Untitled - Sexey's School Moodle

seems to align herself with earlier criticism of The Monk which perceived Lewis’ novel
as obscene and as lacking a moral framework based on a rather facile conflation of author
and character, for she argues on the one hand that the author’s views are “disturbing” and
that on the other, he fails to be clear about his convictions. But what if this is precisely
the intended purpose of Lewis? Instead of providing a moral framework, as Radcliffe so
carefully does, Lewis relegates the burden of decision to the reader, forces him/her to
question his/her own conceptualization of morality and to confront them with titillating
transgressions of the established norms imposed by society. Keeping in mind the larger
picture of the framework of transgression established in the previous chapter, the novel’s
representation of the paradigm regarding the link between sex and violence, which is
simultaneously shocking and either fascinating or disturbing, fully exploits the
transgressive role of the erotic. By exploring the possibilities between sex and violence
in both the structure and the content of the narrative, Lewis unleashes the potential of
Eroticism suggested by Bataille, for it not only breaks taboos, it also questions the system
of meaning in which it originates. In other words, the language of sexuality becomes the
language of political subversion. In The Monk, the suppression of Ambrosio’s lustful
desires, as orchestrated by the mechanics of institutional power, imposes a pattern of
repression that is destructive to both the repressed individual and those who surround
him. Thus, The Monk’s perceived “failures” (its lack of moral framework, its
“obscenity,” the explicit combination of sex and violence, etc.) do not diminish the
novel’s standing as an important work of both the Gothic and transgression. Quite on the
contrary, as these specific aspects become more intensely scrutinized by various
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generations of critics, both The Monk’s value as cultural capital gradually increases and