Liminality

Liminality

Comes from the Latin word "limen" meaning "threshold"
Refers to someone or something being on the boundary of two things - often two extremes.
Like a transitory stage
Manuel Aguirre argues that it is a defining feature of gothic literature
Liminality in Frankenstein
1. The Creature
  1. On the boundary of life and death
  2. Neither a success or a failure. It wasn't quite the end result that Victor was hoping for but he did succeed in creating life
  3. Is he good or evil?!?!?!
2. Justine
  1. Also on the boundary of life and death
    1. "The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass the awful boundary between life and death..."
3. Victor
  1. Victor is often closely linked with the sublime. This fills the protagonist with a sense of awe and dread
    1. "the awful and majestic in nature" - This adheres to the sublime and majestic in nature. Victor's perception of the world around him seems influenced by his own turmoil
    2. Edmund Burke notes in "On the Sublime and Beautiful" (Useful critic idk)
  2. Is Victor good or evil? He usually switches between two extremes like the typical Gothic protagonist
    1. Thinks he's aiding the world but he neglects his creation
Liminality in Macbeth
1. The witches
  1. Although the witches are inherently supernatural, they seem to rest on the liminal line between worldly and otherworldly/male and female
    1. Banquo: "look not like th'inhabitants o'th'earth, / And yet are on't"
  2. Links could be drawn with Macbeth's liminal nature as the witches could be considered a product of his desires
2. Macbeth
  1. Never quite inherently good or evil
    1. His evil may be considered excusable because of Lady M's influence
    2. He is hugely conflicted
3. Lady M
  1. Is also very much 'inbetween'
    1. Borders on the super natural
      1. "unsex me here"
    2. Not as supernatural as the witches tho
4. The walls of the castle (yh they count as a character now!)
  1. The outside world is one of order and justice
  2. inside the castle however, there is schemes, duplicity, deception, the supernatural, ghosts, apparitions, murder etc
Liminality in Doctor Faustus
1. Faustus
  1. Is he good or evil?!?!?!? (IDEK)
    1. Wants to gain knowledge to help the world n stuff
      1. But he sells his soul in order to do so :/
    2. Ends up using his devilish powers to be a prick
2. Mephistopheles
  1. Seems pretty evil but may not be inherently evil
    1. He's constantly after Faustus' soul and lives to serve Lucifer
    2. However, he is just a tortured soul just tryin to make a livin init
      1. Mephestopheles: "O Faustus, leave these frivolous demands/Which strike a terror to my fainting soul!"

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	Created by gregory.rolfe over 10 years ago