The Domestic Veil: The Net Curtain in the Uncanny Home

Abstract

In this practice-based research the net curtain embodies Freud’s uncanny as the point of slippage between the homely and the unhomely. In this liminal role the net curtain is used to reconsider women’s equivocal experience of home as sanctuary and prison, based on tropes from Victorian gothic novels, but with contemporary parallels. Considered as a domestic veil the net curtain is a metonym for the trapped heroine in those nineteenth-century, gothic novels that critique the notion of separate spheres and the conflation of women with their homes and domesticity. This study builds on research into the uncanny, the gothic and the domestic and the discourse of Mary Douglas and Julia Kristeva on the instability of margins, to reveal the dysfunction that results from breaching domestic boundaries. The net curtain gradually reveals the secrets of the uncanny home. Pins and needles pierce the curtain to mark the passing of time, referencing a cell-bound prisoner. Dust, memories and conversations are trapped within its sieve-like net. Experiences of claustrophobia, confinement and coercion are made manifest through the domestic veil of the net curtain.

Keywords:

• net curtain
• domesticity
• uncanny
• gothic
• separate spheres
• dust
• pins
• lace

Notes

Notes

1 The gothic is a rich and diverse research area that encompasses many definitions. My focus is on female gothic and contemporary representations of the gothic. Researchers studying the gothic from a feminist standpoint include Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar (The Madwoman in the Attic, 2000), Kate Ferguson Ellis (The Contested Castle, 1989), Terry Castle (The Female Thermometer, 1995), and E. J. Clery (Women’s Gothic, 2000). Regarding visual and material culture and art practice, The Gothic: Documents of Contemporary Art edited by Gilda Williams (2007) provides a useful overview of the field as does Catherine Spooner’s Contemporary Gothic (2006).

2 Examples of these novels include Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847), The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (1859–1860), The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848), and Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1862).

3 Julian Stallabrass first described “the turn to the domestic” in High Art Lite (London 1999) but I am using Perry’s definition of it.

4 The full text can be found at www.gutenberg.org (Accessed on 30.07.2019).

5 The novel was serialized in Charles Dickens’s weekly periodical, All Year Round, from 26 November 1859 to 25 August 1860.

6 Carol Davison (2004) provides an excellent literary critique of The Yellow Wallpaper and its links to the female gothic. The book was also the theme of a contemporary art exhibition curated by Tom Gallant entitled The Yellow Wallpaper in 2012 at Danson House, Bexleyheath.

7 The Brontë sisters used the pseudonyms Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily) and Acton (Anne) Bell.

8 Bourgeois is quoted as saying that the needle “is never aggressive, it’s not a pin” in J Gorovoy and P Tabatabai. Louise Bourgeois Blue Days and Pink Days, exhibition catalogue, Fondazione Prada: Milan 1997 (ref in Parker 2010). However I agree with Rozsika Parker that “Her work, to my mind, associates stitching not only with reparation but also with aggression and destruction” (Parker 2010, xix).

9 My thanks to Steve Smith Photography for photographic assistance.

10 The Fabric of Memory at The Crypt Gallery, London in 2013.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carol Quarini

Dr Carol Quarini is a researcher and artist. She undertook her practice-based PhD entitled “The domestic veil: exploring the net curtain through the uncanny and the gothic” at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham. Her postdoctoral research focuses on the history, manufacture and design of net curtains and lace panels. Her current practice is based on veiling critiquing the role of women in nineteenth-century, gothic fiction. She has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, published in the UK and presented her research at international conferences. [email protected]