[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-139798-en":3,"doc-seo-139798-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":11,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":27,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},139798,34359740700684,"Finn","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/1f400023980c374ae676?_k=1777273430885731487",2,"Literature","The Uncanny Afterlife of Dolls - Reconfiguring Personhood through Object Vivification in Gothic Film","This article investigates how the non-person, in/animate body functions in Gothic cinema, using human-like dolls to examine narrative and aesthetic discourses about hollowness and life. Dolls create a frightening tension between stasis and unwanted motion, operating as liminal symbols that shape identity and personhood. By undermining normal subject-object relations, Gothic things destabilize boundaries between life and death and sanity and insanity, revealing irrational attitudes toward existence and consciousness.","The Uncanny Afterlife of Dolls: Reconfiguring Personhood through Object Vivification in Gothic Film  \nby Joana Rita Ramalho  \nArticle DOI: [https://doi.org/10.18573/sgf.33](https://doi.org/10.18573/sgf.33)  \nCopyright  Joana Rita Ramalho 2020 ISSN: 2156-2407  \nThis work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. To view a copy of this licence, visit [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)  \nStudies in Gothic Fiction • Volume 6 Issue 2 • 2020 ©  28  \nArticles  \nThe Uncanny Afterlife of Dolls: Reconfiguring Personhood through Object Vivification in Gothic Film  \nArticle DOI: [https://doi.org/10.18573/sgf.33](https://doi.org/10.18573/sgf.33)  \nJoana Rita Ramalho  \nAbstract  \nThis article proposes an investigation of the ways in which the figure of the non-person in/animate body operates in Gothic cinema. It will focus on human-like objects, specifically dolls, in order to investigate the key narrative and aesthetic discourses they facilitate regarding hollowness and life. These entities establish a frightening dynamic between stasis and real or imagined (yet always unwanted) movement. In the process, they become haunting symbols of liminality that articulate particular ideas about identity and personhood, while also stressing the permeable boundaries between self and other. Gothic things undermine the normal subject-object relation and thus continually destabilize the demarcations between life and death or sanity and insanity. In so doing, they furthermore expose an irrational attitude towards existence and consciousness. Using an object-oriented approach that draws on Elaine Freedgood’s and Bill Brown’s thing theory, I explore the disruptive tendencies that in/animate agents foster in such films as Maria Lease’s Dolly Dearest (1991), Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake is Missing (1965), and Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). I will focus on these case studies to examine the manner in which Gothic dolls activate uncanniness to represent subjectivity in crisis. In analyzing the figure of the doll to investigate the uneasy relationship between human beingsand human-like things, this paper contributes to the growing interest surrounding the role of objects in Gothic cinema.  \nKeywords:  \nDolls; Gothic film; vivification; objects and things; personhood; human likeness  \nFrom its inception as a fiction mode, the Gothic has played on our greatest fears but also on our greatest hopes and fantasies. One such fear – and one such hope – relates to our eagerness to invest dead things with life. Over the years, many film narratives have explored this fearful desire and melded magic and murder, the marvelous and the melodramatic, conventionality and preternatural subversion. The artificially or supernaturally animated quickly became a recognizable trope in the Gothic and horror imagination, where inert things are often literally – or seemingly – vivified by being ascribed properties of the human. Each of the films I will be analyzing more closely represents a different approach to the image of the doll. The object’s haunting stillness in Bunny Lake, for instance, contrasts with its unexpected and diabolical movement in the low-budget horror flick, Dolly Dearest. In turn, the anonymous face of the doll in these two productions is opposed to the unbearable likeness of the Baby Jane doll and the protagonist of Aldrich’s film.  \nGothic literary and visual (including cinematic) culture has relied on the vivification of still objects as a means to expose and explore the powerful excesses that lie beneath the surface of  \nthe apparently organized, constant, controlled, and controlling socio-political parameters that rule everyday life. Literary works are outside the scope of this article, but it is pertinent to emphasize the pervasiveness of the doll motif in a plethora of Gothic texts, such as E. T. A. Hoffmann’s “The Sandman” (1816), Fitz-James O’","cbCaiduxRpfS6XoX","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiduxRpfS6XoX","pdf",581558,1,12,"English","en",105,"# Abstract\n## Object vivification and liminality\n## Undermining subject-object relations\n## Case studies in Gothic cinema","[{\"question\":\"What central focus does the article place on dolls in Gothic cinema?\",\"answer\":\"It analyzes how human-like dolls operate as in/animate non-person bodies that generate narrative and aesthetic meanings about hollowness, life, and liminality.\"},{\"question\":\"How do Gothic dolls destabilize concepts of identity and personhood?\",\"answer\":\"By disrupting subject-object relations, the dolls blur boundaries between self and other and unsettle divisions between life and death as well as sanity and insanity.\"},{\"question\":\"Which films are used as case studies to examine uncanniness and personhood?\",\"answer\":\"The article focuses on Maria Lease’s Dolly Dearest (1991), Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake is Missing (1965), and Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962).\"}]","The Uncanny Afterlife of Dolls - Reconfiguring Personhood through Object Vivification in Gothic Film | PDF",1787562531,18,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":28},"the-uncanny-afterlife-of-dolls-reconfiguring-personhood-through-object-vivification-in-gothic-film","",{"@graph":36,"@context":85},[37,53,68],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,47,50],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-uncanny-afterlife-of-dolls-reconfiguring-personhood-through-object-vivification-in-gothic-film/139798/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":41,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-09-04","2026-08-24",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":11},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What central focus does the article place on dolls in Gothic cinema?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"It analyzes how human-like dolls operate as in/animate non-person bodies that generate narrative and aesthetic meanings about hollowness, life, and liminality.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"How do Gothic dolls destabilize concepts of identity and personhood?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"By disrupting subject-object relations, the dolls blur boundaries between self and other and unsettle divisions between life and death as well as sanity and insanity.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"Which films are used as case studies to examine uncanniness and personhood?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"The article focuses on Maria Lease’s Dolly Dearest (1991), Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake is Missing (1965), and Robert Aldrich’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? 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