Caitlyn's thesis seeks to answer the question,"How would one read Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's two short stories about Taranath the Tantrik titled, 'Taranath Tantrik-er Golpo' (The Story of Taranath Tantrik) and, 'Madhusundari Debir Aabirbhab' (The Appearance of Madhusundari Devi), as Gothic fiction?
The thesis analyzes Bandyopadhyay’s two short stories concerning the youth of the Tantra practitioner Taranath through the lens of affect theory. Chapter 1 explores Gothic literature via affect theory. Marentette posits that the “Gothic” is not a genre label; instead, it must be understood as a literary aesthetic (social, emotional, environmental, etc.) that, in the case of Taranath Tantrik, adapts to the localized religious, linguistic, literary, and cultural nuances of 1940s Bengal. Chapter 2 explores the monstrous feminine, a common literary trope in the Gothic literary canon, in Taranath Tantrik's short stories and in contemporaneously written literature. In so doing, Marentette sets up comparisons between the women in the two Taranath Tantrik short stories and Lavinia Whateley from H. P. Lovecraft's The Dunwich Horror.
By centering affect theory as the theoretical support and determinant of Gothic literature, Marentette attempts to flip a narrative: where, for instance, common literary tropes (such as the monstrous feminine) are used to talk about what is Gothic, it is not necessarily the trope that marks a Gothic story as such. After all, plenty of Gothic stories do not invoke the monstrous feminine, so to say that the monstrous feminine is a necessary structural support of Gothic literature would be false. Rather, Marentette suggests that these figures, when adjusted to specific linguistic, religious, and other cultural norms, produce a sort of emotional provocation that “feels” Gothic—that is to say, uneasy, questionably resolved at its end, and oftentimes accompanied by feelings of regret, remorse, and discomfort.
CSAS congratulates Marentette on her graduation and wishes her much success in her future endeavors.
