Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Sarah Alexander

Abstract

This thesis refigures the monstrous maternal in horror fiction as a potent site where patriarchal anxieties, abjection, and rhizomatic becoming dynamically intersect, generating a paradoxical potential for radical female agency and liberation. It argues that these narratives, often interpreted as straightforward reflections of patriarchal anxieties about female power and reproduction, actually subvert those anxieties. They achieve this subversion by exploring the monstrous maternal figure—encompassing both (as divided by Rich) the institution of motherhood and the lived experience of mothering—as a catalyst for radical self-redefinition. This redefinition is facilitated by the destabilizing forces of Kristeva’s abject, the transformative fluidity of Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizome, and insights from feminist theorists like Rich and Creed who grapple with the inherent paradoxes of motherhood itself. Drawing on Kristeva’s theory of abjection, Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of rhizomatic identity, alongside feminist perspectives from Creed, Rich, and Braidotti’s posthumanism, this project demonstrates how horror fiction positions the monstrous maternal at the nexus of terror and liberation, constraint and becoming, ultimately challenging traditional notions of motherhood and opening up possibilities for radical self-definition.

The introduction establishes this multifaceted theoretical framework, defining the monstrous maternal not merely as a figure of fear, but as an ambivalent and complex entity embodying patriarchal limitations, abject transgression, and the potential for rhizomatic transformation and posthuman subjectivity. Subsequent chapters trace this dynamic in iconic horror texts, examining how these narratives utilize the monstrous maternal to expose and exploit the transformative potential of the abject within a rhizomatic framework. Chapter one, "Terror and Transformation: Finding Rhizomatic Liberation in Maternal Haunted Houses,” examines Burnt Offerings, "The Yellow Wallpaper", and The Haunting of Hill House, revealing how seemingly nurturing domestic spaces morph into abject maternal sites that, through confinement and destabilization, paradoxically initiate rhizomatic lines of flight from fixed identities and patriarchal constraint. Chapter two, "Monstrous Maternal Inheritance: Pregnancy and Legacies of Blood and Milk," analyzes pregnancy and breastfeeding in Rosemary's Baby, "The Husband Stitch", and The Beauty, exploring how horror reimagines these maternal experiences as abject encounters that trigger monstrous becomings and rhizomatic reconfigurations of female identity beyond patriarchal norms, gesturing towards a posthuman future.

Ultimately, this thesis contends that horror narratives do not simply reinforce patriarchal anxieties; instead, they strategically deploy the monstrous maternal to expose and exploit the transformative potential of the abject within a rhizomatic framework. By foregrounding the abject dimensions of maternal embodiment as a disruptive and generative force, and embracing the rhizome as a model for fluid, de-centered identity, this study illuminates the monstrous maternal not just as a figure of fear or oppression, but as a critical and paradoxical figure for understanding radical agency, the refiguration of gender and power, and the very nature of being in a posthuman age – an age defined by the collapse of fixed boundaries, the exploration of hybridity, and the monstrous becomings that the abject and the rhizome both embody and enable.

Language

en

Number of Pages

128 p.

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