Inspiration from the gothic tale of Paul Ferroll

 

Much of my practice is inspired by gothic novels and in particular the way many of them critique the position of women in society. I tend to combine gothic tropes such as veiling and nets with lace to suggest some of these ideas. The image above shows a net curtain inspired by a little-known gothic novel entitled Paul Ferroll by Caroline Clive. The eponymous ‘hero’ of this novel murders his wife at the beginning of the story and evades justice at the end. My net curtain presents the voice of the murdered wife as she speaks from beyond the grave to give her side of the story. The idea being that the net has sieved her words out of the ether in the home where she remains a ghostly presence.

I am not the only one to find this story troubling. It seems a strange subject for a nineteenth century novel aimed at a mainly female readership. Many readers complained to the author about the outcome of the story, so when the book was republished she added an extra final  chapter in which Paul Ferroll, having escaped from prison and fled to America with the help of his daughter, caught a fever and died. The implication being that he was punished by natural justice rather than the hangman’s noose. Many readers weren’t satisfied with that explanation either, so Caroline Clive wrote a prequel to the story with the unsurprising title: Why Paul Ferroll killed his wife. This story explains how he met both his first and  second wife and how the former tricked him into marriage – so what else could he do but murder her! I still don’t find this a valid explanation for murder but wisely Caroline Clive gave up trying to persuade her readers that Paul Ferroll was a real hero and published no more stories about him. Although you have to admire her for cleverly building up indignation against him and selling two books about the same subject!