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Skräckens arkitektur. En analys av det hemsökta huset i Hin Ondes hus (1853) och Hemmet (2017)

The architecture of terror. An analysis of the haunted house in Hin Ondes hus (1853) and Hemmet (2017).

På svenska

Author

  • Daria Buson

Summary, in English

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the motif of the haunted house in Aurora Ljungstedt’s Hin Ondes hus (1853) and Mats Strandberg’s Hemmet (2017). In order to compare the motif in these two Swedish novels, Edgar Allan Poe’s short horror story “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1839), which works as a frame for my comparative study. In this thesis, I try to analyse and interpret and Hin Ondes hus and Hemmet by focusing on the representation of the haunted house. Through a close reading of some relevant passages and elements within both novels, as well as in Poe’s short story, I compare the function of architecture to evoke and create an horror atmosphere, as well as researching the psychological relationship that is established between the haunted house and the characters in both novels. With this perspective in mind, I try to discuss whether it is possible to provoke terror through architecture. It seems that the house’s gloomy architecture, its anthropomorphic features and its dreadful façade, as well as its narrow, dark rooms and secret vaults, shocks and at times revolts the narrator and/or characters, and influences its guests by arousing a sense of fear that gradually intensifies and turns into absolute terror. However, it is not only the house’s physical structure that evokes horror. The haunted house functions also on a psychological level, as architecture appears to embody the characters’ own psyche. A strong and deep relationship develops between the house and its guests, in which the house works as the concrete setting where the haunting takes places, whilst it also becomes an abstract representation of the unstable psychological state of the characters.

Department/s

  • Master's Programme: Literature - Culture - Media

Publishing year

2019

Language

Swedish

Document type

Student publication for Master's degree (two years)

Topic

  • Languages and Literatures

Keywords

  • Mats Strandberg
  • Aurora Ljungstedt
  • Edgar Allan Poe
  • hemsökt hus
  • Freud
  • det kusliga
  • Jung
  • arketyper
  • Skuggan
  • Vidler
  • arkitektur
  • skräcklitteratur
  • skräck
  • horror
  • horror literature
  • haunted house
  • the uncanny
  • architecture
  • the Shadow

Supervisor

  • Erik Zillén (Associate Professor)