*TW* descriptions of violence and true crime
The Gothic in literary terms has always been a way in which traditions can be subverted and allows the writers and audience to focus in on the mysterious, the shocking and the macabre. Repressed fears and trauma manifesting themselves in different ways to evoke a complex range of emotions within its audience, from terror to awe, commenting on the darker side of the human subconscious. Usually focusing on a personification of evil, the monster within the Gothic is a study of the social construction of incomprehensive acts. A serial killer is considered much the same as the Gothic monster trope within popular media - sub-human and abject recreational acts of madness and merciless, often motiveless evil. The Gothic monster provides a narrative archetype for serial killers to be portrayed by the media, which then can blur the lines between fiction and true crime in order to separate serial killers to the public, rather than the public acknowledging any humanity behind the ‘evil’. Thus becoming Gothic Criminology. With Gothic Criminology, it shows audiences real horror that prevails within modern societies and may evoke a praxiological response rather than one of fear based on, and separated by, an imagined fictional world.
One of the first and arguably the most famous cases of crime becoming fictionalised by the media is Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper became the first prototype of the evil serial killer (although the term ‘serial killer’ was created much later, commonly credited to FBI special agent Robert Ressler who coined the term in a lecture he gave in 1974.), the mystery of the killer gripped Victorian audiences. Within the same era as Sherlock Holmes and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the ripper murders were portrayed at the time to be a horrifyingly real-life Gothic story, sending a message to the public that the common man is capable of such evil.
Elizabeth Bathory, hailed as ‘The Blood Countess’, is a perfect example of Gothic Criminology. Bathory has been labelled as the most prolific female murderer by the Guinness World Records, which can mainly be attributed to her crimes being so bizarre and horrific, the case reads more like a fictional story rather than a true crime case.
Due to the events taking place around the 1500’s, it is hard to determine the legitimacy of the case due to a lack of sufficient evidence. However, it is said that she killed around 650 young women in the twenty years she was active. Bathory is infamous for torturing and brutally killing peasant and slave girls around the ages of ten to fifteen in a torture chamber she had built within her castle. She would do this by mutilating them, burning them with hot prongs, biting flesh off of their face, arms and legs, freezing or starving them to death. After doing so, allegedly Bathory would drain the victims of their blood so that she could drink or bathe in it, in hopes that the blood of the virgin girls would preserve her youth and treat her suspected epilepsy and seizures. Bathory’s intimate motivations seemed to be sexually driven, but it is hard to know for certain what drove her to commit these acts in such a way.
The case of Elizabeth Bathory has since been hailed as the first villain archetype and a famous tale in folklore. It has inspired countless stories throughout the ages, most renowned by her vampirism. Particularly the 18th and 19th century, her case is rumoured to have inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and many books, songs and films have since been created around her story. Because of the case happening around the 14th century, and Bathory being a female serial killer, her case has been glorified by popular culture. Many depictions of Elizabeth Bathory portray her as a beautiful, powerful countess, rather than a cold-blooded psychopath. The depictions mostly consist of Bathory’s motivations and the pleasure she derives from the crimes she committed, over any acknowledgement of her victims. The songs written about her within the black metal genre show this the most accurately, an example being ‘Countess Bathory’ by the band Venom, with the lyrics “All day long the virgins sit and feast on endless meals / The Countess laughs and sips her wine - her skin doth crack and peel / But when nightime fills the air one must pay the price / The Countess takes her midnight bath with blood that once gave life’’. Making her a prime example of how a true crime story has been trivialised and glorified into a fictional narrative, rather than (if factually accurate,) a terrifying case of sado-masochism and the suffering of an extortionate amount of young women.
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