Domesticity and Uncanny Kitsch - in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and Frankenstein

Aug 26, 2026

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The essay examines how domesticity functions as an uncanny, repressed presence in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It argues that the home is structurally marginal in both works and becomes threatened by the monstrous. Drawing on Freud’s theory of the Unheimliche and the concept of heimlich/heimlichkeit, the analysis links feminine domesticity to kitsch as an “inauthentic” double of serious art. It proposes that repression leaves traces inside the texts.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages17

Reading Time26 min

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Domesticity and the Unheimlich

Marginalizing the home in both works

Repression and the return as kitsch

Kitsch, authenticity, and gender

Heimlichkeit, femininity, and concealment

Domesticity and Uncanny Kitsch in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"andFrankenstein ⑧ Sarah Webster Goodwin Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature,Vol.10,No.1,Redefining Marginality.(Spring,1991),pp.93-108. Stable URL: http://links.istor.org/sici?sici=0732-7730%28199121%2910%3A1%3C93%3ADAUKI%22%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8 Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature is currently published by University of Tulsa. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use,available at http://www.jstor.org/about/terms.html.JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides,in part,that unless you have obtainedprior permission,you may not download an entire issue of ajournal or multiple copies of articles,and you may use content inthe JSTOR archive only for your personal,non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work.Publisher contact information may be obtained athttp://www.jstor.org/journals/tulsa.html. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission. The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academicjournals and scholarly literature from around the world.The Archive is supported by libraries,scholarly societies,publishers,and foundations.It is an initiative of JSTOR,a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community takeadvantage of advances in technology.For more information regarding JSTOR,please contact support @jstor.org. # Domesticity and Uncanny Kitsch in“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”and Frankenstein Sarah Webster GoodwinSkidmore College What is being repressed here is...the possibility that for women as well as formen the home can be the very site of the unheimlich. (Barbara Johnson,"My Monster/My Self")¹ Domesticity is not exactly what comes to mind when you read eitherFrankenstein or “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”These are not worksabout Gemütlichkeit,plenitude,the pleasures of the hearth.If we are to lookfor domesticity in them,we have to turn to the margins.“The Rime of theAncient Mariner"literally marginalizes the home,embodied in the weddingthat frames the poem and whose domesticized bowers and maidens areapparently antithetical to everything in the mariner's tale.Frankensteinmight be said to invert that structure since it opens and closes on an oceanvoyage with a narrator who explicitly refers to Coleridge's poem as a guidinginfluence;and all three of the novel's most climactic moments occur whenthe monster enters a home and destroys it-one of them on Frankenstein'swedding night.Thus the structural inversion is really a mirror image:inboth works domesticity is marginal,threatened,seemingly inadequate tothe powers informing the central acts and mysteries that are narrated. Both of these works,however,have long been read as allegories of"thereturn of the repressed.”I put the phrase in quotation marks because it issuch a creepy cliche,on a par with “The Night of the Living Dead”:Your pastwill come back to haunt you.The return of the repressed is cliché:represented,it becomes kitsch,perhaps nowhere more than in the infinitely repeatedpersona of Frankenstein as monster.These works repress domesticity,andthe monstrous arises from that repression.Departing from Freud's theory ofthe uncanny,das Unheimliche,in which Freud shows that the uncannyembraces both meanings of heimlich-the secret and the familiar-I want toreconsider the secret affinity between the domestic and the monstrous.2 Inthese works,feminine domesticity is closely aligned with kitsch,that un-canny monster that is both marginal to art and its mirror image.3 Kitsch eludes easy definition;it is a term that not only censures a would-be art object,but also locates the work within a certain kind of relation to art.That relation has several dimensions in the evolution of kitsch as a crit

FAQs

How does the home function in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and Frankenstein?

In both works, domesticity is placed at the margins. The poem’s wedding frame domesticizes bowers and maidens while the mariner’s tale undermines them, and Frankenstein’s climactic moments repeatedly occur when the monster enters and destroys a home.

What role does the idea of “the return of the repressed” play here?

The essay treats “the return of the repressed” as a familiar cliché, then reframes it: repression of domesticity becomes associated with kitsch and resurfaces through monstrous forms, especially in the repeated persona of Frankenstein’s monster.

How does Freud’s concept of heimlich and the Unheimliche connect to kitsch and gender?

Using Freud’s discussion of heimlich (the secret and the familiar/home) and the feminine “housewife” example, the essay links domestic care to heimlichkeit and concealment. It then argues that feminine domesticity aligns with kitsch, which is marginalized as an uncanny double of “high” art.

Aug 26, 2026

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