakened coma whereby his senses are heightened while materialising his psychic unconscious anxieties. This contortion of worlds can be seen through the projected monkeys influence on Jennings touch, sight and hearing. Le Fanu destabilises Jennings senses along with his perception of self in order to distort the boundary between worlds highlighting the power and vulnerability of the psychic and material worlds interconnection. As Jennings states I had observed two small circular reflections, as it seemed to me of a reddish light. They were about two inches apart (Le Fanu, 23). The reflection of the psychic world in the material world illustrates Le Fanus distortion of the line between worlds. It also illustrates the heightened power of the senses and of the psychic world through its ability to map internal projections onto the material world. As Jennings recounts In total dark it is visible as in daylight. I do not mean merely

its eyes. It is all visible distinctly in a halo that resembles a glow of red embers... there comes the appearance of fire in the grate. I never have any fire. (Le Fanu, 27). Le Fanus distortion of Jennings senses depicts his dislocation from the material world, as he can no longer trust his sight. Without the certainty of his sight and the material world Jenningss psychical world further disintegrates which leads to the permanence of the monkey. The monkeys evolution in Jennings mind, which is mapped onto the material world, illustrates Jennings own plummet into the cracks between both worlds. Le Fanu distorts the line as it gradually becomes unrecognisable to Jennings. As Jennings recalls The thing began to speak to me. (Le Fanu, 31). The monkeys speech illustrates a further distortion of Jennings senses as aligned with his indeterminate status between worlds. The corruption of the senses leads to the tearing of the line dividing worlds as both worlds seep into each other. As Jennings notes I poked my umbrella softly towards it. It remained immovable- up to it- through it!... (Le Fanu, 24). Le Fanus further undermining of Jennings sense of touch/spatial reality aligns with Jennings awakened comatose state, as he is detached from reality yet his senses are painfully alert and aware of Le Fanus pastiche of worlds. Le Fanu therefore presents a worldview, which is troubling to the characters and the reader as once the senses have been easily invalidated, certainty is lost in the material world. As Dr Hesselius statesits access to your senses depends mainly upon your physical condition It is only that in your case the veil of the flesh, the screen, is a little out of repair, and sights and sounds are transmitted. (Le Fanu, 32). The line between worlds is more than a little out of repair as the fixed societal boundaries of both have been permeated, infected and violated through their interaction. In Carmilla distorted awakened comatose senses can be seen through Laura and

Carmillas parasitic vampiric relationship, which warps the senses of touch (biting) and taste (blood). Sight and sound also play a secondary role through Carmillas enrapturing glare as well as her supernaturally silent disappearances. As Laura remarks, The narcotic of an unsuspected influence was acting upon me, and my perceptions were benumbed. (Le Fanu, 283). Lauras desire, fear and memory of Carmilla results in her numbed yet awake comatose senses, which map the physic onto the material world. The repressed anxieties of the psychic/unconscious world become projected onto an alienated other in the material world, in this case Carmilla who symbolically represents Lauras lesbian desires and anxieties. The line dividing psychic and material worlds is trampled in the process of its infection as both worlds bleed into each other. Carmilla acts as a parasite gnawing away at Lauras senses, which results in their troubling uncertainty as the basis of the material world. These distorted awakened comatose senses present Laura and the reader with a horrific worldview of actualised manifestations of the unconscious/psychical reality in the material world rupturing the line between worlds. Laura states my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose (Le Fanu, 264). Le Fanu distorts Lauras senses and her sense of self in order to unearth her lesbian desires and undermine the rigid delineated boundaries of the psychic and material worlds. Carmilla therefore contaminates Lauras worldview as grounded in the certainty of her senses. As Carmilla notes, Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifices without blood. (Le Fanu, 277). Her bloodlust illustrates the contortion and tearing down of the line dividing worlds as such repressed fears over lesbian desires are enacted. The line between worlds is therefore contorted, as every sense of the ordered self becomes transgressed. Le Fanu therefore destabilises the self

