‘I’m Trying to Figure out if I’m Crazy or Not’: Mental illness and Gothic Parody in the Domestic Noir Miniseries The Woman in the House across the Street from the Girl in the Window
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6092/issn.2421-454X/19698Keywords:
Domestic noir, gothic parody, mental illness, unreliable narrator, genreAbstract
This article examines the domestic noir miniseries The Woman In The House Across The Street From The Girl In The Window (2022), in which Anna is struggling to cope after her daughter’s murder. She turns to alcohol and medication, often mixing the two, to help her through PTSD, hallucinations and ombrophobia (an intense fear of rain). However, it is the investigation of a woman’s murder she observes from her window that catapults Anna out of her self-destructive routine and into action, not only investigating what happened across the road but also in her own life. The show expressively evokes many popular domestic noir narratives, and their tropes, most notably representations of women’s mental illness. This article will outline how mental illness is used to construct the mystery plot through incomplete or missing memories, proximity to the main character’s unreliable narration and the character’s potential culpability for the crimes they investigate. I will focus on how TWITHATSFTGITW incorporates Gothic imagery and strategies to represent mental illness, focusing specifically on female anxieties and madness. Through genre recognition and parody of popular domestic noir narratives, tropes and storylines, this article argues that the miniseries interrogates the representation of genre conventions, stereotyped representations of mental illness and coping mechanisms. This allows audiences to gain insight into the heroine’s perspective and trauma, while at the same time creates distance to her.
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TV shows
Behind Her Eyes (2021)
The Woman in the House across the Street from the Girl in the Window (2022)
You (2018- present)
Films
Rebecca (1940)
Gaslight (1944)
Fatal Attraction (1987)
The Woman in the Window (2021)
Books
Gone Girl (2012)
Into the Darkest Corner (2011)
Jane Eyre (1847)
The Girl on the Train (2015)
The Woman in the Window (2018)
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