Abstract:
This thesis aims to analyze Phakhinais horror fiction which includes 12 novels and short stories in terms of their presentations of problems in contemporary urban society and in terms of their uses of literary techniques to create haunting effects and to convey these problematics issues. The results of this study indicate that Phakhinai's horror fiction addresses several issues in contemporary urban society through presentations of urban society as a site of oppression, especially sexual and gender oppressions, as a locus of moral deterioration that stems from hostility of capitalism and the manipulation of technology, and as a space of alienation and broken sociality that are rooted in the pressures of living under capitalism and an obsession with superficiality. In terms of literary techniques and the creation of haunting effects, it is found that Phakhinai deploys various strategies in the crafting of contents and plots, characters, and settings to produce haunting effects. First, the contents of Phakhinais horror fiction consist of events or a series of events that produce dreadful feelings such as murder, torture, confinement, and ghostly presence. These events are framed through different kinds of plots, namely, an investigative plot, a mission-driven plot, a plot focusing on mental issues, and an unrequited love plot to foreground disturbance, brutality, and excessive violence. In terms of characterization, Phakhinai often presents haunting effects through characters of ghosts and perpetrators with horrendous appearances and behaviors that convey cruelty and injustice. Finally, the settings in Phakhinai's horror fiction are often quotidian and familiar environments in the contemporary urban society that create haunting effects and feelings of paranoia and anxiety in the exposure of suppressed violence in urban society.