This article verifies how Bryan Bertino’s 2008 film The Strangers articulates the slasher formula... more This article verifies how Bryan Bertino’s 2008 film The Strangers articulates the slasher formula (CLOVER, 2015; DIKA, 1985) in order to tell a horror story that is in tune with the cultural context from the first decade of the 2000s in the United States. Drawing from analyses of the cultural impact of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, we point out evolutions in the slasher convention, including the dissidence from slasher films made to be deeply self-referential and campy. We also demonstrate how the recognizable structure is subverted to play with viewer expectations, potentializing its bleak and nihilistic ending, a narrative feature described by Pinedo (1996) as a postmodernist trend that breaks away from the classical horror structure.
The aim of this thesis is to present a reading of Dracula, published in 1897 by the Irish author ... more The aim of this thesis is to present a reading of Dracula, published in 1897 by the Irish author Bram Stoker. The purpose of the investigation is to identify the predominant archetypes and images in Dracula, showing to what extent they represent relevant issues to Victorian society and the audiences the novel has had since then. The work is published in a crucial historical moment, during which the British traditional rural values are replaced by modern and urban ones. A major consequence of such a transition is a drastic change in the British behavioral code. Several elements in such a transformation can be identified in Stoker's novel, and the eagerness with which the work was accepted by Victorian audiences is a symptom of the needs that resulted from the excessive repression from that period. The analysis of the archetype of the vampire and the archetypal images presented in Dracula unfolds predominantly through the examination of the psychological and anthropological implications connected to blood imagery. The main theoretical tools come from the studies of Carl Gustav Jung and Gilbert Durand. The thesis is subdivided in three chapters. In the first part of chapter one I present some contextualization referring to certain phenomena perceived in the Victorian society, mainly the ones regarding the gender implications in the behavioral code of the time, and in the second part I present contextualization connected to historical characters who influenced Bram Stoker in the creation of his main character. In chapter two I present the theoretical approach, introducing the concepts defined by Jung upon which the reading in chapter 3 is based. I also analyze symbols, images and archetypes in Dracula according to the orders of the image proposed by Durand. In chapter three I offer my reading, identifying and analyzing blood images and symbols in the novel. In the conclusion, I present the final considerations, with the purpose of ratifying the strong bonds connecting the underlying meanings present in the novel and the life experience of the audience, having as a basis the myth of the vampire and its association to the blood imaginary, in an attempt to explain the successful and continuous reception of the novel.
O duplo, o espelho, a sombra : figurações de personagens nas literaturas de língua inglesa
Além de organizador, sou autor do capítulo "Meu Nome é Legião: do Duplo ao Múltiplo em F... more Além de organizador, sou autor do capítulo "Meu Nome é Legião: do Duplo ao Múltiplo em Filmes de Possessão Demoníaca"
O artigo apresenta uma analise de San Junipero , episodio da serie Black Mirror que transcorre em... more O artigo apresenta uma analise de San Junipero , episodio da serie Black Mirror que transcorre em universo alternativo que promete diversao e alienacao eternas atraves de festas, musica dancante e jogos de fliperama. San Junipero se destaca no panteao da serie devido a seu suposto final feliz, que contrastaria com o tom sombrio dos outros episodios. Entretanto, a leitura aqui apresentada sustenta nao apenas que San Junipero mantem o tom lugubre que caracteriza a serie, mas que o faz a partir da convergencia de elementos da ficcao cientifica, do gotico e da distopia. Tal conjuncao nos leva a sugerir que apesar de seu onirismo festivo, San Junipero e um espaco de aprisionamento que congrega a morbidez dos espacos goticos e a aura tecnologica da ficcao cientifica, o que resulta na desesperanca distopica.
This dissertation aims at presenting Chuck Palahniuk‟s novel Haunted as a portrait and symptom of... more This dissertation aims at presenting Chuck Palahniuk‟s novel Haunted as a portrait and symptom of the behavior perceived in the postmodern Western society, whose values, according to the author himself, correspond to “the opposite of the American Dream”. The main characteristic of such society is the individuals‟ difficulty in dealing with demands and constant changes in the individual, social and psychological spheres, a fact observed in the work of this American writer through the presence of marginal characters in a more often than not apparently unconscious search of self-acceptance or social adaptation. The reading proposed is mainly based on the writings of French theoretician Jean Baudrillard, who presents the assumption that the contemporary world is in a “post-orgy” state, haunted by three phantasies he denominates cancer, transvestitism and terrorism, which symbolize contemporary social issues related to politics, sexuality, communication and human relationships, among oth...
