Pursuits of the body: Sensory realities in Clive Barker’s The Hellbound Heart

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores how corporeality is represented within horror literature, and if the depicted corporeality can be read in a more material way rather than in a metaphorical way. By using the character of Frank from Clive Barker’s novel The Hellbound Heart, the relation between representations of corporeality and physical materiality is examined. Performative new materialism has been chosen as this thesis’s theoretical framework, making the connections between language and materiality also connected with studies in quantum physics as well as with queer- and feminist studies. In using this methodology this thesis aims to bring forth sensory realities as they are expressed linguistically, so that their bodily connection may be explained. According to the analysis, the physicality of the antagonist Frank in most cases agrees with existing theories within performative new materialism. Barker uses all of Frank’s senses to vividly explain the reality depicted in the novel, connecting Frank’s textual corporeality with physical experiences. The connection between corporeality and language suggests that even though the text may give rise to material effects, the sensory realities depicted are still rendered within language. The genre of horror, however, may share a more “bodily” bond between the text and the reader since its ambition lies in visceral reactions.