‘The face of evil’ : gothic biofiction and figures of enduring terror in a post-9/11 world

Abstract

In this article, I show that the Gothic’s preoccupation with appearances is a rhetorical and narrative device that can be traced throughout the immediate post-9/11 period and the military campaigns that followed in both non-fiction and fiction texts. Through my analysis of two works of fiction by Martin Amis and Judith Thompson, I argue that physical appearance was employed as a marker of evil intent in order to obscure the political and territorial intentions of the Bush Administration and the American military in Afghanistan and Iraq. Further, I contend that the persistent effect of two “faces of evil” is evident through the ongoing American preoccupation with the appearance and capacity of the Other to inflict terror, which becomes an unconscious act of self-recognition.