Hitchcock goes East: postcolonial gothic in "Under Capricorn"

• Autores: Maria Sofia Pimentel Biscaia
• Localización: Relational designs in literature and the arts: page and stage, canvas and screen / Rui Carvalho Homem (ed. lit.), 2012, ISBN 978-90-420-3581-2, págs. 137-151
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Contemporary fiction has shown increasing interest in horror, particularly in two broad thematic areas: terrorism and the Postcolonia Gothic. In this paper I propose to investigate the elements of the Postcolonial Gothic in a different framework , that of a cinematic text of the mid-twentieth century, AIfred Hitchcock's "Under Capricorn" (1949), based on the eponymous novel by the Australian novelist Helen Simpson. I will draw attention to the reuse of conventional Gothic components in the context of British imperialism towards the construction of the colonial/racial Other and the representation of 'difference'. As a genre drawing on the mysterious, frightful Other, the Gothic has from early on included references to colonialism. Elements such as alienation, overe-eroticisation, primitiveness and even cannibalism were central to the imperial discourse as well as to the genre. The encounter produced a specific type of Gothicism which supported stereotypes grounding the imperial endeavour. As the film came out in the late period of the British Empire, the historical moment of the production of the film has to be looked into to understand its lukewarm reception. I t also sheds light on the use of the Gothic by the 'Master of Noir', on its relation with contemporary postcolonial Gothic criticism and on the artistic interpretation of gender politics.