Cristina Fernández Cubas's haunted houses: Menace and sentience

  1. Clara Pallejá López 1
  1. 1 Universitat d'Alacant
    info

    Universitat d'Alacant

    Alicante, España

    ROR https://ror.org/05t8bcz72

Journal:
Brumal. Revista de Investigación sobre lo Fantástico / Brumal. Research Journal on the Fantastic

ISSN: 2014-7910

Year of publication: 2023

Issue Title: Miscelánea

Volume: 11

Issue: 2

Pages: 79-99

Type: Article

DOI: 10.5565/REV/BRUMAL.985 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openDDD editor

More publications in: Brumal. Revista de Investigación sobre lo Fantástico / Brumal. Research Journal on the Fantastic

Abstract

This article reviews four narratives by Cristina Fernández Cubas which reveal an awareness of the potential of the house as a powerful presence in the narrative, rendering the arrangement of architectural settings carefully to cultivate of fear. One of the main contributions to horror fiction in the last century has been the incorporation of the sentient house to fiction and mainstream film productions, mainly from the USA. While it could be argued that there has been an overall lesser interest in non-ghostly hauntings in Spanish fiction, Cristina Fernández Cubas deploys house arrangements which approach the conception of the evil place. In these, the author places implausible architectural spaces centre stage in her narratives, aligning her houses in antagonistic leading roles, and even endowing the buildings with conspicuous traits of sentience: «Mi hermana Elba» (1980), «El ángulo del horror» (1990), «El lugar» (1994) and «La fiebre azul» (2006).

