Contemporary maternal Horror as viewed through
the eyes of a psychopathic child character
in Babadook, 2014 Cover Image

El terror maternal contemporáneo desde la psicopatía del personaje infantil en Babadook (2014)
Contemporary maternal Horror as viewed through the eyes of a psychopathic child character in Babadook, 2014

Author(s): María Isabel ESCALAS RUIZ
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Theoretical Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Studies of Literature
Published by: UNIVERSITATEA »ȘTEFAN CEL MARE« SUCEAVA
Keywords: Babadook; Childhood; Uncanny; Fears; Psychopathology;

Summary/Abstract: The home associated with the idea of security and family may become a locuscorruptus, that is, a place that instead of safeguarding us from the dangers,threats and fears from the outside ends up being the generator of them.Maternal horror relationships may also become uncanny/unheimlich. Thispaper aims to identify and analyse the latent individual and collectivesubconscious of the maternal relationship between the characters of Silvia andSamuel in the film directed by Jennifer Kent, The Babadook (2014). Thenightmares, fears and the trauma are incarnated though the monstruosity thattakes place in the family with a depressive mother and a disruptive son. Theseare developed in a home where the collective fears from childhood and thesupernatural are combined with elements of psychopathology. The film may berelated to the Suburban Gothic because of the haunted house being viewed as acharacter which the supernatural and the ghosts habitated, as well as thedwelling place of monsters such as Míster Babadook. Furthermore, the house isalso conceived as an element of the horror genre and an example ofcontemporary maternal horror since there exists a demonization of the madnessof Amelia as a woman and mother.