The Gothic in Contemporary Interactive Fictions

This study examines how Gothic themes, conventions and concepts are reinvented or developed in selected works of contemporary interactive fiction. The Gothic indicates what fundamentally troubles conceptions of subjectivity. As subjects are constructed in increasingly indefinite and diverse ways in contemporary fiction, the genre is a particularly salient object of study in literary and cultural discourses. Interactive fiction is relevant to critical discourses because it elucidates the relationships between codex-based print literature and computer-mediated narrative generation. The works investigated in this dissertation include Anchorhead, by Michael S. Gentry (1998), Nevermore, by Nate Cull (2000), Slouching Towards Bedlam, by Star C. Foster and Daniel Ravipinto (2003) and Madam Spider’s Web, by Sara Dee (2006). As several of these works are highly intertextual, this study also encompasses comparative analyses of texts written by Edgar Man Poe, Bram Stoker and H. P. Lovecraft. The Gothic in Contemporary Interactive Fictions contributes to discourses with Gothic scholarship, literary scholarship and digital media studies.