Abstract
Ethan Chandler, one of the main characters in Penny Dreadful, steps out of the Western dime novel, bringing with him the moral imperative of American exceptionalism and a swaggering celebration of American masculinity. The series labors to critique the conventional power structures of the Gothic: to empower women, redeem monsters, redraw the boundaries between the civilized and the savage, upend the privileges of Empire, and question the authority of patriarchs. Ethan Chandler’s storyline, however, reestablishes those hierarchies. The series ends as do many American dime novels: the dark lady is dead; what’s native is punished; what’s wild or dangerous has been contained. As an homage to the dime novel hero, Ethan Chandler defends many of the conventional themes and identities the series struggles to reimagine.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Sophie Mantrant makes a similar point in her perceptive essay “Jack the Ripper in the Age of Trauma: Ethan Chandler in Penny Dreadful, Season One.” She explores the problematic ways in which the series deploys theories of “perpetrator trauma” to absolve Ethan—and the colonializing history he represents—of responsibility, if not guilt, writing, “The series rewrites the serial murder as traumatized man acting against his own will. It goes further, re-writing him as traumatized, but loving and loveable good-looking man” (175). The disruption of Chandler’s identity by the werewolf, according to Mantrant, allows for the “morally disturbing consequence” of absolving him of any real guilt.
Works Cited
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Modern Library, 2000.
Gosling, Sharon. The Art and Making of Penny Dreadful. Titan Books, 2015.
Mantrant, Sophie. “Jack the Ripper in the Age of Trauma: Ethan Chandler in Penny Dreadful, Season One.” Filming the Past, Screening the Present: Neo-Victorian Adaptations, ed. Shannon Wells-Lassagne and Eckart Voigt, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2021, pp. 169–178.
Larshermans. “Larshermans Reviews.” 29 April 2020. IMDb, <https://m.imdb.com/user/ur36113171/reviews?ref_=tt_urv>.
Stephens, Ann. “Malaeska; the Indian Wife of the White Hunter.” Reading the West: An Anthology of Dime Westerns, edited by Bill Brown, Bedford Books, 1997, pp. 53–164.
Wheeler, Edward. “Deadwood Dick, the Prince of the Road; or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills,” Reading the West: An Anthology of Dime Westerns, edited by Bill Brown. Bedford Publishing, 1997, pp. 269–358.
Whitman, Walt. Walt Whitman: The Complete Poems. Penguin, 2004.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ryan, A.M. (2023). Ethan Chandler, Penny Dreadful, and the Dime Novel; or, Dancing with American Werewolves in London. In: Grossman, J., Scheibel, W. (eds) Penny Dreadful and Adaptation. Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12180-7_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12180-7_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-12179-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-12180-7
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)