Abbie Thorn - Weird Fiction

The idea of wild spaces being untouched by humans is very prominent in Blackwood’s “The Willows”. It is described as a ‘land of desolation’ devoid of ‘any single sign of human habitation and civilization within sight. The sense of remoteness from the world of humankind, the utter isolation’ and the two characters in question go on to laugh, with admiration but also tinged with arrogance and mocking, that ‘we ought by rights to have held some special kind of passport to admit us, and that we had, somewhat audaciously, come without asking leave into a separate little kingdom of wonder and magic—a kingdom that was reserved for the use of others who had a right to it, with everywhere unwritten warnings to trespassers for those who had the imagination to discover them.’

Blackwood had many inspirations for his work which fed into his focus on the theme of humans vs nature. In the biography of Blackwood by Mike Ashley, we read that a lot of his work was inspired by his own life and experiences with nature. Indeed Ashley notes that Blackwood took his own trip along the Danube River, an experience that lived with him and must have grown in the imagining. That the experience came within two years of the events that inspired “The Wendigo”, his other acknowledged masterpiece, shows that by now Blackwood’s spirit was sharply attuned to the majesty of Nature and was storing images and experiences that would soon flow from him in a torrent’.

Another inspiration for Blackwood’s fearsome forests and woodland could be unconscious. The knowledge that American fears of the wilderness come from colonial fears, ‘many of the American fears of the woods are historically inherited from European anxieties. Much of the American fixation on the fearsome forest is tied to memories of the overwhelming forests of the New World’, is worth noting as despite Blackwood being British he did reside in America, on and off, for some time. This is another way in which these spaces are perceived as unnatural - as its a ‘New World’ with wildlife that humans are unaccustomed to and therefore dangerous. Although this is worth noting, it also needs to be recognised that this focuses on Western cultures and ignores many other cultures with strong ties to, and an understanding of nature - many of whom were also the inspirations of many of Blackwood's stories.

Blackwood’s work alludes to the effect that different cultures had on his inspirations of his stories and focus on nature. In “The Willows” the Swede refers to ‘"These Hungarians believe in all sorts of rubbish: you remember the shopwoman at Pressburg warning us that no one ever landed here because it belonged to some sort of beings outside man's world! I suppose they believe in fairies and elementals, possibly demons too,”’. This expansion into exploring cultures outside of Western countries offers a wider view on the concept of nature being alive and having agency.

For example, Leah Kalmanson discusses the taro plant, explaining that ‘the taro does not symbolize a Hawaiian ancestor, nor is it a metaphor for Hawaiian heritage—rather, any taro plant is the ancestor Hāloa’, she expands this by also explaining Pure Land in Japan stating ‘this is not a metaphorical or symbolic “Pure Land”—it is an actual earthly environment permeated with, and hence transformed by, the infinite compassion of Amida’. Both these examples show instances where nature is not ‘alive’, but actually animate. Kalmanson also recognises the dismissal of these cultures stating that ‘Mapping the distinction between the natural and the supernatural in the history of European thought embroils us in the (at times) tensely negotiated distinctions between “legitimate” religion and “paganism,” between science and superstition, and, accordingly, between the rational and the irrational’ which is a sentiment similar to what Max Weber expressed in his “Science as a Vocation” where he discusses the ‘intellectual process of rationalization through science and a science-based technology’. Both of these stances focus on rational vs irrational thought. Kalmanson is arguing that looking at it through tight distinctions can be harmful and not useful, believing that ‘to avoid either condescending toward the Hawaiians or subsuming Hawaiian cosmology within a general spiritual holism, we must make the supernatural visible as a subject of philosophical discussion’, meanwhile Weber expands his approach to mean that what he claims as ‘rationalization’ is a good thing because science and technology offers us opportunities to expand what we know, whenever we want. ‘In principle, then, we are not ruled by mysterious, unpredictable forces, but that, on the contrary, we can in principle control everything by means of calculation’ which in turn leads to ‘disenchantment of the world’.

Rather than science and technology helping ‘control everything by means of calculation’ and displacing the fear, the new science and technology that is used in tracking our environment's decline is a cause of the unrest and concern. Parker argues ‘horror texts now function as modern-day ‘myths’ and that those which include images and themes of Gothicised Nature in themselves undermine the Disenchantment Thesis’ therefore directly opposing the notion of disenchantment and instead explaining the creation of a newer supernatural genre - eco-horror. Eco-horror is described by Joseph L. Foy as ‘texts are fright flicks in which nature turns against humankind due to environmental degradation, pollution, encroachment, nuclear disaster, or a host of other reasons,’ expanded on by Parker who describes the ‘golden rule’ of eco-horror being revenge as ‘humans harm nature, and nature, in turn, delivers its own bloody retribution’. She also defines the second purpose of the genre being ‘designed explicitly to increase environmental awareness’ which further evidences my previous point that science is now a cause of the spreading of fear of the ‘unnatural’. Furthermore, while these notions of revenge and retribution

were also present in Blackwood’s work, what categorises these two different explorations of the same theme as different is how science is currently a well-known perpetrator in causing these concerns. Another example in which the modern perception of forest and woodlands can be seen as ‘unnatural’ is in the change of form within the genre. Parker notes the popularity of eco-horror in films more so than in books (despite her reassurance that the prominence in books are still there),

and she tracks how these have developed over time, These recent films carry a very different tone from what might be considered the “classic” eco-horror films of the 1970s. Instead of giant insects, mutant rats, and killer sharks, the threat of nature is shown to be much more insidious and pervasive; it is now often nature itself that is depicted as the collective and malevolent force, turning unanimously on a transgressive and now unwelcome humankind.

This is a return to the familiar waters in Blackwood’s work, the nature itself having agency and a personal vendetta against humankind, however yet again is set apart it’s more modern evolution. Andrew Smith and William Hughes sum it up nicely when explaining Debates about climate change and environmental damage have been key issues on most industrialized countries’ political agendas for some time. These issues have helped shape the direction and application of ecocritical languages. The Gothic seems to be the form which is well placed to capture these anxieties and provides a culturally signifi-cant point of contact between literary criticism, ecocritical theory and political process. While the origins of this ecoGothic can be traced back to Romanticism the growth in environmental awareness has become a significant development. The political urgency of ecological issues is often self-consciously elaborated in many of the contemporary novels and films. Overall, the ways in which forests and woodlands have been perceived as ‘unnatural’ is something that has changed over time yet firmly remains set with the same motifs of nature itself as something with agency and with humankind playing the villain. What Blackwood explored with reference to his own experiences, beliefs and Gothic genre conventions has evolved into many sub-genres depicting the same anxiety surrounding the same ‘unnatural’ spaces however with a stronger relationship with science and environmental awareness.

Last modified: Fri, 27 May 2022 11:50:49 BST