Postmodern Literary Labyrinths: Spaces of Horror Reimagined

COX, Katharine (2018). Postmodern Literary Labyrinths: Spaces of Horror Reimagined. In: CORSTORPHINE, Kevin and KREMMEL, Laura, (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook to Horror Literature. Palgrave, 339-352.

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Official URL: https://www.palgrave.com/br/book/9783319974057

Abstract

Cox examines horror in Angela Carter’s The Passion of New Eve (1977) and Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves (2000) as the confrontation with labyrinthine architecture that represents bodily and psychological reflections of self as monstrous, disorientating, and feminine. The reimagined space (re)absorbs and so threatens the protagonists with existential nothingness. Drawing on the abject body, there is an inevitable confrontation with an active maternal origin. Horror is elicited, not by the expected confrontation with the monster, but by encounter with the anthropomorphic labyrinth’s ability to entrap, nullify, and transform. Surprisingly, the experience of these labyrinths, as a reimagined space of horror, typically results in positive transformation. The labyrinth is both the locus of horror and a means to understand and move on from trauma.

Item Type: Book Section
Page Range: 339-352
SWORD Depositor: Symplectic Elements
Depositing User: Symplectic Elements
Date Deposited: 25 Jan 2019 12:14
Last Modified: 17 Mar 2021 19:31
URI: https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/23135

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