The Gothic Mother in Contemporary Horror: an Analysis of Haunted Spaces and Mirror
Images in American Horror Story: Murder House and The Fall of the House of Usher
Bachelor Project: Almen English
Pernille Zahl Larsen
Aalborg University
02.06.2014
Larsen 1
This paper investigates how so the haunted house motif can be considered a metaphor for a
mother, and examines what said metaphor represents in terms of social conventions and
values in society.
The 2011, TV-series American Horror Story: Murder House is the primary focus of a
motive analysis in which relevant semiotic and psychoanalytical theory are used to examine
the complexity of bodily projection in terms of the haunted house in contemporary horror.
Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) is used both as a contrast to the
Female Gothic in the TV-series, but also as a source of reference in which the tendencies of
the Victorian and Male Gothic are presented. At the centre of both stories are the
anthropomorphically depicted Victorian style houses that give cause for an analysis on the
haunted house motif.
The maternal metaphor in American Horror Story turns out to be similar, but not identical to
the metaphor the lies within the name of Usher. Both a form of repetition within the genre,
but also a modern variation to it, the Murder House of American Horror Story represents
certain contemporary problematics in terms of those who are left on the margins of American
society.
Anthony Vidler's “The Architectural Uncanny” (1992) and his theory of uncanny, bodily
projection unto architecture are used in order to define the context of haunting in architecture.
Chiara Briganti and Kathy Mezei's study on domestic spaces (2002) is used as a
complementary source to this. In terms of the gender-specific metaphor, the paper uses both
Barry Curtis’s semiotic approach to Burke’s idea of the female body being a maze in which
one’s gaze can get lost (2008), and especially Claire Kahane’s psychoanalytical and feminist
essay “The Gothic Mirror”(1985). Kahane’s approach to the Female Gothic places the
conventional, Gothic heroine in an ambiguous struggle for a separate identity away from the
dead or displaced mother whom is at the foundation of everything Gothic. Fred Botting’s
“Gothic” (2014) is one of the books that create an overview of the Gothic tradition within the
paper.
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Aalborg University: 2014
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Table of Contents:
1. Introduction
03
2. The Gothic Tradition and the Haunted House Motif
04
2.1 Theory on the Concept of the Gothic Mother
07
3. Analysis on American Horror Story: Murder House
11
3.1 The Haunted House Motif in American Horror Story
12
3.2 The Gothic Heroine: Is she present in the 2011 TV-series?
15
3.2.1 The Mother Figure, the Femme Fatale and the Persecuted Maiden
3.3 Escape or Nonseparation: The end to the Gothic heroine?
17
20
4. American Horror Story vs. The Fall of the House of Usher
22
5. Conclusion
25
6. Works Cited
27
7. Appendix 1 & 2
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Aalborg University: 2014
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1. Introduction
The haunted house is an archetypical Gothic motif often present in horror, and its origins
stem all the way back to Horace Walpole’s Romantic haunted castle of Otranto (1764)
(Bailey, 3). Today, 250 years later, the haunted house still appears in popular books and TVseries, but what exactly is it that the haunted house represents and how can it still be
interesting so many years after its first appearance?
This paper seeks to investigate the connection between the haunted house and the family that
inhabits it in order to analyse the Gothic and feminist tendencies in the TV-series American
Horror Story: Murder House (2011). Gothic texts are often interpreted as representing
paternal authority, but this paper is focused on a feminist take on the genre. Based on both
semiotic as well as psychoanalytical theory, the paper examines how so the haunted house
can be connected to a maternal metaphor. With special focus on works of Barry Curtis, Claire
Kahane and Anthony Vidler, the paper seeks, through a motive analysis, an answer as to what
the haunted house motif represents in society. This is done through the scrutinizing of the
characters’ actions and theory on their probable and innermost desires.
Edgar Allan Poe’s famous short story The Fall of the House of Usher was written in
1839 and has therefore been chosen as a contrast text in terms of the 2011 TV-series that
revolves around a haunted house from the 1920’s [Pilot, 09:30]. Both examples of Victorian
architecture, but created 172 years apart, the paper seeks to discuss the gender politics which
the respective houses represent albeit with main focus on the contemporary TV-series. The
paper is solely focused on the western perception of the haunted house motif and it accounts
for relevant aspects of the literary history of Gothic fiction.
Thesis: Gothic texts are often interpreted as representing paternal authority, but this
paper examines how so the haunted house can be considered a metaphor for a mother.
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Aalborg University: 2014
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2. The Gothic Tradition and the Haunted House Motif
The haunted house is instantly recognizable, if not to the characters of the book or film, then
most definitely to the audience that will sense from the house an aura of otherworldliness and
terror. The haunted house is a space of memory, mystery and monstrosity, and it usually has
some form of consequence to cross its threshold.
With its roots in the Gothic, the haunted house has a history which leads all the way back to
the eighteenth century. Paradoxically, since the genre is anything but realistic, Gothic fiction
came to be during a time of reason and Enlightenment. Fred Botting1 explains the origins of
the gothic tradition as an effect of fear and anxiety in a world of change and also as a means
to explain what the Enlightenment did not (Botting, 22). The Gothic novel reflected nostalgia
for the divine mysteries of Romanticism and times past, but at the same time it was dark and
monstrous. A form of dark romanticism, some would call it, because of its shared albeit
negative aesthetic history with Romanticism (13).
The Gothic genre came to be a controversial, but very popular genre throughout the
Romantic period. Especially a lot of women read Gothic fiction, and this might be of some
relevance to the feminist theory which this paper investigates (Hogle, 1).
Societies change over time and with them do the literary tendencies. Gothic fiction has many
aspects and nuances to it, and not all are relevant to this paper. Where early Gothic fiction
usually was set in the Middle Ages in great, isolated and very haunted castles, abbeys or ruins
(Botting, 4), the Gothic novel of the nineteenth century was set in a more contemporary
setting. The Victorian Gothic is especially interesting in terms of this paper for Poe’s The
Fall of the House of Usher was published in 1839, and the haunted house in American
Horror Story: Murder House was built in 1920 [Pilot 09:30].
The Gothic of the nineteenth century was increasingly terrifying because the horrors where
brought that much closer to the reality and everyday life of the individual:
(…)the wild landscapes of Romantic individualism give way to terrors and
horrors that are much closer to home, uncanny disruptions of boundaries
between inside and outside, reality and delusions, propriety and corruption,
materialism and spirituality (Botting, 104).
1
Professor of English Literature at Kingston University, UK.
