Hemsökta gränser. En studie av gotisk barnfiktion och dess position i den gotiska genren

Abstract

Although research on gothic fiction has given limited attention to children’s fiction, the last two decades have witnessed an increasing interest. To date the focus has been mainly on English literature with a recurring tendency to define children’s gothic fiction as a text corpus separate from gothic fiction in general. As a result, children’s gothic fiction has become isolated and is not considered as part of the gothic genre, neither the literature nor its adaptations. The aim of this study is to view children’s gothic fiction as an integral part of the gothic genre. With the use of Paul Ricoeurs hermeneutics earlier research on children’s gothic fiction is discussed and its definition as a separate corpus is challenged. Border crossing is established as a gothic convention and serves as a thematic perspective in the analysis. In a series of short stories by Dan Höjer, the border between the natural and the supernatural is blurred provoking feelings of uncertainty and the uncanny. In Allan Rune Pettersson’s novel Frankensteins faster (1978), a conflict between rationality and irrationality is at the heart of the story. A tv-series based on the novel allows rationality to triumph, but Pettersson’s sequel reverses the positions. The conflict, thus, enters the dialogic relationship between novels and adaptations as well. In Angela Sommer-Bodenburgs Der kleine Vampir (1979–2008) human identity is challenged and this is represented with the use of gothic clap-traps such as mirrors and dreams. In a tv-series based on the first two novels, the border between the human world and the gothic realm is minimized and later on, in a film, that border is obliterated. The analysis of the literature and the adaptations reveals complex qualities in children’s gothic fiction and argues for the necessity of viewing it as an integral part of the gothic genre in general.