Abstract
Within the Gothic, nails and hair are exaggerated and are associated with isolation, the living dead and beastly humans. Long or sharp fingernails and wild and unkempt hair can suggest that a person is unstable and savage. This chapter explores possessed hair in the film Gabal (The Wig, 2005). Uncontrolled hair growth and hair in unfamiliar places is discussed in the films Uzumaki (2000) and Ekusute (Exte: Hair Extensions, 2007). The horror of cut hair is part of a focus on the novel Hair Raiser (2001). Bestial hair is addressed in the short film Kitchen Sink (1989) and Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971). Monstrousness and long fingernails are examined in the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, and the work of director José Mojica Marins.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsBibliography
Arata, Stephen (2009), Fictions of Loss in the Victorian Fin de Siècle: Identity and Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Byrne, James (2014), ‘Wigs and Rings: Cross Cultural Exchange in South Korean and Japanese Horror Film’, Journal of Japanese and Korean Cinema, 6: 2, pp. 184–201.
Conrich, Ian (1997), ‘Seducing the Subject: Freddy Krueger, Popular Culture and the Nightmare on Elm Street Films’, in Deborah Cartmell, I.Q. Hunter, Heidi Kaye and Imelda Whelehan (eds), Trash Aesthetics: Popular Culture and Its Audience, London: Pluto Press.
Conrich, Ian (2010), ‘Gothic Bodies and the Return of the Repressed: The Korean Horror Films of Ahn Byeong-ki’, Gothic Studies, 12: 1, pp. 106–115.
Darwin, Charles (1859), On the Origin of Species, London: John Murray.
Derleth, August (1959), ‘The Shuttered Room’, in August Derleth (ed.), The Shuttered Room and Other Pieces, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House.
Felton, Debbie (2017), ‘Witches, Disgust, and Anti-abortion Propaganda in Imperial Rome’, in Donald Lateiner and Dimos Spatharas (eds), The Ancient Emotion of Disgust, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Frayling, Christopher (2014), The Yellow Peril: Dr Fu Manchu & the Rise of Chinaphobia, London: Thames & Hudson.
Hearn, Lafcadio (1900), ‘The Reconciliation’, in Shadowings, Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company.
Hjortsberg, William (1978), Falling Angel, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Hoffmann, Heinrich (2010 [1845]), Struwwelpeter or Pretty Stories and Funny Pictures, London: Pavilion Children’s Books.
Lesnik-Oberstein, Karín (2006), ‘The last taboo: women, body hair and feminism’, in Karín Lesnik-Oberstein (ed.), The Last Taboo: Women and Body Hair, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Masterton, Graham (2001), Hair Raiser, London: Scholastic.
Neal, Arthur G. (1985), ‘Animism and Totemism in Popular Culture’, Journal of Popular Culture, 19: 2, pp. 15–24.
Poe, Edgar Allan (1960 [1839]), ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, in The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales, New York: Signet.
Poe, Edgar Allan (2008 [1844]), ‘The Premature Burial’, in Tales of Mystery and Imagination, Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions.
Rohmer, Sax (2007a [1913]), The Insidious Dr. Fu-Manchu, Charleston, SC: BiblioBazaar.
Rohmer, Sax (2007b [1917]), The Hand of Fu-Manchu: Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, Charleston, SC: BiblioBazaar.
Rohter, Larry (2011), ‘A Cult Figure Conjures the Macabre’, New York Times, 19 October, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/movies/jose-mojica-marins-brazilian-filmmaker-conjures-macabre.html, accessed 10 August 2016.
Salisbury, Joyce E. (1997), ‘Human Beasts and Bestial Humans in the Middle Ages’, in Jennifer Ham and Matthew Senior (eds), Animal Acts: Configuring the Human in Western History, London: Routledge.
Short, Sue (2006), Misfit Sisters: Screen Horror as Female Rites of Passage, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Stevenson, R.L. (1999 [1886]), Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde with The Merry Men & Other Stories, Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions.
Stoker, Bram (2000 [1897]), Dracula, Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions.
Taylor, Anthony (2011), ‘“And I am the God of Destruction!”: Fu Manchu and the Construction of Asiatic Evil in the Novels of Arthur Sarsfield Ward, 1912–1939’, in Tom Crook, Rebecca Gill and Bertrand Taithe (eds), Evil, Barbarism and Empire: Britain and Abroad, c. 1830–2000, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Warner, Marina (1995), From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers, London: Vintage.
Wells, H.G. (1896), The Island of Dr Moreau, London: Heinemann, Stone & Kimball.
Wilde, Oscar (1890), The Picture of Dorian Gray, Philadelphia: Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine.
Winsby, Mira Bai (2006), ‘Into the Spiral: A Conversation with Japanese Horror Maestro Junji Ito’, trans. Miyako Takano, 78 Magazine (February–March), http://www.78magazine.com/issues/03-01/arts/junji.shtml, accessed 9 August 2016.
Zola, Émile (2009 [1884]), ‘The Death of Oliver Becaille’, North Charleston, SC: Booksurge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Copyright information
© 2017 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Conrich, I., Sedgwick, L. (2017). Hair and Fingernails. In: Gothic Dissections in Film and Literature. Palgrave Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-30358-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-30358-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-30357-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-30358-5
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)