WHEN A HOME TURNS HOSTILE: The Haunted House Causing Queer Trauma in Alison Rumfitt’s Tell Me I’m Worthless

Abstract

A house plays a significant part in most people’s lives and has in some literary works established itself as its own character. Additionally, the haunted house depicted within the gothic genre can often be viewed as a representation of a society plagued by systematically queerphobic ideals. Thus, by using a theoretical framework incorporating queer trauma, gothicism, queer phenomenology as well as the architectural uncanny, this essay aims to liken the haunted house within Alison Rumfitt’s Tell Me I’m Worthless to a society possessed by systematically ingrained ideals acting as grounds for violence. The findings suggest the novel does indeed use the haunted house to represent a society consistently targeting queerness, intermingled with an accumulation of directed violence towards other, intersectional groups of marginalized people. Furthermore, the findings show how the systematically violent society sometimes becomes a mirror, which reveals how such offences affects everyone, even those considering themselves progressive and inclusive of all.