THE SAVAGE MAGNET: RACIALIZATION OF THE OCCULT BODY IN LATE VICTORIAN FICTION

Abstract

“The Savage Magnet: Racialization of the Occult Body in Late Victorian Fiction” considers how late Victorian occult fiction written by women employs the racial identities of its characters. The essay analyses Florence Marryat's The Blood of the Vampire (1897), Cora Linn Daniels’ The Bronze Buddha (1899) and Marie Corelli's Romance of Two Worlds (1886), which all feature non-white characters with occult powers. Aligning dark bodies with dangerous, mysterious, magnetic abilities, this fiction often embodies imperialist and nationalistic assumptions about British subjects in non-English bodies. These dark bodies, in turn, provide allegories about the British Empire and its internal race-based conflicts and power structures. In these novels a quadroon Jamaican heiress, a half-Indian, half-American Brahmin and a Chaldean beauty provide examples of how mixed-race or non-English characters vacillate between heroic and villainous roles, reinforcing Victorian concepts of white racial and cultural ascendancy.