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Human Monsters: Examining The Relationship Between The Posthuman Gothic And Gender In American Gothic Fiction, Alexandra Rivera
Human Monsters: Examining The Relationship Between The Posthuman Gothic And Gender In American Gothic Fiction, Alexandra Rivera
Scripps Senior Theses
According to Michael Sean Bolton, the posthuman Gothic involves a fear of internal monsters that won't destroy humanity apocalyptically, but will instead redefine what it means to be human overall. These internal monsters reflect societal anxieties about the "other" gaining power and overtaking the current groups in power. The posthuman Gothic shows psychological horrors and transformations. Traditionally this genre has been used to theorize postmodern media and literary work by focusing on cyborgs and transhumanist medical advancements. However, the internal and psychological nature of posthumanism is fascinating and can more clearly manifest in a different Gothic setting, 1800s American Gothic …
Mothers, Sons, And The Gothic Family In Brown, Poe, And Wharton, Elizabeth Lain Lyon
Mothers, Sons, And The Gothic Family In Brown, Poe, And Wharton, Elizabeth Lain Lyon
Scripps Senior Theses
Within Gothic literature, the mother is frequently missing. In Charles Brockden Brown’s Edgar Huntly, Edgar Allan Poe’s “Morella,” “Ligeia,” and “Eleonora,” and Edith Wharton’s “Bewitched,” men are left without parents, and they attempt to recuperate a mother-figure. To do so, the men in these texts psychologically project the role of their mother onto other women. Wives, sisters, and daughters all have the potential to become mothers to these men. This is a catastrophe for the women involved, for male perception fails to distinguish females as autonomous, unique beings. By conflating roles in the family structure, men destroy women and …