Date of Award
Fall 12-11-2020
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts - English
Department
English
First Advisor
Elizabeth Tasker-Davis
Second Advisor
Kevin West
Third Advisor
Ericka Hoagland
Fourth Advisor
Karol Chandler-Ezell
Abstract
Lee Edelman’s No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004) offers a model for reading queer sexuality and societal place very much in line with that which begins to emerge in early Gothic literature, including Matthew Lewis’s The Monk: A Romance (1796). The Gothic villain aligns with Edelman’s sinthomosexual to illustrate a pattern of victimization and retaliation which results in both the villain and sinthomosexual’s persistent abjection from the social order. However, a close reading of Lewis’s narrative for its depiction of psychological trauma rooted in sexual expression suggests that this queer negativity is not the sum total of the queer experience within the eighteenth century nor contemporary society. With the aid of a selection of prominent queer theorists and gothic scholars, this thesis endeavors to demonstrate the necessity of hope even as discrimination remains a reality.
Repository Citation
Markus, Andrew, "Through the Devil's Mirror: The Villain and the Sinthomosexual as Manifestations of the Death Drive" (2020). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 357.
https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/357
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Included in
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons
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