Text

theses

In light of Gothicism's burgeoning success in the field of children's literature, this study finds importance in examining where the Gothic and Romantic child intersect, but more specifically, where Gothicism and idyllic girlhood intersect in the children's texts of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, 20th Century Fox's 1997 film Anastasia, and Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Game Series. Acting as exemplars of Gothic children's literature, the three texts under study employ the female adolescent as a "toy," a concept historically traced to the Romantic tendency to elevate those of "lowly" means to tools of masculine transcendence. The female adolescent "toy" is particularly predominant in Gothic children's literature because the female child can embody all "lowly" populations (child, slave, and female) simultaneously on the premise that girls are inherently "slaves" to their male and adult-dominated culture. As a result, this essay argues that fusing romanticism's idyllic qualities, innocent and asexual childhood, with the Gothic's more perverted qualities, the uncanny and abject child, actually allow for the female to reclaim an identity of her own, not plagued by the male (or adult's) problematically idyllic definition of childhood or girlhood. Although Romantic male artistry is the source of the Gothic plight in these narratives, all heroines studied actually combat a greater threat through the Gothic's heavy reliance on the phallic mother who paradoxically acts as both the Romantic male artist, a figure who dispels female creativity, and the fear of physical motherhood which likewise ensnares girls into participating in a patriarchal hierarchy where they must perpetually remain on the lower scale as male vessel. The only solution for females in these Gothic children's texts is to escape their role as "toy" by usurping the mother doppelganger's problematic role as both the male artist and his vessel. Instead, the Gothic in children's literature helps girls redefine their identity as one reflective of a metaphorical motherhood -- a liberating type of female artistry.

ETD_6180

M.A.

Includes bibliographical references

by Ariel Marie Grandinetti

doi:10.7282/T3251KV2

ETD graduate

The author owns the copyright to this work.