through undermining the credibility of the senses, which are used as the foundation of the material world. Le Fanu crucially tampers with the line dividing psychic and material worlds through his depiction of violated and flexible societal reference points. In Green Tea he seeks to further destabilise the protagonists societal perspective through manipulating and violating the fixed authoritarian representations of a doctor as a pillar of society and a font of wisdom through bleeding the psychic and material worlds together through metaphysics. This can be pinpointed through Dr Hesselius and Professor Van Loo as ambiguous and flexible hybrid authoritarians of psychic and material worlds. Dr Hesselius medical secretary states that The professor was not a physician, but a chemist, and a man who read history and metaphysics and medicine, and had in his day, written a play. (Le Fanu, 6). The line between worlds is therefore transgressed through the blurring of resolute definitions of science, which highlights the violated flexible depiction of worlds. Le Fanu literally inscribes the psychic world onto the material world through Dr Hesselius Essays on Metaphysical Medicine (Le Fanu, 9). He remarks regarding his status that he is A medical philosopher elaborating theories by the aid of cases (Le Fanu, 8). Dr Hesselius through affirming his status as a medical philosopher underscores the ambiguous representation of science as in flux that aligns with Le Fanus depiction of Jennings violated, flexible and hybrid psychic and material world as framed the doctors investigation. Violated and flexible societal reference points can be seen through the confluence of the spiritual and the material in science. Dr Hesselius recounts I believe the entire natural world is but the ultimate expression of that spiritual world from which, and in which alone, it has its life. (Le Fanu, 8). The bleeding of fluid, spiritual (psychic) and scientific (material) worlds highlights the troubling zigzagging

of the line between worlds. Jennings reliance on the liminal Dr Hesselius as a coping mechanism illustrates the flexibility, disintegration and corruption of his societal reference points. Le Fanu also destabilises societal perceptions through the inclusion of illicit and subversive hybrid texts of metaphysics, science and paganism. The fact that Jennings himself is a priest with an interest in pagan theology illustrates his liminal status as well as Le Fanus fudging of the line between psychic and material worlds. Jennings states, I began a work, which had cost me very much thought and reading. It was upon the religious metaphysics of the ancients. (Le Fanu, 21). His significantly stocked library illustrates his attempt to pacify his inner psychical demons as aligned with his disordered sense of the material world. Jennings through his relationship with doctors and literature illustrates Le Fanus violation of social order through its flexible contortion, which underscores the troubling tampering and meandering nature of the line dividing psychic and material worlds. In Carmilla flexible and violated societal reference points play a key role in further destabilising Lauras foundation for reality, notably warping the line dividing worlds. The fact that Carmilla refuses to reveal any information about her societal/historical lineage leads to Lauras disorientated perception of Carmilla. Laura remarks, I found that she exercised with respect to everything in fact connected with her life an ever wakeful reserve. (Le Fanu, 262). Carmillas secrecy denies Laura a reference point for her interpretation of Carmilla, which leads to Lauras further self-doubt and disintegration. Lauras later discovery of the painting of her ancestor leads to Lauras violated societal identity as having an insidious relationship with her ancestor. Lauras finishing governess Mademoiselle De Lafontaine (was) assumed to be psychological, metaphysical, and something of a mystic (Le Fanu, 251). This yet again underscores the blurring of societal reference points. Laura as a result becomes

further detached from society/reality and is subsumed by her twisted pastiche of psychic and material worlds, detaching from her familial loved ones in favour of Carmilla. It is Carmilla who underscores these violated and flexible societal reference points as she acts as the lynchpin for Lauras perception of self, society and reality. Once Laura is extracted from Carmillas influence she is able to reconfigure her societal reference points through her father and the General, which leads to her revelation regarding Carmilla and their parasitic relationship. Vampires within this text therefore illustrate the violation and flexibility of reality through transgressing the line between psychical and material worlds promoting insidious emotional relationships. The Imperial Commissions part in the exhumation and destruction of Carmilla/Mircalla evidently symbolises the attempted restoration of the societal line dividing worlds yet Carmillas emotional parasitism lingers long after her downfall (Le Fanu, 316). As seen through the final line of the text, I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla at the drawing-room door. (Le Fanu, 319). Le Fanu therefore presents violated and flexible societal reference points in order to tamper with the line between worlds, to instill within his characters and his readers the fragile and troubling instability of the line dividing worlds. In Green Tea contoured literature, memory and reality play a key role in Le Fanus reconfiguring and shaping of the line dividing the psychic and material worlds. Freuds theory of the projection of the repressed anxieties of the

unconscious/psychical reality onto the alienated other parallels with Le Fanus contoured world in Green Tea as epitomised by the monkey. The monkey illustrates Jennings projection of his psychical anxieties such as suicidal/bestial degeneration, Darwinism and the Anglo-Irish cause onto the monkey. This projection attempts to act as a form of a coping mechanism in order to rid the protagonist of his anxieties. It

