Marija Dalbello

Reading Interests of Adults

Horror

RutgersSchool of Communication and Informationdalbello@rutgers.edu

Image credit: Victor GAD

Overview _______________________________________ Introduction

What is Horror?

Genre characteristics and appeal

“The Formula” and narrative models

History and types

• Conclusion

What is horrorDefinition _______________________________________ Horror is not a genre, like the mystery or science

fiction or the western. It is not a kind of fiction, meant to be confined to the ghetto of a special shelf in libraries or bookstores. Horror is an emotion.

Horror Writers Association at: http://www.horror.org

What is horror? _______________________________________• Suspension of disbelief and unique emotional experience

• Post Enlightenment literary phenomenon

• Horror is about knowledge as theme

• Horror is about cosmic fear

Monsters are incidental

The politics of horror

What is HorrorSuspension of disbelief _______________________________________ “Paradoxes of the heart”

How can anyone be frightened by what they know does not exist? Why would anyone ever be interested in

horror, since being horrified is so unpleasant? Why are people attracted to unpleasant

emotions?

• Art horror - Natural horror Emotion caused by the characteristic

structures, imagery, and figures in the genre (art) Emotion caused by reality (natural)

Speculative fiction genre

Partial explanations

What is HorrorPost Enlightenment phenomenon _______________________________________ Reaction to the culture of post Enlightenment secular

rationality (Carroll, p. 162)

The effects of the Englightenment: Religious feeling in our culture was demeaned by

“materialistic sophistication” Intuition is denied by the culture of

materialistic sophistication Instinctual attraction and capacity for awe Horror evokes cosmic fear Coeval with religious feeling Experiencing the numinous in the form of horror

What is HorrorKnowledge as a theme _______________________________________ Concerned with knowledge as theme - rendering the

unknown known

Violation of schemes of cultural categorization (category mistakes are impure, dangerous, abominable)

Cognitive threat as a major factor in the generation of art-horror: how can you resolve contradictions (rationality)

• Non-rational element as object of religious experience (“numen”)

• Numinous experience (“mysterium tremendum fascinans et augustum”) at the core of being human

What is HorrorMonsters _______________________________________ Monsters - extraordinary characters in an ordinary

world

Incomplete representatives of their class - abominations

Monsters’ categorical incompleteness: disintegrating things, formless, rotting

Interstitial, indescribable, inconceivable, “It,” “Them”

Revulsion and disgust• In violation of schemes of cultural categorization• Category mistakes are impure

• What are monsters made of? Fission (spatial or temporal) - incompleteness Fusion - categories fused Monstrosities often take mass form

What is HorrorHorror as Carnival _______________________________________ Popular culture phenomenon

Rituals of inversion for mass society (resolves contradictions)

• Normal - abnormal - normal as allegory of reinstatement

• BUT, is abnormal always expelled? And, what does that mean when reinstatement does not work?

• Art-horror is ideological Xenophobic, progressive, misogynist, politically

repressive? Or, just pointing to the existing contradictions

in the world. Does horror present a cynical disposition at its

core? Is horror radical?

Genre characteristics and appeal What readers like _______________________________________• Interest in physical and emotional violence

• The thrill and visceral experience caused by fear

• Emotion of feeling art-horror

• Gratification of being in an emotional state

• Suspense integral to narrative structures in horror Programmed blanks propel narrative Relative probabilities and dual function

narratives create Use of weak models, keeping the evidence

indecisive

Genre characteristics and appeal - the formulaPlot structure _______________________________________ Complex discovery plot

onset discovery confirmation confrontation

Discovery plot

onset discovery confirmation

• Over-reacher plot (forbidden knowledge)

preparation experiment boomerang confrontation

Genre characteristics and appeal The Formula_______________________________________ 14 possible horror plot formulas (Carroll, p. 116)

Modification of the order of exposition:flashbacks, flashforwards, iteratives, nestings

Suspense - relative probabilities at the heart of horror appeal

Fantastic hesitation Fantastic uncanny versus fantastic marvelous Creating fantastic: use of weak models, keeping

evidence as indecisive as possible

Historical development and types _______________________________________ Precursors and foundational works

English gothic novel, Schauer-Roman, roman noir Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto (1764)

Popularity of gothic: 1820-1870 Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819) Charles Robert Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre

Modern horror Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and

Mr. Hyde (1886) Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897) H.P. Lovecroft, Cthulhu Mythos series (1920s) 20th century transmedia phenomenon, current concerns

• Current trends 1980s: Splatterpunk Stephen King type fiction 1990s: “horror goes underground” Revitalized as literary fiction in many types of horror

Types of Horror _______________________________________ Formal typology (Carroll, p. 4)

Historical gothic - imagined past without supernatural events Natural or explained gothic - introduces

supernatural and explains it away: Radcliffe’s Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) Supernatural gothic - supernatural events Equivocal gothic - supernatural origin of events

in the text rendered ambiguous by means of disturbed characters

• Subgenres Ghost literature, alien invasion, tales of vampires,

werewolves, zombies, demonic possession, etc. (more in Genreflecting guides)

Types of Horror _______________________________________ Thematic categorization approach

Apocalypse Cosmic horror Dark fantasy Demonic possession-invasion Ghost stories Haunted houses Monsters Psychological horror - serial killer Splatterpunk Vampires Witchcraft Zombies

Current trends at HWA site: http://www.horror.org/newsreleases.htm

Conclusion _______________________________________

Horror is about limits of knowing in a post Enlightenment world

Genre of speculative fiction shares interest in possibilities

Secular, materialistic and cynical at its core Horror is transmedia phenomenon