Tortured Female Bodies in Horror Fiction

<jats:p>Horror fiction has always focused upon the fragility and the perishable nature of human beings. Readers and viewers have come to expect bodies being cut, torn apart, invaded, violated or possessed in such works. I propose to examine some texts where a female protagonist’s body becomes the focal point of the story. Whether it is a source of some mysterious power (such as in the case of Stephen King’s Carrie [1974] or Firestarter [1980]) or a vessel for a dark entity (William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist [1971], a prime example of possession narratives), the female body becomes a site of contest where a war is waged between belief in the supernatural or in the healing powers of medical science; between rationality and irrationality; between gaining control or being at the mercy of external forces; or, in a broader sense, between the powers of good and the powers of evil. In their desperation, these characters might use their ultimate resources to reach out and communicate with their environment via their suffering, tortured bodies (also capable of afflicting torture themselves). The “monstrification of the female” (Carol J. Clover 1992, 113) is a staple of horror fiction, and her abject body is exploited repeatedly by authors to examine wider societal issues.</jats:p>