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@article{198943,
        author = {Ms Neha Tehlan},
        title = {Fragmented Selves and Haunted Minds: A Psychoanalytic Reading of Shirley Jackson’s Hangsaman},
        journal = {International Journal of Innovative Research in Technology},
        year = {2026},
        volume = {12},
        number = {11},
        pages = {13071-13082},
        issn = {2349-6002},
        url = {https://ijirt.org/article?manuscript=198943},
        abstract = {Hangsaman (1951) by Shirley Jackson emphasizes the rewrite of Gothic horror as it goes inward, revealing the vexed psyche through internal terror portrayed by turning its Gothic horror into an internal phenomenon. This essay uses psychoanalytic horror to discuss Hangsaman with references to the theories of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Jacques Lacan in terms of how Jackson creates fear by repressing, doubling, and ambiguity of the narrative. This paper insists that the protagonist, Natalie Waite, of the study by Jackson, is about to experience identity breaking that is brought about by internalizing a patriarchal authority and repressing the creative instinct. Her delusional experience and her association with her own duplicate Tony demonstrate how the unconscious works, the reemergence of repressed desires, the projection of the shadow self, and the disintegration of the ego. Combining Freudian repression, Jungian shadow theory, and Lacanian misrecognition, Jackson places horror by focusing on the organization of the mind rather than that of the outside world. The lack of clarity and the stylistic fragmentation of the novel recreate the rhythms of the unconscious, and Hangsaman is not just a story about madness but a symbolic critique of repression based on gender. The paper will ultimately argue that the vision of horror Jackson had reveals the gothic architecture of the self, where the borderline between the imagination and identity is forever erased, and the psyche itself is the most horrifying topography of all.},
        keywords = {Shirley Jackson; Hangsaman; Psychoanalytic Horror; The Uncanny; Doubling},
        month = {April},
        }