Date of Award
Spring 5-2023
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Advisor
Morgan Read-Davidson
Second Advisor
Ian Barnard
Third Advisor
Joanna Levin
Abstract
By analyzing H. P. Lovecraft’s work through the lens of queer temporality, I offer a queer perspective on Lovecraft, reading the monstrous outside in his work as a queer figure and casting the temporal conflict common to Lovecraftian horror as a conflict between dominant time and outside time. I argue that, by placing queerly-temporal protagonists in conflict with dominant temporalities, queer fiction is essentially an inversion of Lovecraftian horror. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope of the novel, I develop a theory of the queer chronotope in fiction to align with the queer temporalities that queer characters inhabit. I then analyze queer chronotopes in HBO’s Lovecraft Country, demonstrating where the show fell short in embracing queer time. In contrast, I offer a reading of temporality in Torrey Peters’ trans novel Detransition, Baby, arguing that it is a queerly temporal narrative that authentically represents the queer experience.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Dye, Eurydice. Lovecraftian Queerness: Weird and Queer Temporalities in Lovecraft Country and Detransition, Baby. 2023. Chapman University, MA Thesis. Chapman University Digital Commons, https://doi.org/10.36837/chapman.000445
Included in
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons