Date of Award
5-2025
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts - English
Department
English
First Advisor
John McDermott
Second Advisor
Bridget Adams
Third Advisor
Ericka Hoagland
Fourth Advisor
Courtney Carney
Abstract
Mermaid in the Bathtub is a Southern female gothic novel set in 1931 rural East Texas. Minnie is a seventeen-year-old woman, married off so her father can find work during the deepening depression and failure of their cotton crop. She is betrothed to Thomas, the Pastor’s son, and doesn’t quite understand her new role as wife and homemaker. Over the course of the novel, Minnie endures abuse at the hands of the Pastor, who punishes her for disrespecting his church and authority. Minnie begins working with other women at the local dry cleaners, but when tragedy strikes and she miscarries her first child, she returns home and begins to spiral, obsessing over the mystery of her mother’s death while dreaming of a life without the Pastor.
Repository Citation
McClelland, Whitney, "Mermaid in the Bathtub: A Speculative Southern Female Gothic Novel" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 607.
https://scholarworks.sfasu.edu/etds/607
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
