Date Published:

Abstract:

Saul Bellow’s “Gothic Ontology: The Victim and More Die of Heartbreak” examines the different types of Gothic employed by Saul Bellow in The Victim (1947) and More Die of Heartbreak (1987). The article argues that in The Victim Gothic doubling becomes erased by an idea of hospitality which challenges the status of the Gothic ‘other’. This is contrasted with More Die of Heartbreak where the Gothic is used in order to critically read the psychological and emotional damage caused by a materialist culture. The article explores Bellow’s complex engagement with the Gothic and examines how he employs the Gothic to raise questions about ontology and materialism.

August 2023: Andrew Smith is Professor of Nineteenth-Century English Literature at the University of Sheffield where he co-directs the Centre for the History of the Gothic. He is the author or editor of over 20 published books including Gothic Fiction and the Writing of Trauma, 1914-1934: The Ghosts of World War One (2022), Gothic Death 1740-1914: A Literary History (2016), The Ghost Story 1840-1920: A Cultural History (2010), Gothic Literature (2007, revised 2013), Victorian Demons (2004) and Gothic Radicalism (2000). He is currently writing a book on Dickens and the Gothic for Cambridge University Press. With Professor Ben Fisher he co-edits the series “Gothic Literary Studies” and “Gothic Authors: Critical Revisions” for the University of Wales Press. With Professor William Hughes he co-edits the “Gothic Companions” series for Edinburgh University Press.  He is a past president of the International Gothic Association.

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