ABSTRACT
Materiality can be understood as this absolute otherness of the other that appears at the limit of thought: the inhuman, machinic and inorganic life of blood. Bodies and blood might be already culturally codified, but gothic and horror offer moments where aesthetics and representation are resisted by those openings where blood appears as a nameless and unknowable force, disrupting and inhibiting attempts to close off meaning. Paul de Man uses the word “materiality” on three different occasions to talk about something that is unknowable, that we are not able to make sense of or perceive. Relevant to the materiality of history, but more helpful to discussion however, are de Man’s two other instances where materiality presents itself. By looking at blood inscriptions in Matthew Lewis’ The Monk and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, writing is seen as an automatic and machinic process controlled by inhuman forces.
