Abstract
The aim of my paper is to introduce one of the significant features of the Victorian ghost story and to show how it is connected to and predicated upon the state of knowledge and culture in the 19thcentury. Broadly speaking, the most important characteristic of a ghost story is that it should contain a ghost or a supernatural figure.
However, I will argue that in delineating the Victorian ghost storygenre it is possible to ascribe to it a very specific type of apparition, defined through Jacques Derrida's theory about the spectre. The central point of Derrida's definition is the fact that the spectre subverts the conventional idea of knowledge.
Firstly, it defies "ontology" by existing in between the traditional categories of "alive" or "dead," "past" or "present," "present" or "absent". Secondly, it defies "semantics," by not having any obvious purpose and not stating a reason for its presence.
I will show that both these characteristics can be applied to the ghosts that haunt Victorian ghost stories and that this type of apparition can also be linked to certain developments in Victorian society as a whole, particularly the new discoveries of science that caused hesitation comparable to that in the case of the supernatural in the stories and challenged the idea that an objective truth can be reached. I will argue that the Victorian ghost is a reaction to and a reflection of these anxieties, which are used as a source of fear in the stories.