51 pages • 1 hour read
Kerri ManiscalcoStalking Jack the Ripper
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Women’s Roles in Late Victorian England
Audrey struggles to operate authentically in a society that expects her to be more interested in needlework and social gatherings than in the inner workings of the human body. She is intensely curious, but this curiosity—especially given it is in the gory field of human anatomy—is viewed as subversive and problematic. Most of the individuals in her life, including her father, her aunt, and even at times her uncle and brother, try to curb her personal freedoms and her hunger for learning in favor of having her behave in a more traditionally ladylike manner.
The clothing Audrey is expected to wear, a tight corset that limits her ability to breathe and voluminous skirts that limit her ability to move, illustrates Victorian society’s opinion that upper-class women are ornamental; that their clothing limits their abilities to move through the world is not considered a problem because they are not expected to participate in activities that require freedom of movement. Aubrey’s preference for riding breeches—which are intended to be worn only when riding a horse but which she finds practical and comfortable for everyday wear—demonstrates her subversiveness and her desire to be free of the restrictive rules which are placed upon women of her class.
Most jarringly for Audrey, aristocratic women are expected not to be educated or pursue professions. To attend her uncle’s lecture, she must disguise herself as a boy; Uncle Jonathan tells her: “[I]f you so much as utter one word, it will be your first and last time in my classroom” (8) because her voice will betray her identity as a girl. Even when those around her allow her to cross gender lines, her freedom in those spaces is only partial.
Lord Wadsworth opposes Audrey’s participation in crime scene investigations and admonishes Blackburn for “feeding her dangerous curiosity” rather than “reining in her will and protecting her” (209). His admonishment reveals that he believes Audrey should be controlled by the men in her life rather than being allowed to show agency, intelligence, or independence. Audrey finds this codling and patronizing attitude maddening and feels that she is placed in a “gilded prison” by her father (315). The gilding of the prison is important because it indicates her class; Audrey lives in comfort, and those around her want her to remain in the comfortable domestic sphere reserved for women. A common trope of Gothic Victorian romance novels that Maniscalco employs is that the home, which is supposed to be a place of safety, is actually the most dangerous place for the heroine. This bears out when Audrey discovers Nathaniel’s basement laboratory and his gruesome experiments. At the end of the novel, Audrey’s father admits that he has realized that “men—and young women—weren’t meant to be kept in gilded cages” (318), acknowledging that just as many dangers can exist at home as in the outside world and that Audrey will remain unfulfilled if she is confined to traditional Victorian gender expectations.
Subverting the Classic Enemies-to-Lovers Romance
The romance that blossoms between Audrey and Thomas conforms to the enemies-to-lovers trope of romantic fiction, but, in some ways, it subverts genre expectations. This relationship dynamic is not necessarily a feature of Gothic Victorian literature though it does feature in classic romances, such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), which takes place during the Regency era. Audrey initially finds Thomas arrogant and irritating in the same way that the heroine of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet, initially cannot stand her suitor, Mr. Darcy. Despite this, Audrey is immediately attracted to Thomas; she notes that his “golden-brown eyes were perfectly set into an angular face, as if Leonardo da Vinci had painted him himself” (11). Likewise, early in the narrative, Thomas observes to Uncle Jonathan, “your niece is quite beautiful” (30).
The growing attraction between Audrey and Thomas is evident in their flirtatious banter, such as at the Great Western Royal Hotel tearoom when Audrey remarks that Thomas looks like he hasn’t slept and asks if he has been “[d]oing subversive things at indecent hours?” (79). Such innuendo illustrates both characters’ quick-wittedness, which each finds attractive in the other. This too mirrors the courtship between Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy as they exchange verbal repartee, in which each tries to outdo the other in wit and intellect. In Pride and Prejudice, however, the dislike between the two protagonists lasts longer and is complicated by the prospect of Miss Bennet’s marriage to Mr. Darcy, whereas in Stalking Jack the Ripper, Audrey and Thomas are merely young colleagues. Audrey is under pressure from her father to marry an unknown suitor, and when she learns this, she wonders—but does not know for sure—whether the suitor is Thomas.
The main way in which the romance in Stalking Jack the Ripper departs from the classic enemies-to-lovers romance trope is that science, not marriage, brings the protagonists together. Audrey first notices Thomas’s passion for science in her uncle’s lecture. She notices that “inkblots covered much of his fingertips” and that “he was nearly manic for learning” (10). Their shared love of science and passion for solving the Jack the Ripper murders unites them as allies and colleagues, allowing their burgeoning romance to blossom further.
Whereas Miss Bennet and Mr. Darcy exemplify the gender roles of their class and have no intention of doing otherwise, Audrey and Thomas alienate themselves from polite society through their love of forensic science. For this reason, each is considered improper: Thomas lives alone in an apartment fitted with a laboratory where he operates on cadavers, and Audrey is interested in the gory and “manly” activities of conducting autopsies and examining crime scenes. Audrey reflects that “It was nice having an acquaintance as abnormal in society’s eyes as I was” (126) and values Thomas as a friend and colleague in addition to seeing him as a love interest. Thomas, like Audrey, flouts many societal conventions and this makes Audrey feel a further sense of kinship with and attraction toward him. In the end, it is implied that the pair will marry, but the more important aspect of their relationship is their mutual pursuit of education.
The Importance of Ethics in Medical Advancement
Scientific research is a recurring theme in Stalking Jack the Ripper. The 19th century was an innovative time in the world of medicine; increased access to cadavers and evolving medical knowledge led doctors to a better understanding of human anatomy. This led to more reliable diagnostics and to successful surgeries being performed.
Both Audrey and Thomas are motivated to study medicine by the premature deaths of their mothers; they believe that increased medical knowledge and expertise, especially in the realm of organ transplants, will prevent deaths like theirs from recurring. Uncle Jonathan operates on cadavers “to conduct a successful organ transplant” (294), an operation that was novel at the time. All of them, including Uncle Jonathan, are adamant that the cadavers they use come from ethical sources, which at that time meant bodies that were unclaimed by family members. They made special trips to cemeteries or had bodies delivered to their laboratories and eschewed unethical practices, such as grave robbing or killing to produce medical specimens.
Nathaniel, on the other hand, represents a criminally unethical approach to conducting medical research. His work as Jack the Ripper, which targets vulnerable young women and mutilates their bodies, and his Dr. Frankenstein-like attempt to repair and reanimate his mother’s corpse are a perversion of the scientific process. In Chapter 30, Thomas reads Nathaniel’s journals, which “contained breakthrough science” (314), but unlike legitimate research, Nathaniel’s “breakthrough” could not lead to medical advancement. Audrey notes that “my brother was so lost in his own fantastical science and sense of justice that he totally missed the mark of what is meant to be human” (295). Through Nathaniel, Maniscalco echoes the ideas in Frankenstein and suggests that unbridled scientific development can have dangerous and unforeseen consequences. Nathaniel is aware of the questionable ethics of his work but believes that he is turning “evil into good” (295). In the end, he realizes that his approach was wrong, but the damage is already done.
The novel closes with Lord Wadsworth urging his daughter to study medicine because disease is ever evolving: “[T]here’s always a chance some contagion will find a way in. I trust you to change that” (318). This is a symbolic moment, as Lord Wadsworth has viewed science as untrustworthy since his wife’s death. Now, he realizes that only with continued study can diseases be cured in the future. With her father’s blessing, Audrey will maintain the ethical approach to medical study she learned from Uncle Jonathan as she pursues her education in Romania.
