Twentieth-century American Gothic literature as cultural artifact: science and technology as sources of destabilization in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, and Stephen King

Abstract

Gothic fiction is a literature of destabilization in that it inspires its readers to ask disturbing questions about themselves, their society, and the cosmos surrounding them. For more than two centuries, works of American Gothic literature acted as a mirror that captured the dark side of a society and nation founded, in part, on a bedrock of optimism and progress. Thus, it serves as a cultural artifact, reflecting the fears of the time in which it is written, and also possessing the same capability for the time in which it is read. Many of the darkest aspects of society reflected by American Gothic fiction in the twentieth century stem from science and technology. In this dissertation, the works of three writers, H. P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, and Stephen King, were examined in order to extend the critical dialogue dealing with twentieth-century American Gothic fiction in several ways. First, the dissertation demonstrates how the works of these authors act as cultural artifacts that reflect the fears created by science and technology; second, it illustrates how their fiction utilizes these subjects to destabilize readers; and, finally, it surveys how science and technology have influenced Gothic fiction.