Gothic AO5

Rebecca and TBC

Olivia Cole

Olivia Cole

“Men are intrigued by and subconsciously desirous of sexual women, yet will simultaneously condemn free and open female sexuality in public”

Judy Berman

“She can’t help but speak volumes about the social expectations and psychological pressures that govern women, men and the interactions between gender”

Sowerby (TBC)

“Curiosity and disobedience are essential weapons from a woman to free herself from being infantilised by male control”

Harriet Parks (TBC)

“Carter’s use of cultural and intertextual references reveals the historical depth and breadth of these sadistic visions of femininity”

Harriet Parks (TBC)

“Some psychological thinkers … have interpreted the Bluebeard tale as a psychological punishment for women’s sexual curiosity”

Harriet Parks (TBC)

“women’s curiosity was given quite negative connotations, whereas men with the same attribute were called investigative”

Harriet Parks (TBC)

“The key represents the deepest, darkest secrets of the psyche. Bluebeard forbids the young woman to use the one key that would bring her to consciousness”

Ray Cluley (TSC)

“…uses a Freudian focus to explore aspects of male power and desire and how these dictate female behaviours and appearance”

Kimberley J. Lau (TLOTHOL)

“A young woman who exploits men’s sexual appetites in order to obtain her prey”

Harriet Parks (TWW)

“The evil character is not the wolf but the people in the village”

Helen Simpson

“The heroines of Carter’s stories are struggling out of the straitjackets of history”

Patricia Dunker

“All men are beasts to women”

Amy Taylor-Davis

“Transgression provides rich material for du Maurier, enabling her to illuminate dark desire and what happens when the private is made public”

Amy Taylor-Davis

“Rebecca’s character is decidedly unfeminine according to gender expectations of the time”

Amy Taylor-Davis

“In a modern novel, some of Rebecca’s behaviours would be lauded for challenging restrictive gender and class stereotypes”

Laura Varnam

“Rebecca’s famous opening line, ‘last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again’, sets the scene for a novel in which dreams become nightmares, obsessions take root in the mind”

Daphne Du Maurier

“A study in jealousy”