Lewis Barnavelt and the Rainbow over New Zebedee: Queering The House with a Clock in Its Walls
Abstract
The paper discusses The House with a Clock in Its Walls (1973) by John Bellairs and its film adaptation, directed by Eli Roth (2018), from queer theory and gender studies perspectives. The author of the article aims to overview and develop existing queer in‑terpretations of the first novel in the Lewis Barnavelt series, with contextual references to the cycle’s subsequent volumes, and to conduct a queer theory ‑inspired analysis of Roth’s motion picture. The genre represented by the novel and the film is also consid‑ered by taking the scholarly reflections on the queer aspects of the Gothic and the hor‑ror into account. The author concludes that although both versions of the story fail at portraying femininity in an unconventional way, they succeed in showing that queer‑ness and, more generally, the Otherness should be highly appreciated and valued.
Keywords
adaptation; American Gothic; children's and young adult film; children's and young adult literature; Eli Roth; gender studies; Gothic fiction; John Bellairs; Lewis Barnavelt; queer theory; The House with a Clock in Its Walls; horror
Supporting Agencies
The article was written during the author’s stay in Munich at the International Youth Library (Internationale Jugendbibliothek) as part of the fellowship programme funded by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany.
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University of Warsaw, Warsaw Public Library – Central Library of Mazovia Province Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0299-3515
Maciej Skowera – MA, prepares a doctoral dissertation at the Institute of Polish Literature of the Faculty of Polish Studies at the University of Warsaw (Poland) on the presence of Lewis Carroll’s Alice duology, L. Frank Baum’s Oz series, and J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan works in the cultural imaginarium. He works at the Museum of Children’s Books in Warsaw. Contact: maciej.skowera@koszykowa.pl.
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