Matching Items (2)
Filtering by

Clear all filters

148271-Thumbnail Image.png
Description

This paper explores the intersection of female madness and Gothic space in four pieces of Gothic media: Jane Eyre written By Charlotte Brontë, "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Carrie (1976) directed by Brian De Palma, and Midsommar (2016) directed by Ari Aster. In these texts, female characters

This paper explores the intersection of female madness and Gothic space in four pieces of Gothic media: Jane Eyre written By Charlotte Brontë, "The Yellow Wallpaper" written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Carrie (1976) directed by Brian De Palma, and Midsommar (2016) directed by Ari Aster. In these texts, female characters find themselves driven “mad,” either by their own design or from outside influences. While the madness presents itself differently in each text, they all share common elements, especially in terms of Gothic space. Each text sees its madwoman affected by the environment around them whether it is explicitly stated in-text or not. Gothic space acts as both a metanarrative on the characters’ lives and emotions, and as literal, physical spaces that the characters inhabit and interact with. Oftentimes, what the character cannot express is told through the environment around her. Feelings of suffocation, misery, entrapment, and repression are represented in and through haunted homes, quasi-asylums, closets, schools, attics, and sun-lit fields. In analyzing all four texts individually and in relation to one another, this paper also argues for the presence of a paradox inherent in the cultural formation of female madness. In each text, all written/created across 200+ years, a common theme emerges. Though the expression of madness for the women in each text is a freeing and liberating experience, they also meet tragic and often violent ends. The madness exhibited in each text is both a response to and an expression of trauma - resulting in either victimization or villainization for the women who succumb to it. The end result depicts women who have been physically, mentally, and emotionally destroyed from their own madness. In freeing themselves, they unknowingly and unintentionally subject themselves to further pain and misery.

ContributorsBoyle, Molly Anne (Author) / Justice, George (Thesis director) / Sandler, Kevin (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
168623-Thumbnail Image.png
Description
Online communities have created such an outpouring of new media that academia has not had the time to catch up. Creepypasta is a genre of online horror short story that began in the early 2000’s on the forums 4chan and Something Awful. In the twenty-two years since its inception, the

Online communities have created such an outpouring of new media that academia has not had the time to catch up. Creepypasta is a genre of online horror short story that began in the early 2000’s on the forums 4chan and Something Awful. In the twenty-two years since its inception, the academic discourse around it has sprouted but not flourished. Creepypasta as a genre is perhaps one of the newest and least understood offshoots of horror and the gothic. Thus far there have been no full-bodied attempts at defining the genre or looking at the works as a whole, instead there is only focus on the parts. This thesis will be attempting to define the genre and will undertake this by first analyzing the components that define the genre, its origins, claims to authenticity, and publishing routes, as well as the folkloric connections which have been the focus of the majority of the literature thus far. This will move into an analysis of a single example of the form, Accounts from a Lonely Broadcast Station, to demonstrate the application of the definition of the genre, but also to show the wide breadth of potential of this genre in being analyzed academically.
ContributorsRamirez, Makayla (Author) / Justice, George (Thesis advisor) / Zarka, Emily (Committee member) / Baldini, Cajsa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2022