FLOATING IN THIS OCEAN OF NOTHING: WOMEN IN DARK WATERS IN MIKE FLANAGAN’S THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR

Resumen

ABSTRACT: This article reads Mike Flanagan’s 2020 series, The Haunting of Bly Manor, through the lens of the dark waters of the lake at the centre of the narrative. Through textual analyses of The Haunting of Bly Manor supported by Gaston Bachelard’s notions of “dead waters” and underwater “substance-space” as well as Julia Kristeva’s seminal study of the corpse as the quintessential form of abjection, this study demonstrates the ways in which Bly’s lake crystallises the haunting mechanics of the series by attracting and harbouring death in its boundless and unfathomable depths. In particular, the dark waters of the lake engulf women defying the rules of the heteronormative, upper-class society in which they exist, leaving them stagnant in abject waters.