in fact precipitates further confrontation with these anxieties through the monkey and disorientates Jennings perception of the line dividing worlds. Repressed anxieties and memories therefore intrude into the material world as contoured by Le Fanu to provoke Jennings dissolution. As Jennings states, In all situations, at all hours, it is awake and looking at me. (Le Fanu, 26). The permanence of the monkey within the material world highlights the foregrounding of Jennings repression of anxieties and its projection through the monkey. This presents an unsettling worldview as psychological neurosis materialises in the material world. Jennings repressed anxiety/memory of his suicidal and psychologically disturbed father appears in the material world through the psychological phantom of the monkey. Le Fanu therefore contours memory drudging it from the past and unleashing it in the present reality. This destabilises Jennings as the literal inscription of memory in the material world tramples his perceived rigid definition of the boundary between worlds. Reality is therefore ruptured through memory, as the inability of the protagonist to repress memory results in its continued projection, which leads to the protagonists downfall through psychological parasitism. Jennings notes regarding the monkey The thing exhibited an atrocious determination to thwart me. It was with me in the church- in the reading-desk it would spring upon the open book and squat there, so that I was unable to see the page. (Le Fanu, 29). Literature and its access to worlds plays a vital role in Le Fanus contoured line dividing worlds as it symbolically marks the inscription of the psychic in the material. The monkeys concealment of the Bible illustrates Jennings projection of repressed anxieties regarding religion (as seen through his writings on paganism) and Darwinism. Le Fanu therefore symbolically uses literature such as Swedenborgs Arcana Caelestia, which discusses spirits and the hidden/allegorical nature of Scripture to highlight to the reader the contoured nature

of the line dividing worlds (Robert Tracy, 321). Dr Hessilius reads the following By the internal sight it has been granted me to see things that are in the other life, more clearly than I see those that are in the world. From these considerations, it is evident that external vision exists from interior vision, and this from a vision still more interior, and so on. (Le Fanu, 14). The fact that Jennings wrote in pencil on the margin of this psychological/spiritual text illustrates the literal inscription of the psychic world on the material world. This blurring of worlds and reality through memory and literature therefore presents the character and the reader with a disturbing viewpoint as the constructs of memory, reality and literature have become contaminated by the psychic world leaving both worlds destabilised.

In Carmilla contoured memories and realities play a key role in Le Fanus shaping of the line dividing the psychic and material worlds. Freuds theory of the projection of the alienated other also parallels with Le Fanus contoured line dividing worlds in Carmilla as epitomised through Lauras vampiric relationship. Dreams play a significant role in the fudging of the line dividing the internal psychic world from the outer material one as they act as an indication of the seeping of worlds into each other. Lauras visions/dreams encapsulate Le Fanus pastiche of psychical and material worlds. This pastiche highlights the permeability of the line dividing worlds, as these dreams were in fact real encounters with Carmilla. Carmilla has in fact contoured reality and memory in order to escape any repercussions. Doctor Hesselius describes the Carmilla episode as involving the profoundest arcana of our duel existence, and its intermediates. (Le Fanu, 243). Tracy states that Doctor Hesselius is referencing Swedenborg and seems to posit a similar state between life and death where the undead exist; (whereby) Carmilla can apparently materialize and

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dematerialize. (344). Le Fanu therefore contours the line dividing worlds through positioning Carmilla as a liminal character between worlds easily transgressing its dividing line. Carmillas liminality can be seen through her metamorphosis into the cat-like beast, transcending the boundaries of the material world through her supernatural abilities (Le Fanu, 278). Le Fanu therefore contours reality through presenting vampires as real figures without any scientific explanation unlike the monkey in Green Tea. Laura notes, It was no such transitory terror as a dream leaves behind it. It seemed to deepen by time, and communicated itself to the room and the very furniture that had encompassed the apparition. (Le Fanu, 279). Laura therefore questions her senses, her society and her material and psychical worlds, which have been contoured and violated by Carmilla. This presents the reader with a disturbing reality as a written record of socially verifiable vampires. The repressed anxieties of the psychical world literally become inscribed in the material world through this text. Lauras projection of repressed anxieties namely her female desires, contours the line dividing worlds as they are interlocked. Carmilla symbolises Lauras attempt to exorcise her own desires, fears and anxieties regarding her sexuality through projection. This coping mechanism is redundant however as her female desires are heightened through Carmilla as a literal female parasite. Carmilla as the embodiment of Lauras repressed unconscious however leads to Lauras downfall as Carmillas death signals the death of Lauras alienated other symbolically her sexuality. Minsky states that Freud ultimately believes that Our inner psychical or unconscious reality and the external world are always fundamentally in conflict. (26). Le Fanu however within both of his stories illustrates the troubling triumph of the unconscious over the outer material world. Le Fanu therefore fudges the line dividing the psychic world from the material world through highlighting their perilous

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entanglement and reliance on each other, which leads to their rupture. In conclusion both Gothic stories fudge the line dividing the inner psychical world from the outer material one through presenting distorted awakened comatose senses, through illustrating violated and flexible societal reference points and through contouring memory and reality. The line dividing worlds is therefore warped, transgressed and contoured as it zigzags between worlds with a troubling ease. Le Fanu therefore fudges the line between worlds, that undermines both the reader and the characters definitions of self, society, memory and reality, which in turn upsets, disturbs and reveals the fragility of the boundaries of human existence.

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