Abstract

This thesis explores the relationship between the desire for the "good life" and the Gothic. The haunted house is a feature familiar to the Gothic because of its reversal of the comfort a home usually brings. The haunted houses in the Gothic provide a physical space that exemplifies the psychological and emotional disorientation that results from seeking unattainable ideals of domestic happiness and fulfillment. This thesis analyzes the haunted houses of three first-person-narrated gothic novels: Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (1898), Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca (1938), and Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger (2009), arguing that each novel portrays the ruinous consequences of the narrator's desires within the gothic home. Sarah Ahmed's Queer Phenomenology (2006) and Lauren Berlant's Cruel Optimism (2011) provide a theoretical grounding for exploring how the haunted house as a physical space can illuminate the disorientation of desire. I argue that in each novel, the desire the outsider-narrator feels for the home, the good life, is destructive, and while the destruction varies for each story, the outsider remains hopeful amidst the chaos. The inescapable past and the hope of the future collide in all three novels, and with this collision comes a sense of disorientation, of terror even, for both the first-person narrator and the reader alike.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2023

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Jones, Anna

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

English

Degree Program

English; Literary, Cultural & Textual Studies

Identifier

CFE0009760; DP0027868

URL

https://purls.library.ucf.edu/go/DP0027868

Language

English

Release Date

August 2026

Length of Campus-only Access

3 years

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Campus-only Access)

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