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/
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Solomon, Amanda Bingham, "Haunting the Imagination: The Haunted House as a Figure of Dark Space in American Culture" (2012). Theses and Dissertations. 3531.
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/3531
Date Submitted
2012-11-21
Document Type
Thesis
Handle
http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd5693
Keywords
haunted house, dark space, uncanny
Language
English