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Date of Award

Spring 2025

Document Type

Masters Project

Department or Program Affiliation

English

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Anderson, Katherine J.

Second Advisor

Loar, Christopher F.

Third Advisor

Cosey, Felicia

Abstract

Similar to Dracula, and published the same year in 1897, The Beetle follows a reverse colonization narrative and is filled with characters which reference British modernity, such as “the new woman,” the quote-un-quote Eastern other, and a detective trained in forensic science. However, rather than following a seductive, Vampiric aristocrat, Marsh’s plot follows a shapeshifting Beetle-like character which spends the length of the novel dominating and outwitting these supposed symbols of British progress. In the end however, rather than being staked in the heart and providing readers with empirical proof of Dracula’s demise, the only thing Marsh provides readers with is a pile of bloodied rags. While the Beetle is technically out of sight by the novel’s end, Marsh’s detective never solves the mystery of the text. This open-ended resolution, and seeming reversal of the reverse colonization narrative itself, continues to puzzle Victorian scholars. In this project I argue that one way to solve this puzzle is to perform what scholars Ronjaunee Chaterjee, Alicia Mireles Christoff, and Amy R. Wong term an “undisciplined” reading the novel, or, to contribute to the project of radically re-making the field of Victorian studies by engaging across disciplines and elevating Pan-Africanist voices. In my reading of The Beetle, I center anticolonial voices like Duse Mohammed Ali and Edward Said, while also putting the text in conversation with disciplines such as disabilities studies, disability rhetoric, and biopolitics. Ultimately, this project read the Beetle’s character as representative of the epistemic violence which British subjects unknowingly or even willingly accept—even to their own detriment—at the end of the nineteenth century.

Type

Text

Keywords

Richard Marsh, The Beetle, Pan Africanism, Eugenics, Victorian Studies, Gothic Literature, Anticolonial

Publisher

Western Washington University

OCLC Number

1544768052

Subjects – Names (LCNAF)

Marsh, Richard, 1857-1915. The beetle

Subject – LCSH

Pan-Africanism; Eugenics; English literature--19th century; Gothic literature

Format

application/pdf

Genre/Form

masters theses

Language

English

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.

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