Graduation Term
Spring 2026
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Department of English: English Studies
Committee Chair
Katherine Ellison
Committee Member
Brian Rejack
Abstract
This thesis explores the ways in which psychoanalytic concepts of the abjection and the uncanny were used to depict monsters and monstrous bodies in nineteenth-century Gothic literature as a site of social, cultural, and sexual transgression. Through the intersections of queer theory, monster theory, and psychoanalytic theory, I examine and analyze depictions of women as monstrous figures in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s Christabel (1816), Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), and Sheridan Joseph Le Fanu’s Carmilla (1872). In particular, I aim to detail how language and descriptions of women monsters become coded elements that reveal monstrosity and transgression.
Access Type
Thesis-Open Access
Recommended Citation
Kuznetsova, Varvara, "Abject and Uncanny Manifestations of Sexuality and Sexual Desire in Nineteenth-Century Gothic Literature" (2026). Theses and Dissertations. 2269.
https://ir.library.illinoisstate.edu/etd/2269