Apartheid Colonialism, Gendered Crime, and the Domestic Gothic in Mary Watson's The Cutting Room. Issue 1 (2nd January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Burger, Bibi
• Is Part Of: Current writing. Volume 32:Issue 1(2020)
• Page Start: 2
• Page End: 9
• Publication Date: 2020-01-02
• Subjects: Mary Watson -- feminist gothic -- postcolonial literature -- South African novel; Southern African literature (English) -- History and criticism -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 820.996805
• DOI: 10.1080/1013929X.2020.1743024
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1013-929X

Abstract

Abstract : Mary Watson's gothic novel, The Cutting Room (2013), deals with a woman who does not feel at home in her house. Her unease can be attributed to her conflicted feelings about being a wife in South Africa's colonial and apartheid history, as well as to a fear of crime. Using feminist theories of women's relationship to the domestic sphere, Freud's writing on the unheimlich as well as Homi K Bhaba's notion of the "postcolonial unhomely", I argue that the genre of the gothic provides appropriate metaphors and an aptly uncanny atmosphere for the exploration of a South African woman's complex relationship with the home.