TY - CHAP
T1 - True Love as Possession
T2 - Ashputtle (Carter, 1987), Lady Oracle (Atwood, 1976), The Greatcoat (Dunmore, 2012), The Glass Bottle Trick (Hopkinson, 2000)
AU - Wisker, Gina
PY - 2022/6/3
Y1 - 2022/6/3
N2 - This chapter looks at possession, at Cinderella and Bluebeard influences. Possession lies at the heart of the ghost’s role in an economy of romance and domesticity which values, seduces, deludes, constrains, and sometimes destroys women. Women become possessed by compelling but ultimately destructive narratives—Cinderella marrying the prince (‘Ashputtle’; Lady Oracle). which turns into a Bluebeard story of lies and destruction (The Greatcoat, ‘The Glass Bottle Trick’), leaving them as only possessions, only possessed, or utterly dispossessed victims. Women are haunted by, written through by their predecessors and by the controlling narratives of romance, true love, performance, beauty, maternity, domesticity. In the texts considered here, versions of these narratives are perpetuated by friends and family members, such as great aunts who ghost-write through their female relatives, mothers, some of whom are themselves ghosts, and by popular media, romance novels, by film.
AB - This chapter looks at possession, at Cinderella and Bluebeard influences. Possession lies at the heart of the ghost’s role in an economy of romance and domesticity which values, seduces, deludes, constrains, and sometimes destroys women. Women become possessed by compelling but ultimately destructive narratives—Cinderella marrying the prince (‘Ashputtle’; Lady Oracle). which turns into a Bluebeard story of lies and destruction (The Greatcoat, ‘The Glass Bottle Trick’), leaving them as only possessions, only possessed, or utterly dispossessed victims. Women are haunted by, written through by their predecessors and by the controlling narratives of romance, true love, performance, beauty, maternity, domesticity. In the texts considered here, versions of these narratives are perpetuated by friends and family members, such as great aunts who ghost-write through their female relatives, mothers, some of whom are themselves ghosts, and by popular media, romance novels, by film.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131787654&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-89054-4_4
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-89054-4_4
M3 - Book chapter
AN - SCOPUS:85131787654
SN - 9783030890537
T3 - Palgrave Gothic
SP - 101
EP - 124
BT - Contemporary Women's Ghost Stories
PB - Palgrave Macmillan
CY - Switzerland
ER -