Identity Unbound: Gothic Themes and Posthuman Perspectives in Catherine Lacey's Pew

Muñoz-González, Esther (Universidad de Zaragoza)

Resumen: In Catherine Lacey's Pew (2020), a congregation in an unnamed town in the American South, discovers a mysterious figure—Pew—sleeping on a pew. Pew's gender, age, and racial identity are indistinguishable, and as the townspeople grapple with Pew's identity, they disclose their worries and confidences in monological conversations with Pew, as the latter remains silent. This paper aims to examine the intersection of Gothic and Posthuman themes that portray Pew as an outsider whose silence disrupts the community's social cohesion. Pew's silence reveals how the absence of language can provoke both intrigue and fear as it destabilizes the community bonds and boundaries that language typically reinforces. Pew can be understood as a posthuman figure whose fluid and undefinable selfhood challenges normative concepts of identity definition and reveals contemporary fears of otherness linked to concepts such as queer identities, trust, innocence, and transparency.

Idioma: Inglés

DOI: 10.1353/arq.2025.a955962

Año: 2025

Publicado en: Arizona Quarterly 81, 1 (2025), 31-55
ISSN: 0004-1610

Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA-FSE/H03-23R
Financiación: info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/PID2022-137627NB-I00

Tipo y forma: Article (Published version)

Área (Departamento): Área Filología Inglesa (Dpto. Filolog.Inglesa y Alema.)