The plot in contemporary gothic texts such as True Blood, the Underworld series, and the Twilight series center around a new gothic heroine navigating through a relationship with her supernatural boyfriend. Although these texts are clearly popular, can they tell us anything else? Why are these same stories, and the action that occurs within them, repeated in an almost obsessive fashion? Not unlike traditional gothic texts that were primarily written in the late 18th Century or early 19th Century, the repetition and ritualistic nature of these tales hint at a trauma that must be worked through. The trauma that one can see in both contemporary and traditional gothic texts results from erasure of the feminine, and the continuance of pervading acts of misogyny throughout. However, many contemporary gothic texts do not stop at simply recognizing this trauma, or working through it. Indeed, these texts have begun to imagine a new social contract between the sexes—which is the very relationship in which the original trauma occurs.
The goal of this working through and formulation of a new contract is to recognize such trauma—instead of ignoring it or pretending it does not exist—and imagine a way in which women and men can move beyond thinking in terms of master/slave. The way this new contract is constructed, and the method in which the gothic heroine navigates the patriarchal powers that be, are similar to Deleuzian masochism. By utilizing this interpretation, one can see how each heroine tries to make a space for her self that moves toward the recognition of an identity in which she is free and content.