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GWIN thesis final.pdf (700.57 KB)

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"The More You Deny Me, The Stronger I Get": Exploring Female Rage in The Babadook, Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train

Gwin, Stephanie
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1510769718601419

Abstract Details

2017, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, English/Literature.
This project explores the recent influx of angry, violent, and unlikable female characters in literature and film. Within the last several years, the bubbly and positive postfeminist protagonist is being replaced by women who are enraged with their status as wives and mothers. My project includes a close textual analysis of three recent texts: Jennifer Kent’s 2014 horror film The Babadook, Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel Gone Girl, and Paula Hawkins’ 2015 novel The Girl on the Train. Using Sianne Ngai’s theory on negative affects, I argue that the female characters in these texts are engaging in a form of political resistance by refusing to contain their darker feelings. Whereas earlier depictions of female rage generally conclude with either the woman’s emotions being controlled, with her facing some form of punishment, or with her death I examine how this new wave of female characters subvert expectations by refusing to allow their negative feelings to be translated back into patriarchal norms. In the following chapters I analyze how the female protagonists in The Babadook, Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train disrupt the postfeminist notion that feminism is no longer needed by ending without a clean, tidy wrap-up. Instead, the negative feelings expressed by these women are not tamed and are always threatening to re-emerge. Therefore, the female protagonists in The Babadook, Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train make it difficult for audiences to ignore or deny women’s rage.
Kimberly Coates, PhD (Advisor)
Bill Albertini, PhD (Committee Member)
81 p.
Literature
unlikable female characters; female rage; angry women in popular culture

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Gwin, S. (2017). "The More You Deny Me, The Stronger I Get": Exploring Female Rage in The Babadook, Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1510769718601419

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Gwin, Stephanie. "The More You Deny Me, The Stronger I Get": Exploring Female Rage in The Babadook, Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train. 2017. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1510769718601419.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Gwin, Stephanie. ""The More You Deny Me, The Stronger I Get": Exploring Female Rage in The Babadook, Gone Girl, and The Girl on the Train." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1510769718601419

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.