'"The curse--the curse " I looked up in terror. In the great mirror opposite I
saw myself, and right behind, another wicked, fearful self'
An encounter with the supernatural in an everyday setting accentuates its
strangeness; a truth used to eerie effect in Gaskell's Gothic tales. A portrait
turned to the wall, a hidden manuscript, a mysterious child that lives on the
freezing moors, a doppelganger formed by a woman's bitter curse: all of these
things hint at male tyranny and woman as avenging angel--or devil.
Gaskell was fascinated by the dualities in women's lives and the way in which
fact and fiction merge. 'Disappearances',