The Dollhouse and Mobility of the Southern Gothic Legacy in Sharp Objects
Authors
Klusáková, VeronikaIdentifiers
Permanent link (URI): http://hdl.handle.net/10017/59887DOI: 10.37536/reden.2023.5.2277
ISSN: 2695-4168
Date
2023Bibliographic citation
REDEN: revista de estudios norteamericanos, v.5, n.1 (2023), pp. 147-162 . ISSN 2695-4168
Keywords
Southern Gothic
American Gothic
Haunted house
Gender studies
TV series
Adaptations
Plantation Gothic
Document type
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
Version
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional
Access rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Abstract
The text explores several issues connected to the relationship between the gothic house and its miniature
double, a dollhouse, on the example of a Southern Gothic TV series Sharp Objects, an HBO production from
2018. It addresses their similar position as gendered spaces (the house being a profoundly feminine business,
the dollhouse a field for girls to practice femininity), their gothicization (both host traumas and secrets
of the past), and the work they perform in the perpetuation of their Gothic legacy. The foregrounding
of mobility and agency in the treatment of the gothic dollhouse helps to question and reread one of the
basic building blocks of Southern Gothic fiction: its reliance on the sense of place. In this view, the dollhouse
operates as an interface between the world outside and inside and thus dissolves the boundaries set
by the master house. It is not just its mirror image, propelling a mise-en-abîme project of perpetual proliferation,
but, when properly noticed, provides a tool for the healing of past wounds and traumas via their
contemporary embodiments, and sets new directions for the social relevance of Southern Gothic fiction.
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