The role of landscape and place in Scottish supernatural fiction — part one
Margaret Oliphant’s ‘The Land of Darkness’ depicts the harsh and unforgiving landscape of hell, a ‘hopeless world’ characterised by violence, selfishness and cruelty (Manlove, 6). This seemingly allegorical hell is a reflection of what Oliphant perceives to be hell on Earth and is her attempt at depicting the ‘hellish’ aspects of ‘earthly life’, such as the weakening of religion and morality, and the increasing faith in science and industrialism (Manlove, 121, 126).
The role of place in Oliphant’s text, then, is to highlight the failings of Victorian society in the hope of encouraging her audience to turn their attentions back to God and faith, and she does this by showing us how cruel and evil a world without God would be.
The fear of weakening Christianity is evident almost immediately in ‘The Land of Darkness’ through Oliphant’s descriptions of light. We often associate light with religious or spiritual enlightenment, therefore darkness symbolises the rejection of Christian faith. The place of hell in the novel seems to be constantly on the brink of a violent thunderstorm, with the sky appearing as a lowered ‘canopy of cloud, dark, threatening’ which casts a ‘lurid light’ upon the place (313). This establishes a sense of suffocation and gloom, and since the relief of the storm never comes, the land is stuck in a limbo of unrelenting darkness, suggesting it will never be touched by the light of God.
The theme of a world lacking religion is kept constant throughout the novel, as we see the narrator choke on the word ‘Christianity’ and shudder at the word ‘God’, portraying how in this place which is both hell and earth, Christianity is regarded as abhorrent (321–322). Oliphant conveys the idea that by turning our backs on God as everyone has done in ‘The Land of Darkness’, our world will become one of cruelty, as this is how the Land is portrayed to us. The narrator ultimately refuses ‘God’s love’ because he does not want the ‘wrenching change of the soul out of all recognition’ that comes with seeking atonement (Manlove, 126–127).
Despite his pessimistic ending, Oliphant offers her readers a solution as she assures us that ‘there is a world where every way leads to One who loves us still’, you just have to be strong enough to remain on that path to redemption (351). This indicates that the role of hell in her short novel is to prove that God will forgive if only you let him back into your life.
Another hellish aspect of ‘modern society’ which Oliphant resembles through the place of hell is the dangers of modern science. The world the narrator enters is an urban one, with electric light illuminating shops and making the streets look ‘sickly’ (314). This suggests that Oliphant regards electricity, a modern finding at the time the novel was written, as something which will infect society. The novel also has a recurring theme of torture for the purpose of scientific experiment. The narrator witnesses a live man’s nervous system being abused and he is tortured himself, as a ‘pitiless light went into me like a knife’, which ‘blazed upon my brain till the hair seemed to singe and the skin shrink’ (342).
This horrific abuse, which literally exposes the narrator’s brain to onlookers for the sake of ‘investigating the origin of thought’ (342), portrays the inhumanity of modern science. It is depicted as a field which cares only about the end goal and not the manner in which these ends are achieved, even if the means are cruel and harmful. Oliphant uses the place of hell, which is a reflection of our own world, to show how modern science serves to exploit innocent members of society. This is perhaps because, as Manlove discusses, Oliphant feared that science would distance people from their faith, and so she demonises science in the hope of encouraging people to turn away from it and re-embrace their faith (121).
The last hellish aspect of ‘earthly life’ that we will explore is the treatment of consumerism and industrialism, which can be taken to be synonymous in ‘The Land of Darkness’. This synonymy is best exemplified by the narrator’s visit to the gold mines. One of the miners describes the experience vividly, saying that ‘your blood boils in your veins… you are never allowed to rest. You are put in every kind of contortion to get at it, your limbs twisted’ (330). This denotes the pains and horrors of mining, yet the miners continue both because they are forced to by the bandits and because they are lured in by the ‘glow of the gold’ (333).
The element of being forced to do the work is perhaps Oliphant’s representation of the ‘industrial wasteland’ that Britain was becoming in the nineteenth century, as the Land of Darkness is a mirror reflection of our own world and is depicted as a place where people have to suffer through horrendous labours to reach a materialistic goal (Manlove, 126). This image of the miner also represents how modern consumerism will destroy us, as the gold burns whoever touches it, but the miners continue because they want to secrete some ‘morsels’ for themselves (333). Oliphant uses place to show her audience how the consumerist nature of modern society will slowly ruin us, on a physical and spiritual level.
