The Dollhouse and Mobility of the Southern Gothic Legacy in Sharp Objects
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37536/reden.2023.5.2277Keywords:
Sharp Objects, dollhouse, haunted houses, Southern Gothic TV, toxicity, Gillian Flynn, mise-en-scene, traumaAbstract
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.
References
Arsenault, Raymond. 1984. „The End of the Long Hot Summer: The Air Conditioner and
Southern Comfort “. Journal of Southern History 50: 597–628.
Berman, Judy. 2018. „Baffled by the Chilling ‘Sharp Objects’ Finale? Here’s What to Read“. The New York Times, August 27. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/27/arts/television/sharp-objects-finale-best-reads.html.
Corcuff, Philippe. 2022. „Television Series as Critical Theories: From Current Identitarianism to Levinas. American Crime, The Sinner, Sharp Objects, Unorthodox.“ Open Philosophy 5.1: 105-117.
Czoka, Sara. 2018. “Georgia Location Guide for ‘Sharp Objects.’” Deep South Magazine, August
, 2018. https://deepsouthmag.com/2018/08/24/georgia-location-guide-for-sharpobjects/.
Flynn, Gillian. 2018. Sharp Objects. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
Flynn, Gillian, Amy Adams and Marti Noxon. „Amy Adams Goes Dark: ‘Sharp Objects’ and a Female Antihero for a Troubled Time.“ An Interview by Lacey Rose. The Hollywood Reporter, June 20, 2018. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/amy-adams-hbos-sharp-objects-her-female-antihero-1121553/.
Galloway, Alexander R. 2012. The Interface Effect. New York: Polity Books.
Greven, David. 2016. “Southern Gothic Film: An Overview.” In The Palgrave Handbook of the Southern Gothic, edited by Susan Castillo Street and Charles L. Crow, 473–486. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Harper, Mihaela P. 2020. “Female Body Language: Cutting, Scarring and Becoming in HBO’s Sharp Objects.” In Female Agencies and Subjectivities in Film and Television, edited by Diğdem Sezen, Feride Çiçekoğlu, Aslı Tunç and Ebru Thwaites Diken, 145–163. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hart, Beverly G. 2007. “Cutting: Unraveling the Mystery behind the Marks.” AAOHN Journal: Official Journal of The American Association of Occupational Health Nurses 55 (4): 161–66.
Hock Soon Ng, Andrew. 2015. Women and Domestic Space in Contemporary Gothic Narratives: The House as Subject. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Jaber, Maysaa. 2022. „Monstruous Mothers and Dead Girls in Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects and
Gone Girl.“ Miscelánea: A Journal of English and American Studies 65: 171–189.
Kreyling, Michael. 1998. Inventing Southern Literature. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
Lacôte, Fanny. 2020. “Gothic Architecture, Castles and Villains: Transgression, Decay and the Gothic Locus Horribilis”. In Dracula and the Gothic in Literature, Pop Culture and the Arts, edited by Isabel Ermida, 199–217. Leiden: Brill.
Paino, John. 2019. “Confronting the Past: Sharp Objects.” Perspective Magazine 81 (January/February): 86–97.
Quinney, Charlotte Louise. 2005. Wisconsin Death Trip: An Excursion Into the Midwestern Gothic. PhD. Dissertation. Lansing, MI: Department of American Studies, Michigan State University.
Ruddell, Caroline, and Brigid Cherry. 2012. “More than Cold and Heartless: The Southern Gothic Milieu of True Blood.” In True Blood: Investigating Vampires and Southern Gothic, edited by Brigid Cherry, 39–55. London, NY: I.B. Tauris.
Savoy, Eric. 1998. “The Face of the Tenant: A Theory of American Gothic.” In American Gothic: New Interventions in a National Narrative, edited by Robert K. Martin and Eric Savoy, 3–19. Iowa City: Iowa University Press.
Sharp Objects. 2018. Directed by Jean-Marc Valée. Produced by Crazyrose, Fourth Born, Blumhouse Television, Tiny Pyro, Entertainment One. Aired by HBO from July 8 to August 26, 2018.
Simpson, Lewis P. 1980. The Brazen Face of History: Studies in the Literary Consiousness in America. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.
Wester, Maisha, and Xavier Aldana Reyes. 2019. “Introduction.” In The Gothic in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Maisha Wester and Xavier Aldana Reyes, 1–16. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Wilson, Jay. 2011. “Mapping Out a Postsouthern Cinema: Three Contemporary Films.” In American Cinema and the Southern Imaginary, edited by Deborah E. Barker and Kathryn McKee, 219–252. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2023 Veronika Klusáková
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
