Her Precious White Body/Her Tender Black Flesh: The Gothic Link to Black Women's (Mis)Treatment in Real Life and on the Page

Author

Madisty R. Thomas, Old Dominion UniversityFollow

Date of Award

Fall 2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

Committee Director

Delores Phillips

Committee Director

Alison Reed

Committee Member

Manuela Mourão

Abstract

As a work in progress, this thesis explores the interplay between historical and contemporary devaluation of and violence against Black women, materially and discursively, including visual mediums and written text. Specifically, I focus on the gothic novel to illuminate the impact race-based inventions such as chattel slavery and human exhibitions, as well as the generic tropes of the Gothic, have had on Black women’s representation and lived experience via a wide-ranging introduction and close examination of Richard Marsh’s The Beetle. Additionally, the conclusion attempts to suggest how Black women and girls might survive in this antiblack world, thus escape the racial ouroboros, not through desiring incorporation or absorption into the hegemon and its prescribed roles or norms, such as the final girl, but rather through practicing self-love, embracing peripherality, and discovering possibility in blackness.

Rights

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

DOI

10.25777/pr8r-sg05

ISBN

9798381446890

Recommended Citation

Thomas, Madisty R.. "Her Precious White Body/Her Tender Black Flesh: The Gothic Link to Black Women's (Mis)Treatment in Real Life and on the Page" (2023). Master of Arts (MA), Thesis, English, Old Dominion University, DOI: 10.25777/pr8r-sg05
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/english_etds/174