CHRONOTOPES OF TRAUMA: RECONFIGURING THE GOTHIC IN SHARP OBJECTS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2025.17.14Keywords:
chronotope, Southern Gothic, uncanny, domestic space, generational trauma, Sharp ObjectsAbstract
This paper examines Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects through Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope, showing how Gothic conventions are reimagined for the twenty-first century. The fusion of time and space emerges through oppressive weather, stagnant temporality, uncanny domestic interiors, and the dynamics of a decaying Southern and Rural Gothic community. These settings externalize Camille Preaker’s psychological trauma and expose Wind Gap’s culture of repression, secrecy, and denial. By analyzing generational haunting, bodily imagery, temporal stasis, spatial doubling, the uncanny, and the dangerous outsider trope the paper argues that Flynn transforms Gothic horror into a study of inherited pain and moral decay. Ultimately, Sharp Objects locates horror not in the supernatural but in the ordinary spaces and relationships that shape everyday life.
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