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Aalborg University: 2014
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In the nineteenth century Gothic, the haunted pasts of family histories and guilty
concealments were at the centre of the plots, and though the villains were still corrupt, they
were increasingly human. Far more than earlier, the battle between good and evil was within
the individual. The new scientific and industrial evolutions inspired superstitious beliefs in
“alchemy and mystic powers”(116), and stories such as Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher
(1839) represented a still existing interest in the aristocracy and past ruin. Ghost stories were
quite popular during this time, but the supernatural figures were mostly used as “realism’s
uncanny shadow” (Botting, 119). Here meaning a way to create a feeling of the unheimlich,
something which Sigmund Freud called the effect of combining something familiar with
something unfamiliar thus making it uncanny (Freud, 1-2).
The haunted castle evolves into a haunted house or manor, although it occasionally still
remains a castle. Barry Curtis2 describes the typical haunted house as “anthropomorphic”,
and claims that such a house holds a brooding and unsettling self-possession that makes it
instantly recognizable to the viewer (Curtis, 31). Typically marked by neglect, the house
represents ‘compressed time’ (32) and the haunting usually has to do with the history of the
house. “It is an established scenario for childhood fears, tentative new beginnings, dramas of
inheritance and the return of the repressed” (31).
It is no new idea that places can “retain the memory of traumatic events” (35), and it
can be argued that all houses are haunted by something, be it memories, dreams or fantasies
(Briganti, 840). Houses are the familiar and safe spaces of everyday life, so when a traumatic
history is added to the architecture, the safety of the space is threatened. By adding mystery
to the familiar, the house becomes the keeper of a truth that must be uncovered. Typically in
the modern Gothic and horror, however, the mystery of the house may be uncovered, but
rarely solved.
In The Fall of the House of Usher, the haunted house is described as a “mansion of gloom”
with “bleak walls” and “vacant, eye-like windows” (Poe, 1553). The latter description gives
the reader a sense of the house being alive, creating an uncanny feel already in the beginning
of the short story.
2
Professor of Visual Culture at Middlesex University.
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Aalborg University: 2014
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Anthony Vidler3 interprets architecture in terms of the uncanny, and his “The
Architectural Uncanny” explains the structure of the house as the combining element between
familiarity and severe anxiety (Curtis, 12).
As a concept, then, the uncanny has (…) found its metaphorical home in
architecture (…) in the house, haunted or not, that pretends to afford the utmost
security while opening itself to the intrusion of terror (Vidler, 11)
Based on the psychoanalytical approach of Sigmund Freud, Vidler finds that the house both
represents domesticity and family history, but also some form of invasion of “alien spirits”
(17). He admits that buildings cannot inflict a guaranteed uncanny experience in the
spectators, but argues that the emblematic attributes of haunted houses in Gothic fiction,
create some characteristics that the spectator will recognize and dread (11). Because of this
the style of architecture in itself can suggest a haunting as long as the spectator has a certain
source of reference.
Encounters, repetition and reflections are but some of the factors through which the
uncanny appears in architecture. If applied to The Fall of the House of Usher, the uncanny
emerges when the narrator first encounters the house. The façade’s initial, anthropomorphic
description as well as the house’s other characteristics are true to the genre’s typical haunted
house motif: it is isolated, decaying and marked by time with its “discoloration of age” (Poe,
1554). The house with its Gothic archway is overgrown with minute fungi and looks
forgotten (1555). In terms of the inside; there is a sense of entrapment for the inhabitants are
too sickly to leave the building. Built by a lake, the house is reflected in the water, creating a
horrific uncanny by means of a doppelganger (1553), and the dual unity between house and
the family represents a hidden metaphor for one another.
As mentioned above, houses do not necessarily need to look haunted to have a reputation for
being so (Vidler, 19), and it might be argued that the “insufferable gloom” of the narrator in
The Fall of the House of Usher (Poe, 1553) may be what he projects onto the house thus
making it appear haunted. As previously mentioned, the Gothic of Poe’s day was fascinated
with the disruptions of reality and delusions (Botting, 104), and the narrator does compare the
3
Professor at The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, Vidler is a historian and critic of modern and
contemporary architecture with a professional degree in architecture and a doctorate in history and theory.
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Aalborg University: 2014
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initial encounter to “the after-dream of the reveller upon opium” (Poe, 1553). The House of
Usher is haunted by the family that inhabits it (Vidler, 19), their madness and probable incest.
When the last two Ushers die in the end, the building physically disintegrates (Poe, 1565). In
the case of Poe’s work, the haunted house therefore becomes a metaphor for the family and
its decay.
In “Reading the House: A Literary Perspective”, Chiara Briganti and Kathy Mezei4 write that
houses represent the style and culture of their owners, and if this is so, the idea of the house
being a metaphor for a family and its history may arguably be a logical one.
The exterior façade and style along with the interior decoration, furniture, style,
and layout of houses compose a semiotic system that signals status, class, and
public display and creates meanings that observers, visitors, and the public may
interpret and read (Briganti, 840).
Houses therefore both represent history, social conventions and the personality of their
owners. The following section will introduced theory that places the bodily projection on
houses within a maternal context.
2.1 Theory on the Concept of the Gothic Mother
Gothic texts are often interpreted as representing paternal authority, and the haunted house
motif is no exception. Botting argues in “Gothic” that “power, property and paternal lineage
combine in the image of the castle” (Botting, 4), and from that point of view, it would seem
logical to assume that the haunted house, or castle, would represent a metaphor for a father
and not a mother.
This paper argues that the haunted house motif can be considered a metaphor for a
mother, and it does so by analysing the house in the first season of American Horror Story
(2011). Since this paper strives to investigate a feminist take on the gothic, some might
question the significance of Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. This short story only
presents one woman, Madeline Usher who is completely controlled by her brother, Roderick
Usher. She is passive, sickly and when her brother’s madness drives him to burry her alive,
4
Professor Chiara Briganti from Carleton College, Minnesota USA and Professor Kathy Mezei from Simon
Fraser University, Canada, have cooperated on different studies on the domestic space in architecture.
Pernille Zahl Larsen
Aalborg University: 2014
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there is nothing she can do to stop it (Poe, 1565). In Poe’s short story, the domestic space is
depicted like a prison. The defenceless female is victimized and the Oedipal conflict is
arguably in place within the hinted incest relationship between sister and, the patriarch of the
family, the brother.
The Fall of the House of Usher depicts a Male Gothic in which women are defenceless
and defined as subordinate and other to men (Botting, 11), and by using this text, it is meant
to create a contrast to the feminist aspects of the modern haunted house in American Horror
Story. While both representing the dual unity between the haunted house as well as the
patriarchal structure of an old family in Victorian society, The Fall of the House of Usher is
meant to work as a contrast, to the discussion on the maternal metaphor in American Horror
Story.
