Date of Award
2022
Document Type
Thesis
Publication Status
Version of Record
Submission Date
October 2026
Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]
Miller, Timothy
Abstract
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.
Extent
70 p.
Recommended Citation
Dvorak, Alicia, "SOCIAL GHOSTS OF THE DOMESTIC SPHERE: THE HAUNTING PRESENCE OF THE MONSTROUS MOTHER IN CONTEMPORARY FICTION" (2022). Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present. 1034.
https://digitalcommons.fau.edu/etd_general/1034
Identifier
FA00013892
Comments
Includes bibliography.|Thesis (MA)--Florida Atlantic University, 2022.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.