Abstract
The haunted house tale appears recurrently along fantastic and horror narratives. It is structured upon the idea of the intrusion and the fight for the space of two opposite forces: the inhabitants and a ghostly entity. The horror story that lies within Mark Z. Danielewski’s complex novel, House of Leaves (2000), works as the turn on the screw of that classic approach, taking away the ghost and modeling the house as the real entity which generates the horror. In this paper, I would like to explain why Danielewski’s novel should be considered as an example of fantastic literature. Also, I will analyze the resources used by the author in order to accomplish the creation of an oppressive and startling atmosphere within the narrative, mainly making the characters, as well as the readers, face the inexplicably appearance of an empty space inside the house, which defies all logic.
Highlights
The haunted house tale appears recurrently along fantastic and horror narratives. It is structured upon the idea of the intrusion and the fight for the space of two opposite forces: the inhabitants and a ghostly entity
Al fin y al cabo, en House of Leaves son ese espacio y la casa en sí misma las fuentes del horror, pero sin encontrarse asociado esto a ningún otro factor externo, lo que la convertiría en una manifestación del neogótico (Finné, 2006: 25)
Casi muertos por el frío, acosados por terrores nocturnos y pesadillas y poseídos por un inexplicable sentimiento de pavor, el diario concluye con la siguiente entrada del diario: «“Ftaires! We have found ftaires!”» (Danielewski, 2000: 414)
Summary
El relato de casas encantadas aparece de forma recurrente en las narrativas fantástica y de terror. La historia de terror que subyace en la compleja novela de Mark Z. Danielewski, House of Leaves (2000), da una vuelta de tuerca a este planteamiento clásico, eliminando al fantasma y modelando la casa como el auténtico ente generador del miedo. Pretendo justificar por qué House of Leaves es una novela fantástica de terror, así como realizar un análisis de los recursos a partir de los cuales se logra recrear esa atmósfera opresiva y sobrecogedora, mediante el enfrentamiento de los personajes y, por ende del lector, a un espacio vacío surgido en el seno de la casa, el cual desafía cualquier lógica. THIS IS NOT ANOTHER HAUNTED HOUSE TALE: CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE HORROR IN MARK Z.
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