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Ripping yarns: the narrative creation of Jack the Ripper

University of British Columbia

In recent years, much critical attention has focused on the impact of the serial killer figure on such established literary genres as detective and gothic fiction. The present study reverses this mode of inquiry by looking at the effect of modernist and postmodernist narrative in shaping the cultural construction of archetypal serial murderer Jack the Ripper. Texts discussed include The Whitechapel Murders Papers (1889), Adelaide Belloc-Lowndes' The Lodger (1913), Iain Sinclair's White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings (1987) and Charles Palliser's Betrayals (1994). Of specific concern is the way in which the aesthetic co-option of serial murder has continually worked to obscure and depoliticize its gendered nature. The study closes by suggesting ways in which the wrongs of the Ripper might be re-written in order to produce a less misogynist and exotic conception of multiple murder.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-03-10

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/5856

English

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace