Date of Award
2015
Type
Thesis
Major
Art
Degree Type
Bachelors of Arts
Department
Art Department
First Advisor
Aaron Sanders
Second Advisor
Patrick Jackson
Third Advisor
Courtney George
Abstract
This thesis is a critical analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat" and The Shining by Stephen King. Mental [in]stability is defined and then used to describe how the protagonist in these stories moves from a place of realism, to a world where they no longer understand their reality. This idea of mental [in]stability is also demonstrated in the three short stories I have written.
In Poe's "The Black Cat," his narrator tells the tale of how he lost his mental [in]stability. By moving away from his realistic world, the narrator lost his ability to reason as his mental [instability declined. Poe executes this decline with the use of isolation and hallucination in order to change his narrator's surroundings.
Recommended Citation
Krafthefer, Catherine Marshall, "Mental [In]Stability: Isolation and Hallucination in the Horror Genre" (2015). Theses and Dissertations. 193.
https://csuepress.columbusstate.edu/theses_dissertations/193
