Abstract

Though the gothic has historically been viewed as European and an implicitly white genre, it is now a powerful tool for exposing anti-Black racism. This thesis argues that Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved and Jordan Peele’s film Get Out use gothic scenes of Black suffering in order to illustrate and confront the horrifying effects of white supremacy on Black bodies. We will emphasize that the Gothicism of Beloved and Get Out exposes and criticizes “horrifying whiteness” not only by inverting Eurocentric gothic traditions but also by drawing on traditional African figures like the watermeisie and the zombi, and the spiritual values associated with them. Finally, we will show that because of the structural violence of supposedly helpful mainstream white institutions of healing and care, both works continue to be extremely relevant.