Date of Award
5-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
Committee Chair/Advisor
Dr. Erin Goss
Committee Member
Dr. Maziyar Faridi
Committee Member
Dr. Megan Eatman
Abstract
This thesis presents close readings of the 2015 video game Bloodborne and Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey in order to illuminate how the Gothic genre challenges identity. Both Bloodborne and Northanger Abbey respond to their genres and are preoccupied with the ways that their audiences might interact with them. Bloodborne’s gameplay directly incentivizes players to reflect on the way that they play the game. Northanger Abbey is a parody of the Gothic novel that reflects just as much on the idea of the reader as it does on the conventions of the genre it parodies. Both of these works are engaged in a self-reflexivity that is intrinsically tied to their Gothic elements, and both of these works cause the person interacting with them to evaluate their own participation in the medium. These texts establish an ideal form of audience participation and work to enable their audience to adopt that behavior. Each text leverages its self-reflexivity by creating a relationship with the audience that has consequences for how audiences respond to the texts. Bloodborne uses its systems to incentivize ideal player behavior while Northanger Abbey is written in a way that models ideal reader behavior. Close readings of the endings of each text show how the structure of Gothic texts generate challenges to audience identity while also constructing forms of ideal behavior.
Recommended Citation
Durant, Elena, "Playing Myself: The Gothic's Challenge to Audience Identity" (2024). All Theses. 4263.
https://tigerprints.clemson.edu/all_theses/4263