Lewis Barnavelt and the Rainbow over New Zebedee: Queering The House with a Clock in Its Walls
Lewis Barnavelt and the Rainbow over New Zebedee: Queering The House with a Clock in Its Walls
Author(s): Maciej SkoweraSubject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Studies of Literature, Film / Cinema / Cinematography, Philology, Theory of Literature, American Literature
Published by: Wydział Polonistyki Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: adaptation; American Gothic; children's and young adult film; children's and young adult literature; Eli Roth; gender studies; Gothic fiction; John Bellairs; Lewis Barnavelt; queer theory; horror
Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses The House with a Clock in Its Walls (1973) by John Bellairs and its film adaptation, directed by Eli Roth (2018), from queer theory and gender studies perspectives. The author of the article aims to overview and develop existing queer in‑terpretations of the first novel in the Lewis Barnavelt series, with contextual references to the cycle’s subsequent volumes, and to conduct a queer theory ‑inspired analysis of Roth’s motion picture. The genre represented by the novel and the film is also consid‑ered by taking the scholarly reflections on the queer aspects of the Gothic and the hor‑ror into account. The author concludes that although both versions of the story fail at portraying femininity in an unconventional way, they succeed in showing that queer‑ness and, more generally, the Otherness should be highly appreciated and valued.
Journal: Dzieciństwo. Literatura i Kultura
- Issue Year: 1/2019
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 85-108
- Page Count: 24
- Language: English