Bella Rolleston Feminist Analysis

Scholars have described the Female Gothic as something that “[…] not only engendered a body of critical work which focused on the ways in which the Female Gothic articulated women’s dissatisfactions with patriarchal society and addressed the problematic position of the maternal within that society, but placed the Gothic at the centre of the female tradition.”1 In other words, Female Gothic focuses on, not only the literature written by women but also on criticizing the position in which women have been put for centuries. Women have been undermined by society, taking away their freedom as individuals, turning them in submissive, quiet beings. Disregarded as only useful at home to take care of the children. Thus is not strange women decided to

As Bella has no father, and because of being raised only by her mother she does not have a patriarchal figure. That means she was not raised by a man, by someone who would reaffirm the stereotypical gender roles of the Victorian period. She was raised by a mother who had to work hard to support them both. As Bella grows up and becomes an adult she decides she wants to help her mother so she begins to look for a job. For her is not weird that a woman wants to work to support her family and household. She is a healthy young woman who is looking for a job as a companion in an specialized

The portrayal of Carmilla 's character, a young vampire, brings up the potential idea of female homosexuality and women as possible sexual predators. Carmilla is the clear representation of danger, a threat to woman 's sexuality defined by scholars as the “monstrous feminine” which can be correlated to the appearance in the late Victorian period of the new women: “In literature […] she frequently took a different form – that of someone whose thoughts and desires highlighted not only her own aspirations, but also served as a mirror in which to reflect the attitudes of