Abstract

‘Gaslighting’ as a term derives from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 melodrama Gas Light, a play in which an older husband sets out to drive his wife to madness. These tropes, the suspiciously charming man, the claustrophobic domestic setting and the terrorized woman, would find new iterations in the first decades of the new millennium which saw the growth of a disturbing new genre described by publishers and booksellers as ‘domestic noir’. In its discussion of crime novels by Emily Barr, Fiona Barton, Sharon Bolton, Elizabeth Haynes, alongside the bestsellers The Girl on the Train and Gone Girl, Philips suggests that the genre of ‘domestic noir’ directly addresses crimes against women, including child abuse, domestic violence, sexual harassment and intimidation. She argues that these novels were charting the psychological abuse of women before coercive control was recognized as a criminal offence, and that what makes the genre a new phenomenon is that their protagonists are allowed to exact an often brutal retribution.

摘要

“煤气灯”这个词源自帕特里克·汉密尔顿 1938 年的情节剧煤气灯，在该剧中，一位年长的丈夫开始将妻子逼疯。这些比喻，可疑的迷人男人，幽闭恐怖的家庭环境和恐怖的女人，将在新千年的头几十年找到新的迭代，看到了出版商和书商将其描述为“国内黑色”的令人不安的新流派的增长。在讨论 Emily Barr、Fiona Barton、Sharon Bolton、Elizabeth Haynes 的犯罪小说以及畅销书《火车上的女孩》和《消失的女孩》时，飞利浦建议“家庭黑色”类型直接针对针对妇女的犯罪，包括虐待儿童、家庭暴力、性骚扰和恐吓。她辩称，这些小说描绘了在强制控制被认定为刑事犯罪之前对女性的心理虐待，而使这种类型成为一种新现象的原因是，它们的主人公被允许进行通常是残酷的报复。