Alienation, Madness, and the Uncanny in Shirley Jackson’S Female Gothic

Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences Department of American Culture and Literature HAUNTED AND HAUNTING HEROINES WITHIN GOTHIC SETTINGS: ALIENATION, MADNESS, AND THE UNCANNY IN SHIRLEY JACKSON’S FEMALE GOTHIC Gizem AKÇİL Ph.D. Dissertation Ankara, 2019 HAUNTED AND HAUNTING HEROINES WITHIN GOTHIC SETTINGS: ALIENATION, MADNESS, AND THE UNCANNY IN SHIRLEY JACKSON’S FEMALE GOTHIC Gizem AKÇİL Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences Department of American Culture and Literature Ph.D. Dissertation Ankara, 2019 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor Prof. Dr. Tanfer Emin TUNÇ for her invaluable encouragement, support, and guidance. I know that she will always be an inspiration for me. I would like to thank Prof. Dr. Özlem UZUNDEMİR, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bilge MUTLUAY ÇETİNTAŞ, Dr. Berkem GÜRENCİ SAĞLAM, Dr. Özge ÖZBEK AKIMAN for their advice and comments on my dissertation, and the academic staff of Hacettepe University’s Department of American Culture and Literature. Finally, I would like to express my indebtedness to my family for their love and support, and priceless presence in my life. v ABSTRACT AKÇİL, Gizem. Haunted and Haunting Heroines within Gothic Settings: Alienation, Madness, and the Uncanny in Shirley Jackson’s Female Gothic, Ph.D. Dissertation, Ankara, 2019. Known for her short story collection The Lottery and Other Stories (1948), the American author Shirley Jackson (1916–1965) has been an inspiration for subsequent Gothic- fantastic and horror fiction writers. This dissertation analyzes Shirley Jackson’s novels— Hangsaman (1951), The Bird’s Nest (1954), The Sundial (1958), The Haunting of Hill House (1959), and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962)— in light of the genre of the “Female Gothic,” a term coined by Ellen Moers in Literary Women (1976) to refer to literary works written by women in the Gothic mode since the eighteenth century. Incorporating fear and horror into the stories of alienated female characters in uncanny Gothic settings, “Female Gothic” has articulated women’s struggles to move outside the constrictive domestic sphere and beyond traditional, normative gender roles. Shirley Jackson’s fiction blurs the boundaries between the self and Gothic space, and between the real and the fantastic, thereby shedding light on how the corruption of human society, bigotry, moral degradation, the patriarchal order, and the remnants of the nineteenth century cult of true womanhood in the mid-twentieth century America trigger the female protagonists’ identity fragmentation, madness (mental turmoil/distress), and departure from “reality.” The Gothic-fantastic elements in Shirley Jackson’s novels, the uncanny motifs of Gothic doubles, fragmented/split identities, and Gothic mansions reflect personal traumas, and can either bring about self-infliction/destruction, or enable the resistance and subversion of social limitations and undesirable outside realities. Thus, Jackson’s haunted, Gothic sanctuaries have a paradoxical quality as they appear both as symbols of domestic confinement and imprisonment, and as a sort of fantastic refuge in which female characters, as haunted and haunting heroines, can disrupt patriarchy from within and establish a new order based on sisterhood. Key Words: Gothic, Female Gothic, Shirley Jackson, Uncanny, Split Identity, Alienation, Madness, Gothic Setting, Haunted House vi ÖZET AKÇİL, Gizem. Gotik Mekânlardaki Kadın Kahramanlar: Shirley Jackson’ın Kadın Gotiğinde Yabancılaşma, Delilik ve Tekinsizlik Kavramları, Doktora Tezi, Ankara, 2019. The Lottery and Other Stories (Piyango) (1948) adlı kısa öykü derlemesiyle tanınan Amerikalı yazar Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) Gotik-fantastik ve korku türünde eserler üreten sonraki yazarlar için ilham kaynağı olmuştur. Bu çalışma Shirley Jackson’ın Hangsaman (1951), The Bird’s Nest (1954), The Sundial (1958), The Haunting of Hill House (Tepedeki Ev) (1959) ve We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Biz Hep Şatoda Yaşadık) (1962) adlı romanlarını “Kadın Gotiği” edebi türü kapsamında inceleyecektir. Ellen Moers’ın Literary Women (1976) başlıklı çalışmasında geçen “Kadın Gotiği” terimi on sekizinci yüzyıldan beri kadın yazarlar tarafından kaleme alınan Gotik eserleri kapsamaktadır. Korku ögeleri ve tekinsiz Gotik mekanlardaki yabancılaşmış kadın karakterlerin hikâyeleri aracılığıyla, “Kadın Gotiği” edebi türü kadınların kısıtlayıcı toplumsal cinsiyet rollerine karşı verdikleri mücadeleyi dile getirmiştir. Shirley Jackson’ın eserleri benlik ve Gotik mekân, gerçek ve hayali olan arasındaki ayrımı belirsizleştirerek kadın karakterlerin benlik bölünmesine, deliliğe (zihinsel karmaşaya) ve gerçeklikten uzaklaşmaya neden olan toplumsal yozlaşmayı, bağnazlığı, ahlaki çöküşü, yirminci yüzyıl Amerikan toplumundaki ataerkil düzeni ve “gerçek kadınlık” kültünü eleştirir. Shirley Jackson’ın