Evil and the Subversion of Factual Discourse in Found Footage Films
Piercing the Shroud: Destabilizations of ‘Evil’
Topography of Trauma: Fissures, Disruptions and Transfigurations
Topography of Trauma: Fissures, Disruptions and Transfigurations
A World of One’s Own: The Issue of Belonging in Four Major North American Plays
Textura Ulbra, Nov 2, 2013
The present article analyzes the issue of belonging and its absence in four relevant North Americ... more The present article analyzes the issue of belonging and its absence in four relevant North American plays, whose common focal points are their characters, who display peculiarities and difficulties in their interaction with the world. The corpus comprises plays written between 1922 and 2001, proving that it is a pertinent issue and that it has been calling the attention of several playwrights and from the most varied perspectives. Being the social and psychological points of view the most important ones in this analysis, this article also aims at understanding up to what extent and in what ways both aspects become involved and are consequence of one another.
The Victorian lower man: The Aristotelian concept of flaw in Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners
Textura Ulbra, Nov 3, 2013
In spite of being focused on the tragedy, Aristotle’s Poetics brings a fundamental idea in the de... more In spite of being focused on the tragedy, Aristotle’s Poetics brings a fundamental idea in the definition of comedy – the concept of the lower man, whose moral flaws and lack of virtue provide the audience with comic moments. The comedy of manners, strongly based on that premise, is marked by the use of types, which represent such flaws and immorality. A representative of Victorian literature, Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900) criticizes the society of his time through the use of types in his plays. The present article aims at observing how this idea is put into practice in two comedies of manners by Wilde, namely, The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband. Such observation will take place through the analysis of excerpts of the referred works to corroborate the Aristotelian theory regarding the creation of comic moments, the use of types and social criticism.
Topography of Trauma: Fissures, Disruptions and Transfigurations
Chuck Palahniuk's 2005 novel Haunted presents a group of wannabe writers confined for a retreat. ... more Chuck Palahniuk's 2005 novel Haunted presents a group of wannabe writers confined for a retreat. The description of their interaction during confinement intertwines with the short stories they produce, and in both narrative levels, the writers invariably revisit memories of abuse, loss, social displacement and frustration. While confined, they spend part of their time inflicting pain and mutilation to themselves, aiming at the fabrication of new traumas, which they believe will increase the public's interest in their works and lives. I analyse the representation and fabrication of trauma in Haunted through the manipulation of the body via bruising, (self-inflicted) mutilation, gender and age bending, cross-dressing and exacerbated sexualisation, among others. Jean Baudrillard's concepts of simulation and hyperreality support the fabrication of trauma in the novel, whereas images of bodies changed by trauma are associated to the three phantasies that, according to Baudrillard, haunt the contemporary world: cancer, terrorism and transvestite.
his article discusses the 1984 slasher ilm A Nightmare on Elm Street
and its 2010 remake emphasiz... more his article discusses the 1984 slasher ilm A Nightmare on Elm Street and its 2010 remake emphasizing the presence of recurrent tropes both in Gothic iction and slasher ilm such as transgression, excess, disrupted family structures, the monster, the haunting return of the past, and the terrible place. A literature review for slasher ilm theory precedes a detailed analysis of the symbolic and thematic connections between the opening and closing sequences in each ilm. he conclusion highlights the remake’s resigniication of the original movie’s Gothic legacy by updating its supernatural monster into an earthly threat and by endowing its heroine with the strength and proactivity necessary for the inal confrontation with the monster.
THE DIURNAL ORDER OF THE IMAGE IN DRACULA, BY BRAM STOKER
Organon, 2018
The article proposes a reading of Bram Stoker’s Dracula analyzing the imagery in the novel in acc... more The article proposes a reading of Bram Stoker’s Dracula analyzing the imagery in the novel in accordance with the Diurnal Order of the Image (DURAND, 1999), a perspective that encompasses images within three antithetical dichotomies: the theriomorphic and diæretic images (respectively related to an animal archetypology and to the devices and weapons of the hero), the nyctomorphic and spectacular images (related to darkness and light) and catamorphic and ascensional images, which are connected to falling and rising. The conclusion highlights the universality in the imagery Stoker employs in his work, which explains Dracula’s timelessness and power.
O HORROR NO CINEMA DO TERCEIRO MILÊNIO: UM DIÁLOGO COM IRÈNE BESSIÈRE
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and its 2010 remake emphasizing the presence of recurrent tropes both
in Gothic iction and slasher ilm such as transgression, excess, disrupted
family structures, the monster, the haunting return of the past, and the terrible place. A literature review for slasher ilm theory precedes a detailed analysis of the symbolic and thematic connections between the
opening and closing sequences in each ilm. he conclusion highlights the
remake’s resigniication of the original movie’s Gothic legacy by updating
its supernatural monster into an earthly threat and by endowing its heroine with the strength and proactivity necessary for the inal confrontation with the monster.