Possession & Insanity
The self taken-over, will overcome, autonomy lost. The theme of possession in the supernatural marvelous, and subsequently in the fantastic, rarely lacks a quotient of fear. In this sense, possession helps bridge the gap between the marvelous and the fantastic, by asserting the presence of dread within the context of a supernatural acknowledged as real. As the marvelous morphs into the fantastic, however, the nature of possession changes. Demonic possession from a religious perspective fades in the nineteenth century, as the age of anxiety discovers the doppelgänger, exhumes and resurrects the Ghosts, Vampires and Werewolves of folkloric legends. These fearsome exponents of a living death are now endowed with powerful psychological and sexual connotations, which in the course of the nineteenth century, bring possession by madness and hysteria to the fore.
Studies:
- Sigmund Freud: "The Uncanny" in The Standard Edition.
- GwenhaÎl Ponnau. La Folie dans la littérature fantastique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1997.
Literary works:
- M. G. Lewis, The Monk.
- E. A. Poe, "William Wilson."
- Villiers de l’Isle-Adam. "The Eleventh Hour Guest."
- Henry James. The Turn of The Screw
- Maupassant; "The Horla" "Him" " Who Knows?"
- Bram Stoker, Dracula
- Angela Carter: "The Fall-River Axe Murders" "The Lady of the House of Love"