romanlarındaki Gotik-fantastik unsurlar, “tekinsiz” ögeler, Gotik çift, bölünmüş benlik, Gotik malikane ve perili ev motifleri, kişisel travmaları yansıtmaktadır ve bireyin kendine zarar vermesine neden olabildiği gibi aynı zamanda toplumsal kısıtlamaların ve olumsuz dış gerçekliklerin ötesine geçmeye de olanak sağlar. Bu nedenle, romanlardaki perili, Gotik yapılar hem domestik semboller olarak hem de kadın kahramanların ataerkil düzeni bozup kız kardeşliğe dayanan yeni bir düzen kurdukları fantastik sığınaklar olarak temsil edildiğinden çelişkili bir özellik taşımaktadır. Anahtar Sözcükler: Gotik, “Kadın Gotiği,” Shirley Jackson, Tekinsizlik, Bölünmüş Benlik, Yabancılaşma, Delilik, Gotik Mekân, Perili Ev vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACCEPTANCE AND APPROVAL…………………………………………………....i YAYIMLAMA VE FİKRİ MÜLKİYET HAKLARI BEYANI……………………..ii ETİK BEYAN………………………………………………………………………….iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS…………………………………………………………...iv ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………….....................v TURKISH ABSTRACT.................……………………………………………………vi TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………..........vii INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………...1 CHAPTER 1: THE CONFRONTATION WITH UNCANNY SELVES AND INITIATION THROUGH MADNESS: SHIRLEY JACKSON’S HANGSAMAN (1951) AND THE BIRD’S NEST (1954)………………………………………………28 1.1. SHIRLEY JACKSON’S HANGSAMAN……......................................................28 1.2. SHIRLEY JACKSON’S THE BIRD’S NEST……………..…………………….62 1.3. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………87 CHAPTER 2: THE ENCOUNTER WITH THE UNCANNY LEADS TO ISOLATION WITHIN THE GOTHIC MANSION: SHIRLEY JACKSON’S THE SUNDIAL (1958)………………………………………………………………………88 CHAPTER 3: THE END OF THE JOURNEY: SHIRLEY JACKSON’S THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE (1959) AND WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE (1962)……………………………………………………………………….124 3.1. SHIRLEY JACKSON’S THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE……..…………124 3.2. SHIRLEY JACKSON’S WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE….......153 3.3. CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………..178 CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………180 WORKS CITED……..………………………………………………………………193 APPENDIX 1: ORIGINALITY REPORT …………………………………………201 APPENDIX 2: ETHICS BOARD WAIVER FORM……………………………….203 1 INTRODUCTION This dissertation studies five novels by the American author Shirley Jackson (1916– 1965), Hangsaman (1951), The Bird’s Nest (1954), The Sundial (1958), The Haunting of Hill House (1959), and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), in light of the Female Gothic tradition, which is comprised of literary works classified as “Gothic” and written by female authors since the eighteenth century. In order to analyze Shirley Jackson’s novels, it is necessary to examine the characteristics and history of the variable and flexible Gothic genre and its sub-branch, the Female Gothic. In Gothic narratives, elements of fear, horror, gloom, death, decadence, mystery, suspense, fantasy, the supernatural and the unknown predominate, and settings include haunted landscapes like dark castles, decaying/dilapidated buildings, ruins, old mansions and houses, mysterious chambers, underground passages, and graveyards. In modern Gothic, the setting can be anywhere, such as a city or a town, that produces a feeling of anxiety in readers. THE GOTHIC The term “Gothic” was first coined during the Renaissance “to describe [pejoratively] a type of anti-classical architecture associated with barbarism, obscurity and excess” (Davison 25). Carol Margaret Davison explains that the Gothic “had wide cultural currency in Britain in the eighteenth century, where it conjured up images of medievalism” (25). The term is etymologically related to the name of the Germanic tribes, “the Goths,” “who invaded and ultimately overthrew the Roman Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries” (Davison 25). Davison regards the emergence of the Gothic novel as “anachronistic” and “paradoxical”: “anachronistic because it emerged during the Enlightenment when novels generally focused their lens on contemporary reality, and paradoxical because […] it registers a collision between the past and the present” (Davison 25). Thus, the Gothic, as a genre related to the Romantic Movement, provides a counterpoint to the Enlightenment ideals of reason, harmony, balance, order, unity and simplicity by focusing on the irrational, bizarre, chaotic and dark side of human existence. In other words, Gothic itself is the Other, the uncanny double of the Enlightenment. In Gothic narratives which make use of medieval folklore, legends, and myths, “imagination and emotional effects exceed reason. Passion, excitement, sensation transgress social proprieties and moral laws. Ambivalence and uncertainty obscure single meaning”

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