Fiction--Criticism and interpretation

This thesis argues that the numerous widespread fears about deviant domestic behavior that rose to prominence in Western nations during the post-World War II era can still be observed in contemporary fictional representations of what I term the “monstrous domestic”: when mothers and the domestic spaces that they occupy are depicted as “bad,” “evil,” or otherwise threatening. Using psychoanalytic, feminist, and monster theory, as well as sociocultural context, I examine four works that prominently display and condemn the monstrous domestic: Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House (1959), Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (2002), Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014), and Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects (2007). Ultimately, I contend that the continued presence of wicked mothers who utilize their domestic power to control and harm their children within fiction indicates that, despite social progress, an unconscious cultural uneasiness about (un)acceptable maternity and domesticity still remains.

The aim of this thesis is to examine the trailblazing work of C.L. Moore’s Jirel of Joiry in light of themes of queerness, gender, and female masculinity, which has seldom been analyzed. In this thesis, I will juxtapose Moore’s work with other contemporaries like Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Éowyn to highlight Moore’s trailblazing gendered portrayal. This thesis utilizes Judith Butler’s Undoing Gender and Jack Halberstam’s Female Masculinity as lenses to codify the uniquely gendered portrayal that Moore has left for us to interpret. Furthermore, through examining Jacques Lacan’s interpretation of phallocentricity, this thesis will argue that the art of being a warrior (or warriorship) should be a non-binary conception.