The two films Rebecca (1940) and Rosemary’s Baby (1968) are based on a newlywed marriage transforming from bliss into terror, depicting their marriage between the two as a gothic space. While set in different time periods, both films engage with the primary feature of gothic fictions: the expression of concerns over modernity and the rapidly changing culture. In the instance of both these films, the concerns over domestic life and the change within the main protagonist 's lives are what allow gothic instances to occur within their marriages.
While these two films seem vastly different from each other in terms of setting, plot and troubles, both films make explicit use of gothic features such as the naïve young heroine, the sprawling house and supernatural and uncanny events (Fischer 1992, p. 6). Following the idea that woman are more aware of the supernatural, both women within these films allow their awareness of the supernatural to overwhelm their doubts and therefore their marriages. While in Rosemary’s Baby the …show more content…
Within Rebecca, the young Mrs de Winters consistently assumes that Maxim was so in love with Rebecca, that she could never live up to her expectations and therefore believed that her new husband could never truly love her (Waldman 1984, p. 31). This transforms the marriage between the couple into a gothic space as the second wife allows her anxieties to create a tension over whether her new husband loves her or not. However, Rosemary’s Baby depicts modern anxieties differently. While there is a noticeable space between the two partners throughout the film, instead of the focus on the marriage or a past being like Rebecca, Rosemary’s Baby addresses ideas of anxieties around pregnancy and internal change (Valerius, p.
While these two films seem vastly different from each other in terms of setting, plot and troubles, both films make explicit use of gothic features such as the naïve young heroine, the sprawling house and supernatural and uncanny events (Fischer 1992, p. 6). Following the idea that woman are more aware of the supernatural, both women within these films allow their awareness of the supernatural to overwhelm their doubts and therefore their marriages. While in Rosemary’s Baby the …show more content…
Within Rebecca, the young Mrs de Winters consistently assumes that Maxim was so in love with Rebecca, that she could never live up to her expectations and therefore believed that her new husband could never truly love her (Waldman 1984, p. 31). This transforms the marriage between the couple into a gothic space as the second wife allows her anxieties to create a tension over whether her new husband loves her or not. However, Rosemary’s Baby depicts modern anxieties differently. While there is a noticeable space between the two partners throughout the film, instead of the focus on the marriage or a past being like Rebecca, Rosemary’s Baby addresses ideas of anxieties around pregnancy and internal change (Valerius, p.