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links		 Christabel and Gender Politics
by Natalie Baird

In the poem “Christabel”, Samuel Coleridge chose to rebel against convention in the Romantic custom. In challenging the stereotypical male – female tradition of relationships and using a transcendence of characters he pushed the boundaries of gender politics.

Coleridge comments on the assumption that all relationships are male to female through a  web of desire. The spider in this web could be seen as Geraldine, a lost woman with a supernatural shadow. The lofty lady seduces Christabel in the innocent maiden’s chamber room then the very next morning charms Christabel’s father, Sir Leoline – who is still sick with desire over his long lost friend Lord Roland, Geraldine’s father. There is clearly a lot of latent homo-erotic tension in the castle grounds, with Christabel yearning for a mother figure after knowing her mother died during her own birth and Leoline’s lust for Geraldine after finding out she is the daughter of Roland. Perhaps he has not been mourning all these years for his dead wife but mourning the death of a very close friendship.

Geraldine’s motivation for triggering this sudden burst of intimacy in Sir Leoline’s household is unclear, but perhaps it has something to do with a desire to take Christabel’s mother’s place in the castle by stealing Christabel’s charm and cruelly reminding Leoline of his lost love in her own father Roland. Geraldine then takes Christabel out of contention for Leoline’s affection by corrupting her innocence and making her father think she has become evil, therefore taking Christabel’s place as the daughter. Coleridge also surprises the reader by allowing evil to apparently prevail over good.

Both the characters of Christabel and Geraldine transcend beyond their original image. Christabel’s presence in the beginning of the poem is sweet and pure: she passes quietly through the woods and sighs “soft and low”. Geraldine’s presence is somewhat more creepy and haunting, popping up behind the oak tree out of seemingly thin air, and fainting at iron, light and biblical references in the traditional vampire way. After the fateful hour in Christabel’s room, the two women seem to swap personalities – Christabel takes on serpent characteristics like a woman possessed and Geraldine becomes blessed with Christabel’s fair countenance.

The evil Geraldine appears to have engineered this change of personalities – the vampire and supernatural references give weight to this claim. Christabel seems to be the innocent pawn in the poem, she becomes aware of the spell Geraldine has worked on her and begs her father to send her away from the castle however she is unable to finish her sentence because of her altered state.

In “Christabel”, Geraldine certainly appears to disrupt normality in Sir Leoline’s castle, exposing references to incest and homo-erotic desires. Coleridge may have been commenting that underneath the purest of facades lay the most sinister and unconventional tangle of intrigue.