TY - CHAP
T1 - Visits and Visitations
T2 - A Visit (Jackson, 1950), Ghost Summer (Due, 2015), Her Fearful Symmetry (Niffenegger, 2009), Hotel World (Smith, 2001)
AU - Wisker, Gina
PY - 2022/6/3
Y1 - 2022/6/3
N2 - Places and families can tether the living and the dead to unfinished business, damaged histories, inherited loss. This chapter concentrates on the insecurities, the liminality of transient spaces, visits, visitations and the trap of unresolved tragedies and deaths linked to these places which engulf the inhabitants and the newcomers. In Shirley Jackson’s ‘A Visit’, a wealthy family, encircled by their house and lands and by their past, trigger off and replay fatal loss through inviting in new young women to join their trapped circle. In Audrey Niffenegger’s novel, family lies and inheritance invites then entraps twins in a ghostly power game. Ali Smith’s novel and Daisy Johnson’s broadcast, The Hotel, show the danger, liminality and false comforts of grand hotels, these transient temporary homes where the undead and their confused and confusing stories trap the living who might try to understand the circumstances of their deaths, the reasons for their hauntings. African American Tananarive Due’s ghost novel returns children and families on summer holidays to the location of ghosts of slavery, bringing the terrible histories back into view through the lives of individuals and offering peace through acknowledging their stories.
AB - Places and families can tether the living and the dead to unfinished business, damaged histories, inherited loss. This chapter concentrates on the insecurities, the liminality of transient spaces, visits, visitations and the trap of unresolved tragedies and deaths linked to these places which engulf the inhabitants and the newcomers. In Shirley Jackson’s ‘A Visit’, a wealthy family, encircled by their house and lands and by their past, trigger off and replay fatal loss through inviting in new young women to join their trapped circle. In Audrey Niffenegger’s novel, family lies and inheritance invites then entraps twins in a ghostly power game. Ali Smith’s novel and Daisy Johnson’s broadcast, The Hotel, show the danger, liminality and false comforts of grand hotels, these transient temporary homes where the undead and their confused and confusing stories trap the living who might try to understand the circumstances of their deaths, the reasons for their hauntings. African American Tananarive Due’s ghost novel returns children and families on summer holidays to the location of ghosts of slavery, bringing the terrible histories back into view through the lives of individuals and offering peace through acknowledging their stories.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85131801639&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-89054-4_9
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-89054-4_9
M3 - Chapter or section
AN - SCOPUS:85131801639
SN - 9783030890537
T3 - Palgrave Gothic
SP - 241
EP - 258
BT - Contemporary Women's Ghost Stories
PB - Palgrave Macmillan
CY - Switzerland
ER -