TERRIFYING TRANSFORMATIONS: ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON’S "THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE," FRANZ KAFKA’S "THE METAMORPHOSIS," AND STEPHEN KING’S "THINNER" (1984)

This in-person course, which serves as an introduction to Professor Fahy’s October “Frick Fright Fest,” will focus on the theme of transformation in horror fiction. Whether one turns into a wolf, a vampire, or some other creature, transformation often gets used as a metaphor for the human capacity for evil and harm. Through Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Franz Kafka’s masterful short story The Metamorphosis (1915), and Stephen King’s Thinner (1984), we will explore the role of disability, food, and sexuality in horror. How do these works use the changing body to comment on our anxieties? What warnings do they offer about the dangers of unchecked desires and appetites? What do these excesses say about Western culture in particular? And how do these narratives comment on cultural prejudices about disability and fatness?