(In)Human Entity: A Study of the ‘Living’ Doll in Contemporary Horror

Mills, Sandra

Abstract

This thesis, as the first full length study of dolls and horror, provides an extensive examination of the ‘living’ doll figure in contemporary horror narratives. Dolls have been a significant feature of the horror genre for decades and their prevalence has only increased in recent years. This interdisciplinary study combines an analysis of visual and literary media and folkloric narratives to explore the historical, philosophical, and literary traditions behind this eerie, ongoing, phenomenon. In these narratives, when the seemingly inanimate gain life, either through possession, haunting, technological developments, or some other inexplicable force, their human counterparts are instinctively reminded of their own, impending mortality, and of their predetermined fate as humans to become, in death, inanimate, while these uncanny entities seemingly live on. This thesis adopts a thematic approach to demonstrate how these (in)human figures articulately reflect contemporary anxieties concerning consumed, fetishized, memorialised, and haunted objects. It demonstrates that the horror of the ‘living’ doll lies in its uncanny resemblance to something that it is inherently not, human, and in the impression, particularly within a horror context, that it possesses the potential to gain sentience, or at least a semblance of it. For many, these dolls are the stuff of childhood nightmares: lifeless bodies now animated, suspended between human and inhuman states, inducing fear in their human counterparts, and characterising horror. The intention of this thesis is to address the critical neglect of the animate doll subgenre, and to determine the ‘living’ doll’s significance, enduring popularity, and persisting relevance.

Citation

Mills, S. (2023). (In)Human Entity: A Study of the ‘Living’ Doll in Contemporary Horror. (Thesis). University of Hull. https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4963735

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Dec 16, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 19, 2024
• Keywords: English
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4963735
• Award Date: May 13, 2024