The 'Evil Child' in Literature, Film and Popular Culture [Paperback]

The 'evil child' has infiltrated the cultural imagination, taking on prominent roles in popular films, television shows and literature. This collection of essays from a global range of scholars examines a fascinating array of evil children and the cultural work that they perform, drawing upon sociohistorical, cinematic, and psychological approaches. The chapters explore a wide range of characters including Tom Riddle in the Harry Potterseries, the possessed Regan in William Peter Blattys The Exorcist, the monstrous Ben in Doris Lessings The Fifth Child, the hostile fetuses of Rosemarys Babyand Alien, and even the tiny terrors featured in the reality television series Supernanny. Contributors also analyse various themes and issues within film, literature and popular culture including ethics, representations of evil and critiques of society.

This book was originally published as two special issues of Literature Interpretation Theory.

1. Evil Children in Film and Literature Karen Renner  2. My Baby Ate the Dingo: The Visual Construction of the Monstrous Infant in Horror Film Steffen Hantke  3. Monstrous Children as Harbingers of Mortality: A Psychological Analysis of Doris Lessings The Fifth Child Daniel Sullivan and Jeff Greenberg  4. Spoil the Child: Unsettling Ethics and the Representation of Evil William Wandless  5. Private Lessons from Dumbledores Chamber of Secrets : The Riddle of the Evil Child in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Holly Blackford  6. Terrifying Tots and Hapless Homes: Undoing Modernity in Recent Bollywood Cinema Meheli Sen  7. The Power of Christ Compels You : Holy Water, Hysteria, and the Oedipal Psychodrama in The Exorcist Sara Williams  8. How tolcÁ