Women In the Cut of Danger: Female Subjectivity, Unregimented Masculinity and the Pleasure/Danger Symbiosis from the Gothic Romance to the Erotic Thriller

Abstract

Abstract: Through a comparison between Daphne du Maurier's 1938 novel Rebecca and Susanna Moore's 1995 novel In the Cut, this article considers the extent to which Franco Moretti's theory of the inevitable dissolution of literary genres is true, with specific regard to the genre of the gothic romance. In evaluating both novels' treatment of female subjectivity, unregimented masculinity and the symbiotic relationship between sexual pleasure and mortal danger, this article investigates the degree to which a contemporary novel such as In the Cut, which is generally acknowledged to be an ‘erotic thriller’, is heavily indebted to the gothic romance and may therefore be interpreted as a continuation of this more traditional genre, and, conversely, the means through which Moore's novel exhibits an overt and defiant resistance to the gothic romance, thereby signifying the dissolution of this particular genre within twentieth-century women's writing.

Keywords:

• genre
• genre dissolution
• gothic romance
• erotic thriller
• Daphne du Maurier
• Susanna Moore
• female identity
• masculinity
• pleasure
• danger

Notes

¹Specifically, I am referring to Susan Hill's Mrs de Winter (1993), Maureen Freely's The Other Rebecca (1996) and Sally Beauman's Rebecca's Tale (2001).

²My phrasing of ‘girl’ before ‘boy’ is deliberate as the romance plot is a highly gendered narrative arc which is most typically associated with the representation of the feminine experience of a heterosexual relationship.

³Some have argued that, in recent years, the gothic romance has experienced a prolific resurgence in the guise of vampire romances—a publishing phenomenon epitomized by the astonishing success of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series (2005–10). It is my contention, however, that whilst novels of this kind do exhibit the innocent girl/dangerous man binary characteristic of the gothic romance, their overt use of the supernatural situates them far greater in the tradition of gothic horror, rather than as the descendents of the gothic romance, which are essentially works of terror.

⁴For example, the novel is referred to as an ‘erotic thriller’ in an excerpt by Publishers Weekly reproduced on an unnumbered page in the front of the 2003 film tie-in edition, and in an excerpt by the New York Times Book Review reproduced on the front cover of the 1999 paperback edition (both published by Plume).

⁵Indeed, Frannie's best friend Pauline is painfully murdered by the killer in her very own apartment.