” I seem to have seen all that happened as in a glass darkly, – with about it all an element of unreality. As I have already remarked, the things which revealed themselves, dimely, to my perception, seemed too bizarre, too hideous, to be true.” (243)
Comment: I found it very hard to find a quote that really wrapped up my interpretation of the book. At first, I only thought about this book as a creature that’s main goal was to seduce and control anyone that it could. But, reading different essays about this book got me thinking. It is easy to see this book as just a shapeshifter that likes to torment people but digging deper into it to it, people have dipicted the book as expressing that the victorian era was being tested or that the book is talking about gender and feminism concerns.
The essay ” Conservation of Energy, Individual Agency, and Gothic Terror in Richard Marsh’s The Beetle, or, What’s Scarier Than an Ancient Evil, Shape-shifting Bug?” by Anna Maria Jones, dives into the victorian stigma and if the books meaning is the de-masculinity of some of the characters. This would explain some of the horrors that a character such as Lessinghan felt because being coerced by a being and losing his sense of control made him feel as if his masculinity was tested. He also felt as if his identity was gone for some time, losing the “man” that he once was. Lessinghan talks about this when he said: “I was aroused all at once, to a sense of freedom; to a knowledge that the blood which coursed through my veins was after all my own, that I was master of my own honour.” (244) To me this meant that only when he had a sense of his masculinity, was he able to break the spell upon him.
Another article shows a different but somewhat the same view called “Out of Time: Queer Temporality and Eugenic Monstrosity” by Thomas Stuart talks about how the book to him just expressed the victorian views and how books like The Beetle tested those views. This essay also talked about how the book goes beyond gender boundaries. I agree that the view of the transformation of the creature turning from male to female would be viewed differently with the views of the victorian age. Also characters like Marjorie who actually had a voice when women typically did not showed how the book pushed those classic victorian views. Marjorie reminded me of Jane Eyre and how they both were not afraid to speak their mind but both had people look at them differently because of their opinions.
I see both of the points made from these essay but I saw this book as seeing something different at a period in history when “different” meant bad. Whether someone was gay, or a woman who spoke their mind, or even a person who turned into a beetle was not only unspeakable but evil. You would typically read this book and only look at the creature as the one who needs to be analyzed but seeing the different perspectives showed that different was with ever character. Lessighan was not liked by many because he was a politician with a past that no one knew about. Holt was different because he had no job and was found on many occasion with little to no clothes. Marjorie was different for speaking her mind and loving a man that everyone advised against and lastly, Sydney was different for being smart and thinking that somehow Marjorie was his. But when you learn more about each of their stories you see that there is way more to them then what the differences they have to say about them.
Question: Was the beetle created to push the victorian views of what people should and should not be?
I think the Beetle was created to create a discussion of what people should be. I think that the obvious monsters of the beetle are the beetle and the followers of Isis and they create a discussion of British imperialism. I think that Lessingham’s masculinity or lack there of at times creates a discussion of gender roles as well as what power is as you noted that he only had power when he felt truly masculine. To that note I think the novel was following the times views on masculinity, sexuality, evolution, and putting those views into monstrosity to then put a spin on it to create discussion.