Bibliographic References

  • ABAD, Mercedes (2020): Casa en venta, Páginas de Espuma, Madrid.
  • AGUILAR, Paloma (2002): Memory and Amnesia: The Role of the Spanish Civil War in the Transition to Democracy, trans. Mark Oakley, Berghahn, New York.
  • ANSON, Jay (dir.) (1978): The Amityville Horror, Pan, London.
  • BAILEY, Dale (1999): American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction, Bowling Green State U. Popular Press, Bowling Green, OH.
  • BAXLEY, Craig R. (dir.) (2002): Rose Red, ABC, USA.
  • BARCELÓ, Elia (2017): La maga y otros cuentos crueles, Cazador de ratas, Cádiz.
  • BUSH, Jared, and Byron HOWARD (dir.) (2021): Encanto, Walt Disney Pictures, USA.
  • CABRERA ESPINOSA, Claudia (2021): El exotismo como umbral de lo fantástico en La fiebre azul, de Cristina Fernández Cubas, Castilla. Estudios de Literatura, núm. 12, pp. 397-417.
  • CASTILLO, Julia (1982): La fantasía en la literatura de los siglos de oro, Camp de l'Arpa: Revista de Literatura, no. 98-99, pp. 11-16.
  • COUTO-FERRIERA, Érica (2022): Infestación, Dilatando Mentes, Alicante.
  • DÍEZ COBO, Rosa María (2020): Arquitecturas del hogar invertido: reescribiendo la casa encantada, Brumal. Revista de investigación sobre lo fantástico, vol. VIII, no. 1, pp. 135-156.
  • DÍEZ COBO, Rosa María (ed.) (2022a): Arquitecturas inquietantes. Antología de relatos de casas encantadas, Eolas, León.
  • DÍEZ COBO, Rosa María (2022b): Hogares monstruosos: de la casa encantada a la casa consciente en la narrativa en español, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, vol. 99, no. 7, pp. 1193-1214.
  • ESTEBAN ERLÉS (2018): Las madres negras, Galaxia Gutenberg, Barcelona.
  • ESTEBAN ERLÉS, Patricia (2019): Manderley en venta y otros cuentos, Pági¬nas de Espuma, Madrid.
  • FEGLEY, Linda R. (1998): The Fantastic in Spanish Fiction of the Later Twentieth Century: A Web of Many Levels: A Study of Short Stories and Related Works by Carmen Martín Gaite, Mercedes Salisachs and Cristina Fernández Cubas, Rutgers U. Press. [Ph. D. Thesis]
  • FELMAN, Shoshana, and Dori LAUB (1992): Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, Routledge, New York.
  • FERNÁNDEZ ARELLANO, Jose Luis (2013): La literatura terrorífica desde 1974, in Rafael Llopis, Historia natural de los cuentos de miedo, Fuentetaja, Madrid, pp. 317-355.
  • FERNÁNDEZ CUBAS, Cristina (1988): Mi hermana Elba, in Mi hermana Elba y Los altillos de Brumal. Tusquets, Barcelona, pp. 53-81.
  • FERNÁNDEZ CUBAS, Cristina (1990): El ángulo del horror, in El ángulo del horror, Tusquets, Barcelona, pp. 97-115.
  • FERNÁNDEZ CUBAS, Cristina (1994): El lugar, in Con Ágata en Estambul, Tusquets, Barcelona, pp. 99-149.
  • FERNÁNDEZ CUBAS, Cristina (1997): El faro, in Edgar Allan in Poe, El faro, Altera, Barcelona, pp. 29-55.
  • FERNÁNDEZ CUBAS, Cristina (2006): La fiebre azul, in Parientes pobres del diablo, Tusquets, Barcelona, pp. 9-68.
  • FERNÁNDEZ CUBAS, Cristina (2016a): La habitación de Nona, in La habitación de Nona, Tusquets, Barcelona, pp. 13-44.
  • FERNÁNDEZ CUBAS, Cristina (2016b): Hablar con viejas, in La habitación de Nona, Tusquets, Barcelona, pp. 45-56.
  • FERNÁNDEZ CUBAS, Cristina (2016c): La nueva vida, in La habitación de Nona, Tusquets, Barcelona, pp. 119-134.
  • FLANAGAN, Mike (dir.) (2018): The Haunting of Hill House, Netflix, USA.
  • FOLKART, Jessica (2002): Angles of Otherness, Bucknell University Press, London.
  • FOLKART, Jessica (2019): On Doubling and Dis/ability: The Voice and View of Difference in the Fiction of Cristina Fernández Cubas, Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, vol. 73, no. 4, pp. 219-232.
  • FREUD, Sigmund (2003): The Uncanny, trans. David McLintock, Penguin, London.
  • GARCÍA GARCÍA, Patricia (2015): Space and Postmodern Fantastic in Contemporary Literature: The Architectural Void, Routledge, New York / London.
  • GARCÍA GARCÍA, Patricia (2020): A Geocritical Perspective on the Female Fantastic: Rethinking the Domestic, CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, vol. 22, no. 4, pp.
  • GARCÍA GARCÍA, Patricia (2022): Los perversos espacios-santuario en la narrativa de Cristina Fernández Cubas, Signa, no. 31, pp. 145-161.
  • GLENN, Kathleen (1993): Conversación con Cristina Fernández Cubas, Anales de la literatura española contemporánea, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 355-363.
  • GLENN, Kathleen Mary, and Janet PÉREZ (2005): On Kitchens and Attics, Journeys and Quests, in Kathleen M. Glenn and Janet Pérez (eds.), Mapping the Fiction of Cristina Fernández Cubas, U. of Delaware Press, Newark, N.J., pp. 11-24.
  • GILBERT, Sandra, and Susan GUBAR (2000): The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination, Yale University Press, New Haven.
  • GROSZ, Elizabeth A. (1989): Sexual Subversions: Three French Feminists, Allen & Unwin, Sydney.
  • HILL, Joe (2020): Locke and Key, IDW Publishing, San Diego.
  • HOPPER, Tobe (dir.) (1982): Poltergeist, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, USA.
  • IWASAKI, Fernando (2004): Ajuar Funerario, Páginas de espuma, Madrid.
  • JACKSON, Shirley (1999): The Haunting of Hill House, Robinson, London.
  • KING, Stephen (1982): The Shining, New English Library, London.
  • KING, Stephen (1993): Danse Macabre, Warner, London.
  • KRISTEVA, Julia (1980): Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Literature and Art, Columbia University Press, New York.
  • KRISTEVA, Julia (1984): Revolution in Poetic Language, Columbia University Press, New York.
  • LABERGE, Stephen, Lynne LEVITAN and William C. DEMENT (1986): Lucid dreaming: physiological correlates of consciousness during REM sleep, Journal of Mind and Behavior, vol. 7, pp. 251-258.
  • LLOPIS, Rafael (2013): Historia natural de los cuentos de miedo, Fuentetaja, Madrid.
  • MARCUS, Clare Cooper (1995): House as a Mirror of Self: Exploring the Deeper Meaning of Home, Conari, Berkeley.
  • MARICONDA, Steven (2007): The Haunted House, in S. T. Joshi (ed.), Icons of Horror and the supernatural, 1, Greenwood Press, Westport, pp. 267-305.
  • MARTÍNEZ MARÍN, Alejo (1999): Antología española de la literatura fantástica, Valdemar, Madrid.
  • MATHESON, Richard (1975): Bid Time Return, Viking, New York.
  • MORALES RIVERA, Santiago (2017): Anatomía del desencanto: humor, ficción y melancolía en España (1976-1998), Purdue University Press, West Lafayette, Indiana.
  • NG, Andrew Hock Soon (2015): Women and Domestic Space in Contemporary Gothic Na¬rratives: the House as Subject, Palgrave, New York.
  • PALLEJÁ, Clara (2010): Houses and Horror: A Sociocultural Study of Spanish and American Women Writers, The University of Auckland, Auckland. [Ph. D. Thesis]
  • PÉREZ, Janet (2004): Contemporary Spanish Women Writers and the Feminine Neo-Gothic, Romance Quarterly, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 125-140.
  • POE, Edgar Allan (1986): The Fall of the House of Usher, in David Galloway (ed.), The Fall of the House of Usher, Penguin, London, pp. 138-157.
  • ROAS, David (2018): La casa vacía, in Invasión, Páginas de Espuma, Madrid.
  • ROAS, David and Ana CASAS (2008): Prólogo, in David Roas and Ana Casas (eds.), La realidad oculta, Menoscuarto ediciones, Palencia, pp. 9-54.
  • RODOREDA, Mercè (1990): Mirall trencat, Cercle de lectors, Barcelona.
  • SOLIÑO, María Elena (2002): Women and Children First: Spanish Women Writers and the Fairy Tale Tradition, Scripta Humanistica, Potomac.
  • TSUCHIYA, Akiko (2005): Repetition, Remembrance, and Subjectivity, in Kathleen M. Glenn and Janet Pérez (eds.), Mapping the Fiction of Cristina Fernández Cubas, U. of Delaware Press, Newark, N.J., pp. 99-117.
  • VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM, Auguste (1995): Véra, in Joan C. Kessler (ed.), Demons of the Night: Tales of the Fantastic, Madness, and the Supernatural from Nineteenth-Century France, U. of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 274-282.
  • WOOLF, Virginia. (2020): A Room of One's Own, Penguin Books, London.
Data source: Dialnet