The Gothic of Family Romance

Abstract

Many eighteenth-century protagonists discover that their origins are more exalted than they originally thought. This is a pervasive cultural fantasy centring around orphans that Freud later came to call ‘Family Romances’. It is a typical closure element in foundling stories and late eighteenth-century Gothic or quasi-Gothic novels. Strictly speaking, Evelina and Emmeline are not Family Romances, as the heroines and their social environment know their origins; they only lack proof of legitimacy. The foundling stories enact a fairly cheerful version of the Family Romance in which the child’s lack of knowledge concerning its origins is either occasioned by Gypsy kidnapping or by irregular female sexual activity. Intriguingly, only the Gothic mode focuses interest on the dark aspects inherent in this fantasy. I would like to explore what is ‘Gothic’ about the Family Romance and what makes its reappearance in the Gothic mode possible or even necessary in the late eighteenth century.