“A Dense and Maddening Dream”: Horror and Domesticity in the Stories of Amparo Davila

Abstract

Amparo Dávila is considered one of the most prolific Mexican horror writers of the 20th century. Her literary techniques have been compared to some of the most famous horror writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and Franz Kafka. However, her writing is indicative of further social orders present in Mexican culture and other spaces. In this study, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) is implemented as an approach to analyze how horror in two short stories is used to reflect Mexican and American social issues. The findings suggest that there is a critique on the social order in societies by transforming these encounters into horrifying experiences.