Fair Tresses Dyed in Crimson Gore: Charlotte Dacres Manipulation of Physiognomic Codes in Zofloya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine Charlotte Dacre's novel, Zofloya in the context of the current cultural, scientific, and aesthetic debates, namely late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century discourses on human variety and physical difference. The primary focus concerns the influence of Johann Kaspar Lavater's Essays on Physiognomie on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century novel, particularly in the Gothic mode, and the narrative strategies employed by Dacre that both exploit and manipulate the established codes of physiognomy. Through a comprehensive study of the historical tradition of physiognomy, and the applications thereof in a variety of Gothic novels, this study demonstrates that while Dacre includes narrative constructs that closely follow Lavaterian connections between physical appearance and moral character, she also manipulates physiognomic cues by introducing a female villain with a carefully constructed interiority. By doing so, she calls into question Lavater's notion on physiognomy as a rational, scientific indicator of inner characteristics and demonstrates knowledge of the conventional view of physical codes while subverting such principles with a female villainess capable of change.