"For terror of the deadness beyond": arctic environments and inhuman ecologies in Michelle Paver’s "Dark matter"

• Main Author: Merola, Nicole M.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad de Alcalá 2014
• Subjects: Arctic; Ecophobia; Ghost story; Gothic; Resource extraction; Violence; Ártico; Ecofobia; Historia de fantasmas; Gótico; La extracción de recursos; La violencia; Literatura; Medio ambiente; Literature; Environmental science; Svalbard; Ballenas; Larga; Focas; walrus*
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10017/20860

In this essay I examine Michelle Paver’s 2010 novel "Dark Matter", a ghost story, for how her use of the gothic and horror contributes to undermining pastoral and romantic fantasies about the Arctic. Drawing on the history of whale, walrus, and seal hunting in Svalbard, the site of the nov...