Barry Curtis’ semiotic approach to the haunted house is crucial to the theory of the maternal
metaphor for in his book “Dark Places – the Haunted House in Film”, the haunted house is
specifically compared to a bad mother-figure:
In keeping with Burke’s anthropomorphic perception, the narrative can describe
a rebirth in which the survivors escape from a house which is a metaphoric ‘bad
mother’ (Curtis, 16).
Edmund Burke was an English-Irish author and philosopher (1729-1797) who wrote on the
topic of the Sublime (Hogle, 14), and Cutis’ theory is based on Burke’s idea of the beautiful
female body being a maze in which one’s gaze can get lost (Curtis, 15-16). Comparing the
haunted house to both a female body and a maze, the space for investigations and mystery is
born. The word ‘maze’ connotes something hidden, an enigma, which needs to be uncovered.
Furthermore, a maze is difficult to escape and so is the haunted house. Typically, in modern
Gothic, there is no way to escape the house (Kahane, 341), but should there be survivors from
the encounter, the escape from the house can be considered a birth. Hereafter the escapees are
no longer the same people, having been changed by the experience.
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Aalborg University: 2014
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The labyrinth structure of the house is also discussed by Claire Kahane5, who has a more
psychoanalytic and very feminist approach to the Gothic. Kahane argues in her essay “The
Gothic Mirror”, that there is a fundamental motif within the Gothic of the dead or displaced
mother who represents the problematics of femininity which the Gothic heroine must
confront in order to find an individual identity (Kahane, 336).
Kahane does not deny the paternal reading on the Gothic, but finds it to be more of a
“surface convention” while the maternal space is more central in the Gothic (335).
(…) beneath the haunted castle lies the dungeon keep: the womb from whose
darkness the ego first emerged, the tomb to which it knows it must return at last.
Beneath the crumbling shell of paternal authority, lies the maternal blackness,
imagined by the gothic writer as a prison, a torture chamber (336)
In the above citation, the maternal space in the Gothic is described as a fundamental prison
and torture chamber, and this only supports Curtis’ imprisoning ‘bad mother’ metaphor.
When considering the haunted house a metaphor for a mother, the inside of the house
must represent the womb and the ghosts and inhabitants within, her children. This is also
interesting in terms of Kahane’s psychoanalytic approach. She describes the symbiotic
relation that exists between mother and infant within early infancy, and describes the
mother’s body as both a “habitat” and a “prison” before the child gets a sense of self. This
oneness is interesting in regard to the theory of the haunted house metaphor, for it creates a
maternal connection between the house and its inhabitants. Furthermore, Kahane proceeds to
differentiate between the male and the female children of said mother. While the ‘mother’ is
an uncanny connection between the home and the prison, only the male child will be able to
differentiate itself from the mother.
The female child, who shares the female body and its symbolic place in our
culture, remains locked in a more tenuous and fundamentally ambivalent
struggle for a separate identity (Kahane, 337).
5
Professor from the English Department at University of Buffalo and a member of the San Francisco Centre for
Psychoanalysis, she calls herself a feminist-psychoanalytic critic (Kahane, 350).
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Aalborg University: 2014
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Kahane calls this the mirror image that is both self and other, all or nothing (337), and the
Gothic heroine struggles to confront the mystery that is the mother. “(…) the precursor of the
mirror is the mother’s face, in which the child first sees itself reflected” (344). The Gothic
heroine is in herself important to this feminist reading, for she is the child that is mirrored in
the mother – and therefore ultimately in the haunted house. In order to understand one, one
must understand the other.
The Gothic heroine is curious, and Curtis describes her as the character whose responsibility
it is to investigate the haunted house in which she is trapped and “’lay’ the ghost” (Curtis,
16). As the main character in the Female Gothic, which is often produced by women, she is
independent, and though not necessarily powerful, she is courageous (12). She is “able to be
physically and romantically active outside domestic spheres” (Botting, 12) just like the
traditional, male heroes of the Gothic (Harris, 1), and she is typically motherless and
orphaned. She is independent, and when she first appeared within the genre, her character
hinted at a different and less male-dominated “cultural horizon” for women (Botting, 12).
The Gothic heroine is tempted by the haunted house (Curtis, 31). A powerful male figure is
usually present in the story, representing a sexual threat to the heroine (Kahane, 334) and her
quest for a separate identity is what is at the centre of the conventional Female Gothic plot
(334). Kahane finds a pattern within the Gothic of the dead or displaced mother, and the
typically motherless heroine shares some connection with her and will, because of this,
struggle with her own identity (335).
(…)the heroine’s active exploration of the Gothic house in which she is trapped
is also an exploration of her relation to the maternal body that she shares, with
all its connotations of power over and vulnerability to forces within and
without” (Kahane, 338)
Both a courageous heroine and a persecuted victim of some form of patriarchy, the Gothic
heroine is a creature of opposites - as is she, according to Kahane, both the image of the
mother and the child. The mother (the nurturer), the woman (the sexual being), and the child
(the innocent): all of these sides are part of womanhood, and together they shape the identity
of the individual Gothic heroine (338).
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Aalborg University: 2014
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Kahane discusses nonseperation from the mother, as a primary Gothic fear, and this is
interesting in terms of the haunted house. If not separated from the mother, the house, the
heroine will not gain a separate sense of self, no separate identity away from the mother. “In
thus excluding a vital aspect of self, she is left on the margin both of identity and society”
(340). The escape from the mother is difficult, however, for in order to do so, the heroine
must “put herself “outside female desire” (340).
According to Kahane, another fear that is linked to the maternal is the fear of
procreation. As previously mentioned, the Gothic tradition first arose in a time of fear, and
fear is always at the centre of the Gothic. Childbirth and pregnancy changes the body of the
woman, and she will feel this other being growing inside her, feeding on her (345). On its
own, pregnancy is a thread to the heroine’s sense of self, and because of the relationship to
her own mother, “she may be led to fear the fetus as an agent of retaliation, a mirror of her
own infantile negativity” (345). The Gothic mother-daughter relationship can therefore result
in childbirth becoming some “undefined, but terrifying doom” (345) which the Gothic
heroine must confront.
3. Analysis on American Horror Story: Murder House
Based on episode one “Pilot”, episode eleven “Birth” and episode twelve “Afterbirth” of the
first season of American Horror Story, the following analysis investigates the Gothic
tendencies within the 2011 TV-series and discusses whether or not the haunted house in the
series can be considered a metaphor for a mother.
