Monsters; from unreal to real; a peek into the postmodern american selective psycho – horror fiction

Abstract

This paper aims to discuss postmodern/ contemporary American psychological horror novels Beloved (1987) by Toni Morrison, The Doll Master (2016) by Joyce Carol Oates, and The girl who loved Tom Gordon (1999) by Stephen King through exploring psychological issues of characters which includes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Avoidant Personality Disorder that often cause hallucinations leading a person to introvertism, socio-phobia, or social anxiety disorder. Moreover, using Saussure and Roland Barthes’ semiotic theory as well as Julia Kristeva’s theory of Abjection, it further explores how these writers used Gothic Horror elements like spirits and ghosts, aesthetic of dolls, uncanny settings of old abandoned house, dark forest as well as made up evil entity like the God of the Lost in order to blur the psychological or mental problems of the central characters. In a nutshell, the paper summarizes the fact that works of postmodern horror fiction are scarier in a sense that there is no living creature scarier than humans. Reality is becoming more haunting because humans are failing to control their demons in their mind, which as a result is turning them into monsters.