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"She Is Finally Free" : An Analysis Of Women's Pathologized Oppression And Reclamation Of The Abject In "The Yellow Wallpaper" And Midsommar, Diana Gem Schultz

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Women live and lead pathologized lives, as evidenced by past diagnoses of women’s disorders like “hysteria” and more modern issues surrounding beliefs in women’s hormones and biological inferiority. In analyzing women’s relationships with a wider male society and the role Kristevean abjection takes in patriarchal views on women’s minds and bodies, I aim to show how female characters in horror fiction – namely Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and Ari Aster’s 2019 film, Midsommar – take that abject view and reclaim it for their own power. Through this reclamation, women are able to gain control from patriarchal …