Table Of ContentWar Gothic in Literature and Culture
In the context of the current explosion of interest in Gothic literature and
popular culture, this interdisciplinary collection of essays explores for the
first time the rich and long-standing relationship between war and the
Gothic. Critics have described the global Seven Year’s War as the “cruci-
ble” from which the Gothic genre emerged in the eighteenth century. Since
then, the Gothic has been a privileged mode for representing violence and
extreme emotions and situations. Covering the period from the American
Civil War to the War on Terror, this collection examines how the Gothic
has provided writers an indispensable toolbox for narrating, critiquing, and
representing real and fictional wars. The book also sheds light on the over-
lap and complicity between Gothic aesthetics and certain aspects of military
experience, including the bodily violation and mental dissolution of combat,
the dehumanization of “others,” psychic numbing, masculinity in crisis, and
the subjective experience of trauma and memory. Engaging with popular
forms such as young adult literature, gaming, and comic books, as well as
literature, film, and visual art, War Gothic provides an important and timely
overview of war-themed Gothic art and narrative by respected experts in
the field of Gothic Studies. This book makes important contributions to
the fields of Gothic Literature, War Literature, Popular Culture, American
Studies and Film, Television & Media.
Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet is a Professor of American Literature and
C ulture at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
Steffen Hantke teaches in the American Culture Program at Sogang Univer-
sity in Seoul, South Korea.
Routledge Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Literature
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com.
30 Apocalyptic Discourse in 37 Children’s Literature,
Contemporary Culture Domestication, and Social
Post-Millennial Perspectives of Foundation
the End of the World Narratives of Civilization and
Edited by Monica Germanà Wilderness
and Aris Mousoutzanis Layla AbdelRahim
31 Rethinking Empathy through 38 Singularity and Transnational
Literature Poetics
Edited by Meghan Marie Edited by Birgit Mara Kaiser
Hammond and Sue J. Kim
39 National Poetry, Empires and
32 Music and Identity in War
Postcolonial British David Aberbach
South-Asian Literature
Christin Hoene 40 Technologies of the Gothic in
Literature and Culture
33 Representations of War, Technogothics
Migration, and Refugeehood Edited by Justin D. Edwards
Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Edited by Daniel H. Rellstab 41 Global Ecologies and the
and Christiane Schlote Environmental Humanities
Postcolonial Approaches
34 Liminality and the Short Story Edited by Elizabeth
Boundary Crossings in American, DeLoughrey, Jill Didur, and
Canadian, and British Writing Anthony Carrigan
Edited by Jochen Achilles and
Ina Bergmann 42 Theoretical Schools and Circles
in the Twentieth-Century
35 Asian American Literature and Humanities
the Environment Literary Theory, History,
Edited by Lorna Fitzsimmons, Philosophy
Youngsuk Chae, and Bella Edited by Marina Grishakova
Adams and Silvi Salupere
36 Transnational Feminist 43 Gender, Race, and American
Perspectives on Terror in Science Fiction
Literature and Culture Reflections on Fantastic Identities
Basuli Deb Jason Haslam
44 Space and the Postmodern 51 Race and Popular Fantasy
Fantastic in Contemporary Literature
Literature Habits of Whiteness
The Architectural Void Helen Young
Patricia García
52 Subjectivity and the
45 New Directions in 21st-Century Reproduction of Imperial
Gothic Power
The Gothic Compass Empire’s Individuals
Edited by Lorna Piatti-Farnell Daniel F. Silva
and Donna Lee Brien
53 Ireland and Ecocriticism
46 Latin American and Iberian
Literature, History and
Perspectives on Literature and
Environmental Justice
Medicine
Eóin Flannery
Edited by Patricia
Novillo-Corvalán
54 Security and Hospitality
in Literature and Culture
47 Institutions of World
Modern and Contemporary
Literature
Perspectives
Writing, Translation, Markets
Edited by Jeffrey Clapp and
Edited by Stefan Helgesson and
Emily Ridge
Pieter Vermeulen
55 New Perspectives on Detective
48 Narrative Theory, Literature,
Fiction
and New Media
Mystery Magnified
Narrative Minds and Virtual
Edited by Casey A. Cothran
Worlds
and Mercy Cannon
Edited by Mari Hatavara, Matti
Hyvärinen, Maria Mäkelä, and
56 Vulnerability and Security in
Frans Mäyrä
Human Rights Literature
and Visual Culture
49 Women Writers and the Occult
Alexandra Schultheis Moore
in Literature and Culture
Female Lucifers, Priestesses, and
Witches 57 Globalizing Literary Genres
Miriam Wallraven Literature, History,
Modernity
50 Technology, Literature, and Edited by Jernej Habjan and
Digital Culture in Latin Fabienne Imlinger
America
Mediatized Sensibilities in a 58 War Gothic in Literature
Globalized Era and Culture
Edited by Matthew Bush and Edited by Agnieszka Soltysik
Tania Gentic Monnet and Steffen Hantke
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War Gothic in Literature
and Culture
Edited by Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet
and Steffen Hantke
First published 2016
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Taylor & Francis
The right of the editors to be identified as the authors of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
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registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
War gothic in literature and culture / edited by Agnieszka Soltysik
Monnet and Steffen Hantke.
pages cm. — (Routledge interdisciplinary perspectives on literature; 58)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Gothic fiction (Literary genre)—History and criticism. 2. War
in literature. 3. War in motion pictures. 4. War in popular culture.
