Haunting the In-between: Gender and Genre in Oscar Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost”

This article explores the interplay between gender and genre in Oscar Wilde’s “The Canterville Ghost”. Applying frameworks from short story theory and criticism, it deepens and expands Maureen O’Connor’s claim that Wilde employs “dissident” narrative conventions to expose and subvert patriarchal discourse and Anne Markey’s conceptualization of this text as a polyphonic narrative space. To do so, the article begins by examining key plot moments to illustrate the “poetics of liminality” (Achilles and Bergmann 2015: 4) of this ghost story, which parodies and subverts various genre conventions to “amuse and disturb” its readers (Markey 2010: 136) before transforming into a horrifying exposé of the role of literary conventions in the normalization of gender violence (O’Connor 2004). It further explores the story’s reception in cinematic adaptations and academic criticism, revealing how comedic and sentimental genre conventions have often been heightened to obscure its darker, gendered themes. Finally, it focuses on the “condensation of multiple identities” (Achilles: 2015b) in the character of Virginia Otis, which complicates any straightforward reading of “The Canterville Ghost” as radical or reactive in terms of its gender politics. These discussions showcase Wilde’s mastery of the short story genre’s interrogative economy to challenge established literary conventions.