THE FEMALE FIGURE AT THE HEART OF THE GOTHIC TRADITION: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF WORKS BY SHIRLEY JACKSON AND LAURA PURCELL

Abstract

This study is devoted to the analysis of the traditional role of the female figure in the Gothic novel and its symbolic reinterpretations in contemporary literature. At the center of the research are the works of contemporary women writers Shirley Jackson and Laura Purcell, who simultaneously continue and transform the Gothic tradition. The study traces the evolution of classical Gothic motifs, including physical and psychological isolation, fear of the unknown, and the dangers posed by the surrounding space, within a modern cultural context.Through a comparative analysis with the ideas argued by Betty Friedan in her seminal work The Feminine Mystique alongside the broader context of second-wave feminist thought, the research demonstrates that architectural space in the contemporary Gothic novel functions not merely as a setting but as an active force embodying mechanisms of patriarchal control over women. In Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House, the house represents a form of “domestic captivity” that Friedan described as the product of mid-twentieth-century social and gender expectations: in her longing to find a home, the main female character is consumed by a space that ultimately erases her identity and isolates her from the outside world. A parallel dynamic unfolds in Laura Purcell’s The Silent Companions, where the estate becomes a symbol of ancestral memory and history of generations, subsuming the main character’s personal experience and silencing her voice, until she becomes a mute fragment of the house’s inherited narrative.Thus, the classical theme of female vulnerability within the isolated Gothic space takes on new dimensions in contemporary fiction. In this context, architecture serves as a tool of psychological and social pressure that simultaneously revives and intensifies women’s memories and traumas, but eventually obliterates them. Therefore, the modern Gothic novel not only maintains the genre’s traditional elements but also operates as a critique of social and gender structures that constrain female autonomy and contribute to the marginalization of women’s experience.