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Taylor, Laurie N. "Making Nightmares into New Fairytales: Goth Comics as Children’s Literature." The Gothic in Children’s Literature. Haunting the Borders. Eds. Anna Jackson, Roderick McGillis and Karen Coats. Children’s Literature and Culture. London, New York: Routledge, 2008. 195–208. Added by: joachim (12/24/21, 12:36 PM) Last edited by: joachim (12/26/21, 4:14 PM) |
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| Resource type: Book Chapter Language: en: English DOI: 10.4324/9780203941645-16 BibTeX citation key: Taylor2008a Email resource to friend View all bibliographic details  |
Categories: General Keywords: Children’s and young adults’ comics, Fairy tale, Gender, Horror Creators: Coats, Jackson, McGillis, Taylor Publisher: Routledge (London, New York) Collection: The Gothic in Children’s Literature. Haunting the Borders |
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| Abstract |
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Goth comics follow in a tradition of subversive tales like Christina Rossetti’s “The Goblin Market.” These works, largely by female writers and often written for children, challenged patriarchal values by giving metaphorical expression to the extent of female confinement and oppression, as well as by revising tales to reflect more feminine values. Indeed, critics like Ellen Moers have noted that the female Gothic tradition arose as protest to patriarchal oppression. In Literary Women, Moers coined the term “Female Gothic” to refer to the manner in which Gothic literature expressed the problematic position of women within with patriarchal society. Later critical texts like Kate Ferguson Ellis’s The Contested Castle, Maggie Kilgour’s The Rise of the Gothic Novel, David Punter’s The Literature of Terror, and Fred Botting’s Gothic all studied the Gothic and the possibilities opened and closed by the concept of the Female Gothic. Within these and other analyses, the female Gothic has differentiated into the domestic Gothic, the lesbian Gothic, and other forms. Goth comics work from the concept of the female Gothic to create tales that subvert the normal patriarchal system present in comics by using tropes from the Gothic and the female Gothic. Likewise, Goth comics frequently rely on revisionist tales, like the Nightmares and Fairy Tales series, and on conventions from the Gothic in order to present subversive stories that empower child characters and readers. These stories problematize children’s issues, the concept of childhood, and children’s literature in an effort to reshape power dynamics that have traditionally placed children in a disempowered, vulnerable position. Furthermore, the creators of Goth comics alter typical distribution methods, artistic styles, and narrative conventions in order to present gothically inflected stories that empower child characters and explore the position of childhood in society. All of these alterations begin with a change in the context of Goth comics.
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