A few days ago, I posted a review for a book called Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. It is a psychological horror about Black Spring, a town cursed by the local witch who has her eyes and mouth sewn shut. It is a truly horrifying novel that is unsettling and creepy (and I do advise seeing the trigger warnings I outlined at the bottom of my review), but what I enjoyed was its clever and thorough analysis of fear.
In today’s post, I want to discuss the book Hex and how the narrative intertwines with fear. How is fear socially constructed in the book? What does it mean for an emotion to be socially constructed? I will also be talking about the Panopticon – what is the Panopticon, and how it relates to the story of Black Spring.