Date of Award
2017
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Humanities
First Advisor
Wallace, Miriam
Area of Concentration
Literature
Abstract
My thesis focuses on the disruption of family ties and the corruption of life cycles in six works of modern Gothic literature. My thesis is divided into three chapters which operate in a loose thematic framework of “child,” “father,” and “mother.” My first chapter concentrates on the relationship between authority figures and children in The Turn of the Screw and The Shining. The second chapter discusses the connection between fathers and sons in Pedro Paramo and One Hundred Years of Solitude. My third chapter uses Coraline and Rosemary’s Baby to talk about dual mother figures and their relationship to the bodies of the protagonists. In my thesis, I argue that Freud’s concept of “the uncanny” is unearthed through an exploration of parent-child dynamics and the haunting presence of family history. Throughout these novels, the uncanny takes its clearest form through doubling: the replication of characteristics, the present in parallel to the past, and the dichotomy of parental figures as good and evil.
Recommended Citation
Lovett-Graff, Shoshana, "THE REBIRTH OF THE UNCANNY: LIFE CYCLES IN MODERN INTERPRETATIONS OF THE GOTHIC" (2017). Theses & ETDs. 5378.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/5378