The second scene of episode one places the main character, Vivien Harmon, in a doctor’s
office, where she is getting a gynaecological examination some time after having lost a child
to sudden infant death syndrome. The doctor suggests a questionable hormonal treatment
which potentially could help her through menopause and compares her in the connection with
a house:
Doctor:
“Well, it’s sort of a preempty strike. You see, your body is like a house. You
can fix the tiles in the bathroom and the kitchen, but if the foundation is
decaying, well, you’re wasting your time” [Pilot, 05:11]
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When asked about the side effects, the doctor keeps insisting that the treatment will make her
feel ten years younger and that it is a good idea:
Vivien:
“I don’t need hormones, Doctor. I’m just trying to get control over my body
again after what happened” [05:40]
Doctor:
“And I’m offering you something to help you get that back” [05:46]
Vivien:
“I’m not a house!” [05:49]
Doctor:
“Vivian, what are you so afraid of?” [05:53]
This conversation between the main character and her doctor is what first inspired this paper,
and it introduces three relevant questions in regard to the forthcoming analysis: Is it, as
mentioned by the doctor, possible to fix a house – if this house is haunted that is? Is the
woman and mother, Vivien Harmon’s body really comparable to that of a house? And what
Gothic fears does she carry around with her; what is she really afraid of?
3.1 The Haunted House Motif in American Horror Story
The first scene in “Pilot” introduces the Murder House of 1978 [Pilot, 00:20] and from the
first glance, the house looks like the typical haunted house. The first encounter with the house
is meant to create a feeling of dread (Botting, 31), and this has been achieved by making it
look abandoned and isolated. The camera shows, in the margins of the frame, an empty
neighbouring ground with tall and untrimmed grass; the house’s own garden is un-cared for
and looks overgrown. The house appears abandoned and decrepit; built in the 1920’s [Pilot,
09:30]; it is a Victorian style brick house with an entrance that looks inspired by Antiquity.
The real estate agent who later sells the house calls it “a classic, LA Victorian” [Pilot, 09:28],
making it a house of classical architecture. This is the form of architecture which Vidler
associates with “embodiment and abstract representation of the human body” (Vidler, 70), as
opposed to a modern house like the one Vivian’s family lives in before the move [Pilot,
06:32]. According to this idea, the anthropomorphic elements of the haunted house lies
within the style of the architecture, built into the walls.
The Victorian Gothic (…) was itself a profoundly haunted ‘style’ – buildings
were constructed with a ‘back history – and made to appear as if they had
accumulated over generations’ (Curtis, 85)
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The architectural style in itself with its inspiration from different periods, e.g. the Gothic,
represents some form of compressed time and history. The Murder House therefore, already
from the architectural aspects of the façade, becomes haunted by time.
The first shot of the house gives a worm’s shot view of the building, making it tower over the
young girl Adelaide Langdon who stands in the front garden. “Buildings loom over us and
persist beyond us” (Curtis, 180). The use of this camera angle is meant to create a feeling of
intimidation in the spectators, and the young girl only makes the building seem that much
taller. It is a romantic notion that innocent children and fools are capable of seeing the truth
of the world (Greenblatt, 13), and Adelaide arguably represents both when she sees the house
for what it is: a haunted house in which the twins will die. She warns them, saying that they
are going to regret it. “You’re gonna regret it!” [Pilot, 00:57], but they do not listen and
ultimately are killed in the basement by the darkness that inhabits it.
It is not explicitly explained whether or not it is because the twins vandalise the house that
they are killed, but later in the same episode Moira O’Hara, the ghost-maid who is trapped
within the house, claims that the house demands to be treated right:
Moira O’Hara:
“What have you been using to clean the floorboards?” [23:09]
Vivien Harmon:
“Murphy's Oil Soap” [23:11]
Moira O’Hara:
“Oh, no. White vinegar. Oil soap kills the wood” [23:13]
Vivien Harmon:
“I like that better. It's more natural” [23:17]
Moira O’Hara:
“Have you ever owned a house this old before?” [23:19]
Vivien Harmon:
“No.” [23:21]
Moira O’Hara:
“It has a personality, feelings. Mistreat it, and you'll regret it.”
[23:22]
Here an anthropomorphic element within the house is acknowledged; people have
personalities, houses usually just reflect those of their owners (Briganti, 840). The house has
rules for its inhabitants, and if they do not keep to them, they will regret it forever while
trapped in the house as ghosts. If someone dies within the Murder House, their spirit lives on
within the confines of the property, unchanging and out of time. The fact that Vivien prefers
her house “natural” is ironic, since the very house she lives in is so completely supernatural.
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Aalborg University: 2014
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Assuming that the house punishes the people that vandalize or make changes to it, it is
also interesting to look at the gay couple that lived in the house before Vivien’s family.
Vivien Harmon:
“The wallpaper is peeling over here. Looks like maybe there’s a
mural underneath it” [11:13]
Real estate agent:
“The last owners probably covered it up. They were modernists”
[11:17]
Modernist architects do, according to Vidler, try to “free culture” by erasing the past in
architecture as they are inspired by futurism (Vidler, 63). Since a haunted house is
constructed by means of past fears and history, modernist architecture is its complete
opposite. No reason is given for the murder of the gay couple, even if their murderer, the
ghost Tate Langdon, does admit his crime in the final episode [Afterbirth, 38:27]. It is nearby
to assume that these people are killed because of the house’s “personality” [Pilot, 23:22] and
that the house has some form of unknown ulterior motive which the viewers know nothing
about. Being a haunted house, there is in the neglect and isolation a symbol of being outside
the laws of society (Botting, 4). The house is able to set its own rules, and it does. As already
mentioned, Vidler would argue that the haunting originates within the architectural space of
the house or in the gossip or reputation of the house (Vidler, 19). The house in American
Horror Story both has a reputation as well as actual supernatural elements in the form of
ghosts.
At [09:04] in “Pilot”, Vivien, Ben and Violet Harmon encounter the house for the very first
time, and Violet quickly makes an intertextual reference to the TV-series The Adams Family
because of the house’s stereotypical Gothic façade [09:13]. Having first seen the house from
1978 and the horrors that inhabit it, the remade façade appears uncanny to the spectator. The
house is uncanny because it both represents the homely environment of the Harmon family’s
everyday life, but also the unhomely space in which the undead and previous owners of the
house roam at the same time. The house plays with the spectators’ perception of reality, for it
allows ghosts to exist in an otherwise realistic world.
The Murder House is haunted by many different traumas and stories, e.g. the intro to every
episode shows the grotesque dismembered body of Nora Montgomery’s child displayed in
jars in the basement [Afterbirth, 03:30]. Furthermore, the house was once the practice of Dr.