5. Gothic revival (Literature)—History and criticism. I. Monnet,
Agnieszka Soltysik, editor. II. Hantke, Steffen, 1962- editor.
PN3435.W37 2016
809.3'8729—dc23 2015028469
ISBN: 978-1-138-93821-2 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-67579-4 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by codeMantra
Contents
List of Figures ix
Ghosts from the Battlefields: A Short Historical
Introduction to the War Gothic xi
AGNIESzkA SOLTySIk MONNET AND STEFFEN HANTkE
PART I
Literature
1 “The Red Thirst is on this Nation”:
Vampiric Hauntings and the American Civil War 3
LEIGH M. McLENNON
2 Gustav Hasford’s Gothic Poetics of Demystification 22
AGNIESzkA SOLTySIk MONNET
3 Haunted Jungles of Horror and Trauma: Elements of the
Gothic in Vietnamese and American War Fiction 39
JOHN ARMSTRONG
PART II
Visual Culture
4 Evil Things in Robes of Sorrow: Albert Pinkham
Ryder’s War Gothic 59
JAyME yAHR
5 Mastering Nature: War Gothic and the
Monstrous Anthropocene 80
HANS STAATS
viii Contents
Part III
Cinema
6 troubled by Memories: the World War II Veteran as a Gothic
Figure in William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives (1947) 101
SteFFen Hantke
7 Snow nazis Must Die: Gothic tropes
and Hollywood Genre-Fication in nazisploitation Horror 117
Ben kooyMan
8 “ah, you lose you in there”: Gothic Masculinities, Specters
of Vietnam and Becoming Monstrous in Southern Comfort 136
Glen Donnar
Part IV
Gaming
9 “you are not in Control”: Spec Ops: The Line and the
Banality of War 157
SteVen HolMeS
10 Virtual War and the nazi Zombie Gothic in Call of Duty 176
JoHn HöGlunD
11 Beast of america: revolution and Monstrosity in
BioShock Infinite 192
GWynetH Peaty
Part V
young adult Culture
12 operation Horcrux: Harry Potter’s War narrative
in a Post-9/11 Context 211
kylee HartMan-Warren
13 the Gothicization of World War II as a Source
of Cultural Self-reflection in Miss Peregrine’s Home
for Peculiar Children and Hollow City 229
aGata ZarZyCka
14 Conquering the Frontier Gothic in Red Dawn 245
karen J. renner
List of Contributors 257
Index 261
List of Figures
0.1 The giant helmet at the beginning of Horace Walpole’s
novel The Castle of Otranto. xiii
0.2 Francisco Goya’s Grande hazaña! Con muertos! (A heroic
feat! With dead men!), Plate 39, Disasters of War,
painted 1810s and first published 1863. xiv
0.3 “Grim humor on Tarawa,” c.1943, photographed by
Charles Keree, U.S. National Archives and Records
Administration. xvii
4.1 Albert Pinkham Ryder, Dead Bird, 1890s, oil on
wood panel, 4 3/8 × 10 in.; 11.1125 × 25.4 cm,
Acquired 1928, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C. 65
4.2 Albert Pinkham Ryder (American, 1847–1917), The Race
Track (Death on a Pale Horse), c.1896–1908, Oil on canvas;
70.5 × 90 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from
the J. H. Wade Fund 1928.8. 69
4.3 Benjamin Franklin, Join, or Die, 1754, Library of Congress
Washington, D.C., USA. 72
4.4 Albert Pinkham Ryder, The Toilers of the Sea, c.1880–1885,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, George A. Hearn Fund,
1915, www.metmuseum.org. 75
5.1 Two-Fisted Tales #24 (EC, Nov.–Dec. 1951). 86
5.2 Two-Fisted Tales #20 (EC, Mar.–Apr. 1951). 89
8.1 “We give this prayer as dead men”: Southern Comfort
(Walter Hill, 1982, Optimum Releasing). 140
8.2 “Monstrously devouring the guardsmen”: Southern
Comfort (Walter Hill, 1982, Optimum Releasing). 146
8.3 “American bodies regurgitated and expelled”: Southern
Comfort (Walter Hill, 1982, Optimum Releasing). 146
8.4 “Marking a shared fate”: Southern Comfort (Walter Hill,
1982, Optimum Releasing). 149
9.1 and 9.2 In this cinematic sequence, the player’s camera
cuts between the limited third-person perspective over
Walker’s shoulder, and a first-person, embodied perspective.
These cuts reinforce the duality of the player’s experience:
he/she is both watching Walker view this scene and viewing
