Title: Femicidal fears : narratives of the female gothic experience /
Authors: Meyers, Helene
Publisher: State University of New York Press,
Year: 2001
Subjects: English fiction History and criticism; Gothic revival (Literature) Great Britain History; Feminism and literature Great Britain History; Women and literature Great Britain History; English fiction Women authors History and criticism; American fiction History and criticism; Feminist fiction History and criticism.; Horror tales History and criticism.; Gothic revival (Literature); Feminism and literature.; Women and literature.; Narration (Rhetoric)
Abstract: In Femicidal Fears, Helene Meyers examines contemporary femicidal plots - plots in which women are killed or fear for their lives - to argue that these female Gothic novels of death actually bring the nuances of feminist thought to life. Through her examination of works by Angela Carter, Muriel Spark, Edna O'Brien, Beryl Bainbridge, Joyce Carol Oates, and Margaret Atwood, as well as such infamous cases as the Montreal Massacre and the Yorkshire Ripper, Meyers contends that these demicidal plots restage and embody feminist debates flattened by such glib and automatic phrases as "essentialism" and "victim feminism." Bringing the Gothic and the quotidian together in discussions of heterosexual romance, the sadomasochistic couple, female paranoia, postfeminism, and images of the female body, the book affirms that refusing victimization may not be a simple story, but it is nevertheless one worth telling. -- from back cover.
Contents: Critical femicide: a polemical preface -- 1. Introduction: feminist gothic / gothic feminism -- 2. Gothic traditions -- 3. Love kills -- 4. The construction of the sadomasochistic couple -- 5. Paranoia will destroy you, or will it? -- 6. The perils of postfeminism -- 7. Beyond postfeminism: revaluing the female body and the body politic -- Epilogue: toward feminisms without demons.