Abhuman

Abhuman, distinguished from inhuman, is a term used by William Hope Hodgson in his novel "The Night Land" and his Carnacki stories. [Claire Valier, [http://books.google.com/books?id=tKqDnulJqDsC&pg=PT131&dq=abhuman&lr=&ei=VU-sSIu9OInKjgHK3f2IAg&sig=ACfU3U38DkT_BpRIb1Ci3HScmLFL_kLsjQ "Crime and Punishment in Contemporary Culture"] page 121 (Routledge, 2004), .] [Kelly Hurley, "The Gothic Body: Sexuality, Materialism, and Degeneration at the Fin de Siècle" (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 168.] [Roger Luckhurst, [http://books.google.com/books?id=OB4-aURw_IoC&pg=PA188&dq=Abhuman+Carnacki&ei=N02sSIPmKqXKjgHvsuj6BA&sig=ACfU3U2sLQQEipuj9vWwRVWsyu-6kvWl9w "The Invention of Telepathy: 1870-1901"] page 188 (Oxford University Press, 2002).] Abhumans also appear in the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, Rudyard Kipling, and Bram Stoker among other notable modernist American and British authors. [Jerrold E. Hogle, [http://books.google.com/books?id=dBk-mKcKGvMC&pg=PA190&dq=Abhuman&ei=4n2rSPmmKo-2iwGnyvDgCw&sig=ACfU3U3xayGWtE0Hw70GDMt-CyG18s9VWQ#PPA190,M1 "The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction"] page 190 (Cambridge University Press, 2002).]

Description

In Gothic fiction, abhuman refers to a "Gothic body" or something that is only vestigially human and possibly in the process of becoming something monstrous, [Jerrold E. Hogle, [http://books.google.com/books?id=dBk-mKcKGvMC&pg=PA190&dq=Abhuman&ei=4n2rSPmmKo-2iwGnyvDgCw&sig=ACfU3U3xayGWtE0Hw70GDMt-CyG18s9VWQ#PPA190,M1 "The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction"] page 190 (Cambridge University Press, 2002).] such as a vampire [Peter Day, [http://books.google.com/books?id=kbpBPFhEVPMC&pg=PA22&dq=Abhuman&ei=4n2rSPmmKo-2iwGnyvDgCw&sig=ACfU3U1lFERAvQqRRS6hzSDeNbwNkcZk2A "Vampires: Myths and Metaphors of Enduring Evil"] page 22 (Rodopi, 2006).] or werewolf. [Chantal Bourgault Du Coudray, [http://books.google.com/books?id=NjXpBpGt6VsC&pg=PA132&dq=Abhuman&ei=4n2rSPmmKo-2iwGnyvDgCw&sig=ACfU3U2TUxEl5-sNCPDw9ckK-jAdrlpn3g "The Curse of the Werewolf: Fantasy, Horror and the Beast Within"] page 132 (I.B.Tauris, 2006).] Kelly Hurley writes that the "abhuman subject is a not-quite-human subject, characterized by its morphic variability, continually in danger of becoming not-itself, becoming other." [Kelly Hurley, "The Gothic Body: Sexuality, Materialism, and Degeneration at the Fin de Siècle" (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 3. This quotation also appears in Robert Eaglestone, [http://books.google.com/books?id=dmu9G8oU3oQC&pg=PA55&dq=Abhuman&ei=qEmsSLD4DJ7SigG5oO3gCw&sig=ACfU3U20A_54hWFao_W9pDP6Ck-SvSI3fA#PPA55,M1 "Reading The Lord of the Rings: New Writings on Tolkien's Classic"] page 55 (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2006).]

Creation of concept

Hurley developed her "concept of the abhuman...on the basis of Kristeva's notion of abjection." [Konstanze Kutzbach and Monika Mueller, [http://books.google.com/books?id=dZIexlhC5aoC&pg=PA153&dq=Abhuman&ei=qEmsSLD4DJ7SigG5oO3gCw&sig=ACfU3U1V3DvD8KH7FPQMA6CGfsGUlAn0ig "The Abject of Desire: The Aestheticization of the Unaesthetic in Contemporary Literature and Culture"] page 153 (Rodopi, 2007).] Hurley argues "that through depicting the abhuman," the Gothic genre "reaffirms and reconstructs human identity at the point at which it is dissolved." [Ian Conrich and David Woods, [http://books.google.com/books?id=luhZyiXodCUC&pg=PA84&dq=abhuman&lr=&ei=VU-sSIu9OInKjgHK3f2IAg&sig=ACfU3U0PYU0_KHfiYqyyoXu7M23ffZNCiQ "The Cinema of John Carpenter: The Technique of Terror"] page 84 (Wallflower Press, 2005).] Allan Lloyd Smith writes that among "the sources of abhuman Gothic horror for many writers at this time were the urban squalor and misery of overcrowded cities..." [Allan Lloyd Smith, [http://books.google.com/books?id=ispjxUdq-pwC&pg=PA114&dq=abhuman&lr=&ei=402sSM-XLozaigGsqaD7BA&sig=ACfU3U3bRu-FM23-kZp2bgAlM8GDGvgxAw#PPA114,M1 "American Gothic Fiction: An Introduction"] page 114 (Continuum International Publishing Group, 2004).]

References