The Undergrounds of the Phantom of the Opera: Sublimation and the Gothic in Leroux's Novel and its Progeny

by Jerrold E. Hogle

This is the most comprehensive analytical study ever done of The Phantom of the Opera in its many different versions from the original Gaston Leroux novel to the present day. It proposes answers to the question, 'why do we keep needing this story told and retold in the Western world?' by revealing the history of deep cultural tensions that underlie the novel and each major adaptation. Using extensive historical and textual evidence and drawing on perspectives from several theories of cultural study, this book argues that we need this tale told and reconfigured because it provides us ways to both confront and disguise how we have fashioned our senses of identity in the Western middle class. The Phantom of the Opera - in varying ways over time - turns out like the 'Gothic' tradition it extends, to be deeply connected to Western self-fashioning in the face of conflicted attitudes about class, gender, race, religious beliefs, Freudian psychology, economic and international tensions, and especially the shifting and permeable boundaries between 'high' and 'low' culture. This book should interest all students of the history of Western culture, as well as those especially fascinated by Gothic fiction, opera, musical theatre, and film.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gothic

277 pages, Paperback

First published May 3, 2002

Reviews

[James]

Just as a fun tidbit: here is an incomplete list of things Hogle argues are phallic in this: scorpions, grasshoppers, skeletons, noses, singing lessons, machine guns, and Erik but only when he's not being nonphallic.

The first part of this was A Slog, and that's coming from someone who reads theory for fun, but I don't know if I've ever read something quite this dense. The first part took me over a week to read while I read the second part in just a day.

I disagree with nearly all of Hogle's conclusions in his analysis of the novel. I find that he cherry picks his textual sources and ignores further passages that complicate and contradict the point he's trying to make.
For example: he argues that the scorpion and grasshopper bronzes are phallic, the bag of life and death is scrotal, and thus the whole scene with Christine using the keys to 'turn' either of the figures is sexual. BUT, the figures turn on a pivot, there's no mention of using a key to turn them and the key in the bag of life and death is explicitly said to be the key to the torture chamber thus re-framing Hogle's claim of representing sex between Erik and Christine to sex between Raoul and the Persian in the chamber and Erik or Christine using the key.

If the Louis-Philippe furniture in Christine's room is supposed to indicate quasi-incestuousness, what is the significance of the Persian also noticing and using Erik's mother's furniture at the end?

While he recognizes the complexity of gender Erik embodies, he, like pretty much all cis authors, fails to take any step beyond and attempt to analysis Erik as anything but a cis man.

He very clearly does not know enough about 19th century French political history (the Commune in particular) to be using it as an analytical point.

Ultimately I find most of his analysis timid and he recreates Leroux's own relationship to The Phantom: we can understand him as The Other, we can pity him, but we should not understand him, or recognize the way in which we, as insiders of society, have created him, and will continue to destroy those outside, and create others like him

[Merijn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very tough read, but extremey interesting academic views on The Phantom of the Opera. It is very useful if you want to find out more about the cultural and historical place of the original novel and all the adaptations it spawned.
Tip: maybe read chapters 5-8 before you read 1-4, which are rather heavier material.

[Katie]

I want this book so bad.