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Mellan livet och döden : Den litterära gotikens närvaro i dokumentära skildringar av självskada / Between Life and Death : Prescence of the literary Gothic in documentary depictions of self-harm

Autobiographies and documentaries usually aim to elicit a discussion about social issues by shocking and horrifying readers and viewers, often through graphic imagery. This study's ambition is to examine how literary documentary borrows from the gothic tradition to depict real societal issues. My aim is to show how the gothic style transcends the borders of the genre and that literary documentary about self-harm tends to work through the same thematic and narrative structures as the literary gothic. With a focus on contemporary depictions of self-harm and mental illness in young women and girls in Sweden, this analysis explore how the function of sexuality, gender and self-harm in gothic horror can be applied on these texts. At the same time this study explores how selfharming women tend to use gothic imagery to portray the horrors of their own reality that is saturated with extreme and negative emotions. For comparison, two famous depictions of girls going through puberty from the literary horror genre; Carrie and The Exorcist, are examined to further anchor the connection between femininity, blood and puberty in the gothic theoretical field.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-30505
Date January 2015
CreatorsHallberg, Therese
PublisherSödertörns högskola, Institutionen för kultur och lärande
Source SetsDiVA Archive at Upsalla University
LanguageSwedish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeStudent thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text
Formatapplication/pdf
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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