The American literary tradition and especially the gothic tradition are founded upon the violence inherent to the founding and expansion of the United States. This thesis attempts to locate an appropriation of the largely male-authored violence of the nineteenth century into postwar feminist works, namely Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque and Bellefleur by Joyce Carol Oates and Hangsaman and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. Grappling with women's issues such as pregnancy (both planned and unplanned) and childbirth, domestic violence, and sexual abuse, these works resituate violence into a feminist framework, illuminating the ways in which women can resist victimization, and overpower patriarchal oppression in the domestic space (both literal and ideological).
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