Abstract
Ethan Chandler, one of the main characters in Penny Dreadful, steps out of the Western dime novel, bringing with him the moral imperative of American exceptionalism and a swaggering celebration of American masculinity. The series labors to critique the conventional power structures of the Gothic: to empower women, redeem monsters, redraw the boundaries between the civilized and the savage, upend the privileges of Empire, and question the authority of patriarchs. Ethan Chandler’s storyline, however, reestablishes those hierarchies. The series ends as do many American dime novels: the dark lady is dead; what’s native is punished; what’s wild or dangerous has been contained. As an homage to the dime novel hero, Ethan Chandler defends many of the conventional themes and identities the series struggles to reimagine.
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Notes
- 1.
Sophie Mantrant makes a similar point in her perceptive essay “Jack the Ripper in the Age of Trauma: Ethan Chandler in Penny Dreadful, Season One.” She explores the problematic ways in which the series deploys theories of “perpetrator trauma” to absolve Ethan—and the colonializing history he represents—of responsibility, if not guilt, writing, “The series rewrites the serial murder as traumatized man acting against his own will. It goes further, re-writing him as traumatized, but loving and loveable good-looking man” (175). The disruption of Chandler’s identity by the werewolf, according to Mantrant, allows for the “morally disturbing consequence” of absolving him of any real guilt.
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Ryan, A.M. (2023). Ethan Chandler, Penny Dreadful, and the Dime Novel; or, Dancing with American Werewolves in London. In: Grossman, J., Scheibel, W. (eds) Penny Dreadful and Adaptation. Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-12180-7_10
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