The Heiress

Gothic literature arguably began with Horace Walpole’s 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto but gained popularity during the 18th and 19th centuries with novels such as Anne Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. As the genre gained popularity and prominence, a series of conventions typical of the genre were established.

Rachel Hawkins’s novels are a part of the contemporary tradition of Gothic suspense. The genre has surged in popularity in the 21st century, and authors like Hawkins both utilize and subvert the traditional Gothic genre conventions in their work. In The Heiress, Hawkins references famous traditional and modern Gothic novels alike, including Jane Eyre and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

One important feature of Gothic literature is setting. Hawkins’s use of Ashby House as a setting evokes a foreboding atmosphere, and, consistent with Gothic tradition, the house almost becomes another character in the novel. The characters attribute almost supernatural properties to it, with Jules noting, “The gray stone made the house look elemental somehow, like it had carved itself out of the rock of the mountains around it” (42). Later, she comments that the house “felt like it had its own center of gravity—like if you moved a piece of art or a throw pillow out of place, the room would right itself, put everything back where it belonged” (113). As they approach the house for the first time, Cam feels that he “let Ashby House pull [him] back in” (73); he comments later that “this house is just as twisted as the people who live in it” (197). All these descriptions indicate sentience, as if the house is playing an active part in the McTavish family.

At the end of The Heiress, Ashby House burns, marking the end of the old McTavish family. The burning of Ashby House also evokes Gothic convention, and specifically Jane Eyre, in which the estate, Thornfield Hall, is burned to the ground. In Jane Eyre, the burning of Thornfield Hall gives Jane and Mr. Rochester the freedom to leave the events that happened there behind and reshape their future in a new way. In The Heiress, the burning of Ashby House gives Jules and Cam the same opportunity—they are free from the family’s manipulations and can start fresh rebuilding the McTavish family.

Although the house is perhaps the most prominent evocation of Gothic convention in the novel, Hawkins also references Daphne du Maurier’s classic modern Gothic novel, Rebecca. Ruby’s presence in the novel beyond her death is constant and permeates the atmosphere of Ashby House, just as Rebecca’s presence permeates Manderley in Rebecca. By referencing these seminal Gothic works, Hawkins places The Heiress firmly in the context of a much longer Gothic genre tradition.

However, she offers a modern twist in the respective roles of Jules and Cam. While Gothic convention usually involves a helpless woman pursued by an evil man only to be rescued by a good man, in The Heiress, Jules takes an active and even aggressive role in protecting Cam from the other residents of Ashby House. Her agency and hero status transcend traditional Gothic convention, hewing more closely to the conventions of contemporary Gothic fiction, in which female heroes are responsible for their own rescue and success.