Journal article
Presumed Dead: Gothic Representations of the Missing Person in Contemporary Australian Literature
Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies, Vol.3(1), pp.1-15
2016
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Abstract
Thirty-five thousand people are reported missing in Australia each year—one every fifteen minutes. Most return home, unharmed. Some don't. Missing person figures haunt the Australian cultural imagination. In literature and in life, explorers are swallowed by the desert, children are lost in the bush, schoolgirls vanish at picnics, hitchhikers are abducted by serial killers, and a prime minister mysteriously disappears while swimming. This article considers the ways contemporary Australian writers Sarah Armstrong (in Salt Rain, 2004) and Jessie Cole (in Darkness on the Edge of Town, 2012) use the Gothic to articulate the uncertainties of the state of being missing, representing the missing person as liminal in Victor Turner's sense, a kind of undead figure who mediates between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead. In the Australian cultural imagination, the missing person exercises a peculiar fascination. In literature and in life, explorers are swallowed by the desert, children are lost in the bush, schoolgirls vanish from picnics, hitchhikers are abducted off highways, and even a prime minister mysteriously disappears while swimming. This cultural fascination has been widely acknowledged (
Details
- Title
- Presumed Dead: Gothic Representations of the Missing Person in Contemporary Australian Literature
- Creators
- Emma Doolan - Southern Cross University
- Publication Details
- Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies, Vol.3(1), pp.1-15
- Identifiers
- 991012997098502368
- Copyright
- Aeternum: The Journal of Contemporary Gothic Studies (ISSN2324-4895) is an open-access biannual on-line journal.
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Business, Law and Arts; Humanities
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article