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Charles Montgomery who practiced illegal abortions on several women; so it is a house in
which many children have died. Several people were murdered within the house and each of
them have stories and fears that manifest in the house. One woman was burned in the house
with her children, and she possesses people because she wants them to feel her pain
[Afterbirth, 29:43]; a pain that has left its mark on the building. Additionally, previous
owners have left their own personal mark on the house in terms of decoration, so if applying
Briganti and Mezei’s idea of the domestic space to the haunted house motif, even the décor
and tiffany fixtures haunt the architectural space (Briganti, 840).
Both basements and attics are examples of domestic spaces used to create terror:
usually spaces that are closed off, they hold the potential for hidden secrets. More than once
in “Birth”, the camera is angled towards the closed door of the basement [Birth, 13:56].
Nothing happens, but the uncanny notion of the open space behind the closed door is enough
to make the spectator question whether or not something actually will. As mentioned above,
the basement in the Murder House is haunted by the first child of the house, but there is also a
ghostly child in the attic as well.
3.2 The Gothic Heroine: Is she present in the 2011 TV-series?
Vivien Harmon is the main character of American Horror Story: Murder House, and as
previously mentioned her body is compared to a house. “You see, your body is like a house”
[Pilot, 05:11]. Comparing architecture to a body is no new idea, in fact it is a classical theory
based on the principles of Vitruvius6’ ideal unity: the known figure of a man with
outstretched arms within a perfect square and circle (Vidler, 71). The centre of the house is
therefore the navel, and the façade is the face. It might be argued whether or not this idea
clashes with the concept of the haunted house being a maze, for if the architecture follows a
predictable construction where the navel is at the centre of the house, can one really get lost
in it? Still, bodily projection on the haunted house certainly supports Burke’s and ultimately
Curtis’s idea of the house being a metaphor for a human being. In order to examine the idea
of this metaphor actually being that of a mother, it is pivotal to examine if the motherdaughter relationship between the Gothic heroine and the house exists within American
Horror Story.
6
Vitruvius was a first century, Roman architect and author.
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The Gothic heroine is represented in more than one character in the TV-series for both Vivien
Harmon and Violet Harmon share characteristics with the traditional heroine. Both are
powerless in relation to the family’s male authoritative figure. Violet is the child that must
obey her parents and thus the father, and Vivien is the woman who was betrayed by her
husband, but still moves across country with him despite of it [Pilot, 08:18]. There is no
incestuous relationship between father and daughter, but Ben does represent a sexual thread
to Vivian. The series first introduces Vivien’s struggle to get over the loss of the child that
was stillborn, and it is mentioned at [36:19] in “Pilot” that she, for some time, has distanced
herself from her husband. She ignores her own sexuality because of sorrow, and her husband
comes to represent what she has lost. Additionally, at [06:59] in the same episode, Vivien
finds her husband in bed with another, thus betraying his marital wows. When confronting
him about it, Ben claims that he has bodily needs and this apparently excuses his behaviour.
“I needed you and you got a dog. It was me you should have been curling up with at night.
Not a dog” [Pilot, 36:52]. The husband is highly controlled by his desires, and represents
patriarchal values that place women as subordinate to men. Vivien denies him in the
beginning, but then gives in to her own sexual needs.
It is unclear whether or not Vivien has a mother figure in her life for it is unmentioned. She
identifies with the house, though, even in the scary murals on the walls. ““There’s something
about it that I find really comforting”[34:09]. Violet obviously has a mother, but she is also a
teenager and the object of bullying in school [Pilot, 14:17]. She performs cutting on herself,
locks herself up in her room, so if anyone, she would represent the motherless aspect of the
Gothic Heroine. If not because of her lack of parents, then because of the way she distances
herself from them. Her only friend and suitor is the ghost of the dead psychopath, Tate
Langdon. In Violet there is both the persecuted victim to bullying, but also the courageous
heroine who deals with it on her own without the help of the parents [Pilot, 39:13]. She leans
on Tate in the beginning, but when he betrays her trust, she decides not to forgive him [Birth,
39:21]. Violet therefore ends up doing the exact opposite from her mother, when she chooses
to stay single over being together with a man who once cheated on her.
Both Vivien and Violet investigate the creepy corners of the house: Violet the basement
[Pilot, 43:08], and Vivien the attic [Pilot, 18:32]. Both find dark secrets in the shape of a
monstrous, child ghost in the basement, and a kinky, gimp suit in the attic. The Gothic
heroine is tempted and fascinated by the house, by the haunting darkness and mystery of it.
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Violet is fascinated with the darkness: it is when she hears that the previous owners of
the house were murdered within it, that she decides it is the place where she wants to live.
“We’ll take it” [Pilot, 11:54]. Tate too represents some form of darkness to which she is
attracted. “I used to think you were like me. That you were attracted to the darkness. But,
Tate, you are the darkness” [38:47]. The Gothic heroine is fascinated by the darkness and
investigates the domestic space in order solve the mystery. As for her obsessive suitor Tate,
who by Ben has been diagnosed a psychopath, there is no way he can be capable of love.
“I’ll wait. Forever if I have to” [Afterbirth, 46:15].
Mentioned previously, the Gothic heroine represents the different aspects of womanhood
(Kahane, 338). “Women as mother, as sexual being, as nurturer, as body, as harbouring a
secret”(338). This duality of womanhood is represented in the series by means of different
characters. Even though the creators of American Horror Story are men, the series still
reflects that aspect which is found in the Female Gothic: the exploration of femininity and
sexuality. A central and very important character to this paper is the Mother Figure as
accounted for by means of Kahane, but it can be argued that the series also introduces other
female representations from the Gothic.
3.2.1 The Mother Figure, the Femme Fatale and the Persecuted Maiden
Vivien Harmon has, before the series’ first episode, lost a child. The child was stillborn
which means that she has carried a dead child within her womb [Pilot, 35:57]. This in itself
creates a very strong parallel to the maternal metaphor for the house carries ghostly and
undead children. She identifies with and feels comforted by the house, but despite her central
role in the story, Vivien is not the only mother in the series.
Constance Langdon is the mother of both Tate and Adelaide, one child is a psychopath and
the other is born with Downs’ syndrome. She loves her children, but she does not see them
for what they really are; one a psychopath and the other a truly beautiful girl. Adopting her
grandson in the end of the series, she finds in him an “angel” [Afterbirth, 47:21], when the
fact of the matter is that he with all likelihood is the embodiment of the Antichrist [Birth,
15:17].
Constance finds in her grandson a special, glorious element which gives her own life
meaning. Admitting that she always felt that she was destined for great thing, she claims to
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have found that in motherhood [Afterbirth, 48:13]. When she returns home from the
hairdresser, the child has killed his nanny, but she still does not accept what he is [Afterbirth,
50:52], a psychopath like his father.
Constance Langdon:
“This child, a remarkable boy, destined for greatness. In need of a
remarkable mother. Someone forged in the fires of adversity. Who
can guide him with wisdom. With firmness. With love”
[Afterbirth, 29:32]
She lists three important elements which supposedly makes her suited to be his mother:
Wisdom, firmness and love. Reflecting on the general theme of motherhood and childbirth in
the series, it is interesting how the series depicts different kinds of mothers. It can be argued
that the series opens up a discussion on what it means to be a good mother. Both Constance
and Vivien love their children, but Vivien is ready to give up her child in order to save it from
the house. “If he sees us, then he’s going to want to stay here. He has to leave this house and
raise our baby” [Afterbirth, 08:10]. She is a selfless mother, for she would rather have her
child in safety than to watch him grow up.
Nora Montgomery lost her child before she herself died and became a ghost in the Murder
House. In her afterlife, she is desperate to get another child. When she is given Vivien’s ghost
child, Nora is unfortunately unable to properly take care of it. When Vivien offers to calm
him down, Nora admits that she had thought of hurting him, had he not quieted down. “Oh,
thank god. I was actually afraid I might have to harm him if he didn’t quiet down”
[Afterbirth, 41:51]. She has no patience with the child, and offers him no physical contact as
a way of comfort. Nora states that he is “an unhappy child” [Afterbirth, 40:21], but when the
child is with Vivien, he has “the best temperament. Hardly ever cries” [Afterbirth, 45:23].
Moira O’Hara claims that Nora is an unfit mother. “I knew she couldn’t handle him.
She doesn’t really want a baby; she just got stuck on that idea. Not a motherly bone in her
body, that one” [Afterbirth, 43:23]. The ghosts are trapped in time, Moira explains it to Violet
like an existence “of one long today” [44:57]. Time looses its meaning because of this, but
they are still stuck with the mindset, fears and dreams of the time when they died. Like
Moira, who does not know how to do anything else but clean, so she just keeps cleaning in a
constant repetition, over and over again [Afterbirth, 43:10]. Where Constance sees her
children as her own legacy, an extension of her self, to Nora a child is practically an
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accessory. Being the first owner of the house, Nora was a young bride in the 1920s, a time
when women first and foremost were wives and mothers. She mentions that both she and her
own child were raised by nannies, so she is inexperienced in the art of taking care of children.
In Nora’s character there is a shadow of the Victorian mindset and strict code of values.
“Mother taught me there are rules to live by. Never let the help call you by first names.”
[Afterbirth, 39:46]. Despite being a woman from a more male-dominated era, she shows very
little respect for her husband. “Apparently, I’m the only one who witnessed it. Charles didn’t.
Genius” [Afterbirth, 40:15]. So even the woman from the 1920’s in the series does reflect
certain feminist tendencies.
Nora lacks the nurturing aspect that defines motherhood, but she blames it on both biology
and social inheritance. The character of the child is blamed on the biological mother because
of her “poor nutrition” or her “genetic inferiority” [Afterbirth, 42:28]. Hereafter she admits
that her own abilities as a mother stem from those of her own mother in a statement that
emphasises the importance of patience in a mother:
Nora Montgomery:
“I’m not entirely sure I have the patience to be a mother. Probably
all of those hideous nannies. Mother wasn’t very good at it either,
truth be told” [42:28]
Also the sexual aspect of being a woman is interesting in terms of Gothic fiction for its
representation depends highly on the author, the text and the values within society. Where the
women in the Female Gothic often are victims to a male, sexual thread (Kahane, 334), in the
Male Gothic female desire and sexuality has been known to represent some kind of
monstrous evil that wishes to drive men to ruin (Botting, 11). In this sense, there is within the
Gothic also the character of the Femme Fatale, and she too is represented in American
Horror Story: Murder House.
Moira O’Hara is the ghost of a maid trapped within the boundaries of the Murder House.
Killed by a jealous wife [Pilot, 49:51], she dies for a crime she did not commit, and she
comes to hate men for it. Within the series, Moira O’Hara is the one true misandrist, and she
tempts the morals of the married men in the house. When in truth, her body is that of an old
woman, when men see her, she is a beautiful, redheaded woman in a provocative maid’s
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uniform wearing dark, red lipstick [Pilot, 32:25]. “Your wife’s not home. She’s probably at
Pilates” [Pilot, 32:45].
Moira’s character does not evolve in terms of her opinion on men. “I never understand why
you always need to come to his defence?” [Afterbirth, 07:50], She is an opposing character to
Vivien who decides to forgive. By creating this opposite opinion on men to that of Vivien’s,
the spectator is forced to reflect on the norms and values they both represent. In a sense, there
can be no light without darkness, and it is much the same with the different maternal
characters in the series. Only by placing them within the same context can they contrast and
reflect on one another. In this sense, the series opens up a discussion on what is either right or
wrong in terms of values and constructed social norms in society. This is something the Other
in the Gothic is known to do.
Monsters combine negative features that oppose (and define) norms,
conventions and values (…) ghosts are thus constructions indicating how
cultures need to invent or imagine others in order to maintain limits” (Botting,
10).
It is only in the reflection of the corrupt that the morally correct can be fully understood and
appreciated, and as mentioned above by Botting, the ghosts of the house help this too.
Like the femme fatale, the Persecuted Maiden is also a character of the Male Gothic, but
she has little to do with the contemporary TV-series. Madeline Usher from Poe’s short story
is an excellent example of this type of character. Subordinate, frail and subject to patriarchy,
she is the victim without the courage of the Gothic Heroine. Roderick Usher is mad and he
obsesses over his sister’s impending doom to a degree to which he believes her to be dead
and therefore buries her alive (Poe, 1561).
3.3 Escape or Nonseparation: The end to the Gothic Heroine?
It is not uncommon in Gothic Fiction that a family moves into a house, to a price way below
market value, and then after some time discovers that it is haunted. It is usually the woman
who discovers the haunting first and the husband who initially denies any supernatural
explanations. This is also what happens in the case of American Horror Story, and Vivien is
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placed in a mental hospital because of it. Even though this is an act against her free will, she
is determined to escape the house in order to save herself and her two unborn children [Birth,
17:26]. According to Kahane, the characteristic response of the Gothic heroine is to escape
when the boundaries between self and other blurs (Kahane, 340). She does not wish to be
overcome by the house, by the repressed Other in the mother metaphor. Vivien tries to
escape; she wishes to go directly to the airport from the hospital, but Ben insists that they
return to the house first. This is the point of no return for her [Birth, 24:05]. As previously
mentioned, there is rarely an escape in horror, and Vivien dies within the house when giving
birth inside of it [Birth, 35:40]. The question is whether or not she really has a choice in the
matter. Perhaps her point of no return was really when she first decided to come to Los
Angeles with her family? Or when she gave in to her sexual desire and got pregnant again?
