Abstract
Throughout the Stranger Things series, Eleven’s telekinetic monster-fighting abilities incessantly establish her as the girl who
everyone wants on their side. The way she is closely shot on camera and the fact that nearly every other character seeks her help or companionship establishes her as the continual subject of desire— a figure that is present in many Gothic texts. In this essay, I wish to present a brief genealogy of that figure: Lucy in Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Miles in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw are two examples of early figures whose depictions suggest that Gothic genre relies on and deploys women and children as figures around which other characters’, and the reader’s, desire can coalesce.
Recommended Citation
Domenicis, Heather
(2019)
"Eleven: The Bitchin' Subject of Desire in Stranger Things,"
The Criterion: Vol. 2019, Article 5.
Available at:
https://crossworks.holycross.edu/criterion/vol2019/iss1/5
Included in
Comparative Literature Commons, English Language and Literature Commons, Rhetoric and Composition Commons