Jamaica Inn

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussions of ableism.

The perceived link between aesthetics and morality was popularized in 19th-century Europe. Notions of morality held that a person’s appearance belies their moral character, so an “ugly” person, or someone with a physical disability, would have been deemed morally suspect or even morally “inferior” to a “normal” person. Such people would be treated as “freaks” and would often be ostracized or relegated to the edges of society. In Jamaica Inn, Mary echoes these ideas, even if she does not fully endorse them: “In the an­i­mal king­dom a freak was a thing of ab­hor­rence, at once hunt­ed and de­stroyed, or driv­en out into the wil­der­ness” (139). Many works of gothic literature play with this trope. Quasimodo, the titular Hunchback of Notre Dame in Victor Hugo’s 1831 novel, for example, was affected in his physical development and is treated as “grotesque” and a “monster”—but he has a kind and noble heart (Hugo, Victor. The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Wordsworth, 1993). The monster in Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein (1818) is judged by his appearance and forced into becoming an actual monster by neglect and abuse (Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus. Oxford University Press, 2008). While it is important to note that appearance and morality have no relation in real life, non-conventional appearances are often aligned with villainy in literature, and Jamaica Inn is no exception. Many characters, such as Joss, whose appearance is largely ruined by his amoral lifestyle, have an outward appearance that matches their inner ugliness. “Freakdom” in Jamaica Inn is most closely associated with Francis Davey who has albinism. While at first he seems to subvert the trope of a person with marginalized physical characteristics exhibiting immorality, this proves to be a deflection to lull Mary (and the reader) into a false sense of security.

Francis Davey is well aware of the way that others perceive him, drawing attention to this fact as he prepares to flee with Mary: “Yes, I am a freak in nature and a freak in time. I do not be­long here, and I was born with a grudge against the age, and a grudge against man­kind’” (224-25). The vicar longs for what he calls the silence of the “pagan” era; he rejects modernity and feels he was born in the wrong time period. Du Maurier hence links his sense of alienation to his physical condition. While this may have otherwise made him an outsider, he became an important figure in his community thanks to his religious position. This also made him seem trustworthy to Mary, though there are several times when she finds the vicar’s albinism off-putting. For example, she feels “a sen­sa­tion of un­eas­i­ness that she con­nect­ed in­stinc­tive­ly with his freak hair and eyes, as though his phys­i­cal de­par­ture from nor­mal­i­ty was a bar­ri­er be­tween him and the rest of the world” (139). Due to the fact that these words are spoken by the protagonist, Jamaica Inn exhibits discriminatory tropes.

Francis Davey’s albinism serves as a distraction to play with readers’ expectations and build suspense. Because du Maurier uses discriminatory tropes to make him appear mysterious and even sinister, he at first seems an obvious candidate for the novel’s real antagonist. However, his position of religious authority, the confidence Mary puts in him, and the suspicion she feels toward Jem protects the vicar throughout the novel. When he reveals his villainy, his whiteness aligns him with “the small white eye” of the beacon Francis Davey’s wreckers use to lure sailors to their demise (154). The novel hence ultimately aligns “freakdom” with villainy like many of its literary predecessors.