Lecture 14 Single White Female (Schroeder, 1992)

- Mirroring/doubling between women

- What are the implications for:
o The classic gothic heroine as hysteric and
o The gothic permeability of borders
When the Women Looks
- to see is to desire
- the female look shares the make fear of the monsters freakishness, but also recognises the
sense in which this freakishness is similar to her own difference
- From the patriarchal perspective there is not that much difference between an object of
desire and an object of horror
- the womens look at the monster offeres at least a potentially subversive recognition of the
power and potency of non-phallic sexuality
- The womens look is a sort of mirroring
o A form of mirroring between the women and the monster
- Not that much difference between objects of desire and horror
o Jekyll and Hyde
Women + Gothic
- Traditionally, the gothic has been distilled to the women plus habitation i.e a haunted
house with a women being terrorised
- Habitation fixation
- Not a division that follows a Madonna-whore format. Division between women rather seen
as the external representation of the victim-wifes internal battle. Twinned or double female
protagonists, thinking less about strict moral divisions between good and bad. The
psychopath version is the external representation of the victim protagonists preference
- Modernised habitation for the gothic women in the film. The haunted house has to give us
architecturally different levels. Multiple spaces that work on different levels. Tripartite
structure in the film, level where Allie lives, Graham upstairs and the cellar downstairs.
Monster no longer an external presence, monstrosity or evil within. Female gothic focusing
on the evil within.
Hedy as hysteric
- Allie as protagonist and victim. Hedy suffering from repressed reminisces. Memory of the
drowning of her twin sister.
- The repressed memory is replayed through and with her own body
- Bodily symptoms or hieroglyphics of her lost sister: using cosmetics, hairstyle, clothing,
shoes to recreate herself as Allys twin
o Her body can be reshaped and reconditioned
o Wanting to be Allys twin becomes wanting to be Allie.
- Lots of water shots shower scenes, bathroom scenes etc
- Beginning and what should be the end of Hedi and Allies relationship is marked with water

Mirrors
- Very first shot shows that we have to pay attention to mirrors in the film
- One girl turns to two turns to four
- Hedy emerges in the mirror as though materialised from Allys psyche
- Hedy as symptom of Allies fear of being alone
o swf seeks same
- Double turns into couple
- Hedy appears as a figment of Allies misery as an out of focus pair of legs
- Hedy materialises in the mirror as almost as a part of Allies psyche
- Allie needs to be in a double mirror relationship in order to exist
- Allie needs to go through Hedy in order to access herself
- But Hedy is the symptom, Allie is the ultimate hysteric
SWF resituates the womens relationship as the key element of interest by merging their
identities and disintegrating the boundaries between the heroine and her female foil (Jermyn, 264)
The abject is all those things which threaten societys established boundaries, disturbing order or
identity
Which is the monster? Film ends with the death of Hedy at Allies hands, who becomes a revenant.
Allie is the monster who is left standing.