Abstract

In contemporary America the haunted house appears regularly as a figure in literature, film, and tourism. The increasing popularity of the haunted house is in direct correlation with the disintegration of the home as a refuge from the harsh elements of the world. The mass media populates society with dark images and subjects, portraying America as a dark place to live. Americans create fictional narratives of terror and violence as a means of coping with their own modern horrors. Their horrors are psychologically displaced within these narratives. The haunted house is therefore a manifestation of contemporary anxieties surrounding the dissolution of the home, a symbol of the infusion of terror and violence into domestic space.

Degree

MA

College and Department

Humanities; Humanities, Classics, and Comparative Literature

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2012-11-21

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd5693

Keywords

haunted house, dark space, uncanny

Language

English

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