This essay attempts to reevaluate Shirley Jackson’s Gothic fiction in which the setting plays a crucial role in creating horror. Women characters in her short stories are entrapped in their houses as in the cases of “The Good Wife,” “The Story We Used to Tell,” “A Visit,” and “The Honeymoon of Mrs. Smith”; or, those who are fortunate enough to escape fail in finding their own home as in the cases of “The Beautiful Stranger,” “Louisa, Please Come Home,” “A Day in the Jungle,” and “Bus.” This essay contends that these stories reflect the fear and anxiety of women living in postwar America, the Age of the Feminine Mystique, when the image of Rosie the riveter gave way to that of a housewife who is content with her domestic life. This essay also investigates The Road through the Wall, one of the earliest Suburban Gothic texts, to discuss Jackson’s criticism of the walled-off life of the suburbanites and her diagnosis of their fears and anxieties.
목차
I. 들어가며 II. 집, 덫 III. 집, 다시는 찾을 수 없는 그 곳 IV. 교외지역에 갇히다. 『벽을 통한 길』 V. 나가며 인용문헌 Abstract
키워드
househorrorpostwar AmericaThe Feminine MystiqueSuburban GothicThe Road through the Wall