By giving in to her husband, and the house in the form of Tate, she gives in to the female
desire to love and be loved.
According to Kahane, giving in to female desire is the equivalent of nonseperation
from the mother. In “The Gothic Mirror”, Kahane explains that by escaping the mother, the
Gothic heroine puts herself “outside female desire” (Kahane, 340). The haunted house must
therefore by definition represent female desire, and by running from this, the heroine would
excludes a “vital aspect of self” (340). Vivien does not escape. Had she escaped, she would in
terms of Kahane’s theory, be left on the margins of both identity and society (340). If this is
so, the haunted house must represent certain social conventions in relation to both identity
and society.
It does seem ironic, however, that it is the escape and not the nonseperation that would
leave the heroine on the margins of society. By staying in the house, she dies and becomes a
ghost; isolated from the rest of the world. Escape would from Kahane’s point of view, result
in the heroine taking on certain male values in that she would no longer be drawn to “the
maternal darkness” (340). Perhaps this is the true fear within the Female Gothic: to end up
constricted within the social conventions created by patriarchy. The Gothic heroine enjoys
venturing beyond the frames of the constructed social norms of being female; she
investigates, is adventurous and, above all, she is an individual who dares to venture beyond
that which society expects of her. Vivien does not escape the house, but if she had, she would
have had to leave the nurturing aspect of herself behind, the very aspect that makes her a
mother. In order to escape the mirror image, Vivien would have to leave her motherhood
behind and this is figuratively depicted in the series. Since Violet died within the house and
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became a ghost, Vivien would have to leave her daughter if she ever wished to escape the
haunted house. And Vivien is not that kind of mother.
The female relationship to the maternal is very ambiguous in terms of Kahane’s theory, for
maternity is part of being a woman (Kahane, 338). The theory of the mirror image represents
a fear of self, a fear of hidden secrets within one’s own body and gender. If returning, yet
again, to the spectators’ first encounter with Vivien, she expresses in “Pilot” a wish to
overcome the boundaries set by her own body. “I don’t need hormones, Doctor. I’m just
trying to get control over my body again after what happened” [05:40]. Losing a child is the
worst thing to which Nature can subject a parent, and Vivien struggles with her sense of self
because of it. She is scared of her own body, of the dangers and hidden mysteries of it. When
a child is stillborn it can be caused by the sudden infant death syndrome to which there is no
explanation. It is a mystery, as is the body of a woman.
Previously mentioned when discussion Kahane’s psychoanalytical theory, the fear of
procreation is also one of the Female Gothic, but this is not applicable in relation to Vivien’s
character. Having already lost one child, she is thrilled to be pregnant again. Had she known
while pregnant that one of her twins was the presumed Antichrist, the character’s response to
the fetuses may have been different.
Vivien surrenders to the house. “I don’t think I have a choice” [Birth, 35:44]. In doing so her
body is destroyed, but her spirit lives on within the house. By surrendering to the mother, she
remains the child in the metaphorical womb. Dependent on the mother both in terms of
protection and care giving, she will from her point of death have to obey the rules of the
house. No longer of the living, Vivien will have to stay within the boundaries of the property
forever.
Violet too surrenders to the maternal darkness when she commits suicide within the
house, so even though the Gothic heroine is represented through two different characters in
the series, the fate is the same for both. The Gothic heroine ends up destroying her sense of
self by following her female desires and therefore conforming to a socially accepted role of
women.
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4. American Horror Story vs. The Fall of the House of Usher: The Same Metaphor in
Two Different Ages?
In The Fall of the House of Usher, the house constitutes a metaphor for the actual family
name: House of Usher. This is why when the last two remaining family members die; the
house crumbles and falls into the lake (Poe, 1565]. The family is the house, and its history is
what has left the house in a state of decay. “The entire family lay in the direct line of descent,
and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain” (Poe, 1554). When
no new blood is added to a family line, the descendants are bound to be either sickly of body
or mind - both in the case of the Ushers. Through the Ushers, there is a connection to feudal
time and their decay symbolizes the end to aristocracy. In The Fall of the House of Usher,
Poe comments on the problematics of old and inbred families and in doing so creates a social
awareness of the changes in its contemporary America. Written in 1839, it is a short story
from the time of Industrial innovations and new social conventions, and the short story
reflects that which the new society resulted in: the fall of the old families. “I saw the mighty
walls rushing asunder (…) and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently
over the fragments of the ‘House of Usher’“(Poe, 1565). The house is described as
crumbling, and the Nature that surrounds it is dark and foreshadowing of a pending doom.
“During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the
clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens” (Poe, 1553). Poe was not an optimist in terms
of the changes in society of the time.
American Horror Story: Murder House is set in the America of 2011 and therefore 172 years
after Poe’s short story. At the centre of the series is a Victorian style house from the 1920s
[Pilot, 09:30], and both the architectural style as wells as the element of haunting and bodily
projection places the series within a similar Gothic context of that of Poe’s short story. That
being said, they do reflect two very different styles of Gothic for The Fall of The House of
Usher is an example of the Male Gothic and the 2011 TV-series is predominantly of the
Female Gothic. In adding certain characteristics of the Male Gothic to the contemporary TVseries, the creators do, however, play with the boundaries of these two styles of Gothic.
The architectural space of the Murder House may be similar to that of the House of
Usher, but it additionally also reflects the 172 years of history that came after its date of being
built. American Horror Story: Murder House comments on various contemporary and social
problematics in terms of those who are left on the margins of society. The series introduces
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the spectators to themes of illegal abortions and teenage pregnancies. It introduces a gay
couple and their thoughts on becoming parents. Seen through the character Violet Harmon,
the series reflects on the issues of bullying and cutting, and through Tate Langdon the act of
school shootings. Set in Los Angeles, there is a theme of Hollywood stardom and broken
dreams; this last element especially correlates well with the American Gothic that deals with
the underside of the American Dream (Savoy, 167).
