• Kirti Roy

This study identifies a critical gap in Scottish Gothic studies by examining how late twentieth and twenty-first century women writers strategically repurpose the genre’s traditional tropes to mount a distinctly feminist critique. It argues that the Scottish Feminist Gothic reframes psychic fragmentation not as a pathological condition, but as a critical lens for exposing and resisting patriarchal power. Through a comparative analysis of Emma Tennant’s The Bad Sister (1978) and Alice Thompson’s The Book Collector (2015), this article demonstrates how each author retools canonical Gothic devices—the double and hysteria—to dramatise the disintegration of female subjectivity. Central to this analysis is the concept of the "Caledonian Antisyzygy," which links Scotland’s historically split cultural imaginary to the gendered fragmentation of the self. The investigation culminates in its key finding: that this fragmentation produces a uniquely tragic form of destructive agency, where female resistance is channelled solely through self-annihilation or violent revenge. By comparing the two texts, this paper interrogates the specifically Scottish inflexion of feminist Gothic experimentation—its suspicion of unity, its historicized hauntings, and its repurposing of “madness” and monstrosity as potent counter-discourses, thereby expanding critical debates in both Scottish Gothic and feminist literary studies.

Scottish Gothic, Feminist Gothic, Caledonian Antisyzygy, Destructive Agency, Patriarchy, The Double, Female Subjectivity

"Haunted Selves: Patriarchy, Fragmentation, and Resistance in Scottish Women’s Gothic Literature ", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.13, Issue 1, page no.f28-f40, January-2026, Available :http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2601505.pdf

"Haunted Selves: Patriarchy, Fragmentation, and Resistance in Scottish Women’s Gothic Literature ", International Journal of Emerging Technologies and Innovative Research (www.jetir.org | UGC and issn Approved), ISSN:2349-5162, Vol.13, Issue 1, page no. ppf28-f40, January-2026, Available at : http://www.jetir.org/papers/JETIR2601505.pdf