In terms of this paper, the series first and foremost deals with maternity, marital values,
infidelity and family dynamics in American society. Vivien both struggles with the loss of a
child as well as an unfaithful husband, but Ben is confident that a new house, a fresh start,
will be able to keep their family together. “My gut is telling me that this place, this house, is
gonna, It’s gonna break down that wall inside of you” [Afterbirth, 02.10]. The one thing the
series is consistent in relaying is the fact that every action in life has consequences. Ben
thinks that he can fix Vivien and make her forgive him for his actions by moving the family
into a new house, but this action is what ultimately gets them all killed. Constance claims that
Ben looses his family because of his own actions. “You are paying for your own sins, Dr.
Harmon” [Afterbirth, 06:39].
Ben, the father, also dies within the Murder House, as does one of the twins to whom Vivien
gives birth. Mom, dad and two children. Had the dog died too, they would in their ghostly
afterlife have been the epitome of the American nuclear family. Together with other
sympathetic ghosts within the house, they decide to make sure that no other family ever gets
trapped in the Murder House again [Afterbirth, 25:38]
As accounted for in the previous section, the Murder House can be considered a metaphor for
a mother in that the Gothic heroine conforms to the socially accepted role of women and
thereby leaves behind her individual identity which can only be found away from the mother.
From a feminist perspective this is a primary Gothic fear for in doing so she conforms to the
social conventions of patriarchy.
The idea of the maternal metaphor does not exclude the patriarchal conventions within
Gothic fiction, for according to Kahane, the maternal darkness is the foundation of every
Gothic text (Kahane, 336). It is difficult to apply the maternal metaphor to The Fall of the
House of Usher because the story is told through the male, and not the female, characters. It
is only the female characters that will feel the struggle to separate themselves from the
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mother in that they share the same body (337). Still the maternal darkness lies beneath any
old foundation – also a paternal one:
Through the Gothic, we remind ourselves, albeit in disguise, that something like
a return to the confusion and loss of identity in being half-inside and halfoutside the mother, and thus neither entirely dead nor clearly alive, may await
us behind any old foundation, paternal or otherwise.” (Hogle, 5)
Ultimately The Fall of the House of Usher is an example of the Male Gothic: written by,
about and possibly for men. American Horror Story strives to either be feminist or represent
certain aspects of femininity.
Both the Ushers and the Harmons die in the end of their respective Gothic stories and with
them their legacies. On the maternal side, in the case of the TV-series, there is however the
one surviving twin. As a demonic evil, the series end with this child killing a woman
[Afterbirth, 50:43], proving that the Harmons may have perished, but that the legacy of the
psychopathic Tate Langdon still lives on in society. In horror, escape is typically impossible,
but the horrors still live on.
Horror is that space in which the spectator meets his or her nightmare and confronts it. The
haunted house motif is deeply rooted in the Gothic tradition, but has somehow managed to
stay interesting and to this day, it still appears in horror. Hidden within the architecture of the
building is that uncanny relationship between home and prison, safety and danger. It is
impossible to see all corners and rooms of a house at once, so it always holds the potential for
mysteries and secrets.
In “Pilot”, Ben explains that stories are created in order to cope with fears in society.
“One of my psych professors told me that people tell stories to cope with their fears. All art
and myths are just creations to give us some sense of control over the things we're scared of”
[Pilot, 34:15]. This idea of stories as a way of coping with repressed fears is confirmed, but
also expanded on in the essay Why We Crave Horror Movies by the mystery author Stephen
King. Claiming that all people are insane, only some more than others, Horror becomes that
one genre in which all one’s anticivilized emotions are free to roam. “The mythic horror
movie, like the sick joke, has a dirty job to do. It deliberately appeals to all that is worst in
us” (King, 3). Both entertainment, but also a space in which one freely can investigate those
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repressed emotions unacceptable to civilized human society, horror and by default the
haunted house motif becomes that uncanny space where the most central fear in the Gothic
exists: the fear of opposites and mirror images.
5. Conclusion
It is argued throughout the paper that the haunted house motif can be considered a metaphor
for a mother because of: 1) Anthony Vidler's theory of uncanny, bodily projection unto
architecture; 2) Barry Curtis's semiotic approach to Burke's idea of the female body; 3)
Chiara Briganti and Kathy Mezei's study on domestic spaces; and 4) Claire Kahane's
psychoanalytical and feminist approach to the Female Gothic in her analysis of the
conventional, Gothic heroine and her need to escape female desire and the maternal darkness
that is the foundation of everything Gothic.
Focused on American Horror Story: Murder House, a popular, American TV-series from
2011, three episodes are analyzed based on the before mentioned theories as well as the
literary history of the Gothic genre. Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Fall of the House of
Usher from 1839 is used as a source of reference in terms of Victorian architecture and the
haunted house motif in Gothic fiction.
The first season of American Horror Story revolves around the Murder House in which
several ghosts are doomed to spend eternity. The Harmon family moves into the haunted
house, and through a series of events dies within the building. Both the mother, Vivien, and
the daughter, Violet, show characteristics of the Gothic heroine. They do not manage to
escape the house (the metaphorical, bad mother) and they therefore succumb to the maternal
darkness and conform to the paternal values in society. Without a separate identity away from
the mother, they become the children in the metaphorical womb out of time, along with the
other ghostly inhabitants in the Murder house.
Victorian architecture is a style associated with haunting, and it represents an uncanny
combination of home and prison, safety and danger. Furthermore a house’s exterior and
interior decorations and styles construct a semiotic system which signals different values,
conventions and personal associations to its inhabitants (Briganti, 840). Also ghosts indicate
certain values and norms albeit in a negative sense that opposes, and therefore defines, the
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socially accepted limits in society (Botting, 10). The uncanny doubling of self and Other is a
most central Gothic fear, and the haunted house motif provides the space for this fear.
Depending on the style of Gothic, the fear is represented in different forms.
The maternal metaphor in American Horror Story is not completely compatible to the
metaphor in The Fall of the House of Usher, but it does represent a present variation of the
same Gothic motif. In the short story, the house becomes a metaphor for the decay of an old
family and feudal times whereas the metaphor of the Murder House becomes one of a very,
bad mother.
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6. Works Cited:
“Afterbirth” American Horror Story: the Complete First Season. Writ. and Dir. Ryan
Murphy and Brad Falchuk. 20th Century Fox Television, FX, 2011. DVD.
Bailey, Dale. American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular
Fiction. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1999. Print.
“Birth” American Horror Story: the Complete First Season. Writ. and Dir. Ryan Murphy and
Brad Falchuk. 20th Century Fox Television, FX, 2011. DVD.
Botting, Fred. Gothic. London and New York: Routledge, 2014. Print.
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