Varieties of the Fantastic in Fiction

Carmen Maria Machado’s “The Resident” exists in the realm of psychological horror. In an interview with The Atlantic, Machado states, “In my work, I think non-realism can be a way to insist on something different. It’s a way to tap into aspects of being a woman that can be surreal or somehow liminal — certain experiences that can feel, even, like horror.” This comes through in almost if not all of the stories in this collection but feels certainly true with “The Resident,” which, as hinted in the text, relates to the “mad woman in the attic” trope.

From the beginning, Machado infuses her story with elements that are typical of the horror genre. We begin with our narrator driving alone to a new place and stopping in a small, dead town:

“The town was rundown and gray, like so many of the old coal and steel towns that dotted the state. I’d describe the houses that lined the main thoroughfare as ramshackle, but ramshackle suggests a charm that these lacked. A traffic light hung above the lone intersection, and except for a cat that darted behind a garbage can, there was no movement.” (170)

She then has a strange interaction with the man at the gas station, we come to learn that there was an “incident” that happened at the nearby Girl Scout camp during her childhood (leaving us wondering what this incident was and how it is going to relate to the story), and then right before she arrives at the residency, she hits a rabbit with her car:

“I got out of the car and looked beneath the chassis. There, the black, lifeless eyes of a rabbit met mine. The lower half of her body was missing, as neatly as if she were a sheet of paper that had been ripped in two.” (175)

This is another typical trope of horror movies, as the protagonists often crash their car or hit an animal before the real chaos begins. The narrator herself even wonders if this is an omen.

It is after she arrives at the residency that we begin seeing elements that relate more specifically to the “mad woman” trope. We sense the narrator’s nervousness from the beginning when she is trying to park her car:

“Two cars–one ancient and dirty blue, the other red and glinting in the sunlight–were parked haphazardly next to the hotel. I pulled in beside the red car, and then, nervous, pulled out again and parked next to the blue car instead. I suddenly felt self-conscious about the number of possessions in my trunk and backseat.” (176)

Her feelings only increase as the story progresses, as she has  a vision of a hand reaching out from under her bed and grabbing her ankle (180), wonders why she hasn’t received any letters from her wife and ponders whether her wife would love her more if she were a “more relaxed” version of herself (181), and gets sick and relates it to a time she got sick at camp (190). She also continues to think about omens:

“The surprises came all at once: First, the earth was not as hard as I had imagined it; it yielded as if it were loam. The sun, which had been hidden behind Anele’s body, was now uncovered and glowed between her legs like some mythical entreaty. I heard the dry click of the shutter, the sound of some insect biting down. There was lightning then, distinct, forking across the sky and over the distant hotel. So many omens.” (194)

By now, both the narrator and the readers are expecting something bad to happen. It feels as if it’s just a matter of time.

It is only a few pages later that the madwoman in the attic is brought up in relation to the narrator and the story she is writing. Lydia says:

“You know. That old trope. Writing a story where the female protagonist is utterly batty. It’s sort of tiresome and regressive and, well, done… don’t you think? And the mad lesbian, isn’t that a stereotype as well? Do you ever wonder about that? I mean, I’m not a lesbian, I’m just saying.” (203)

After this, our narrator becomes more troubled, stating that “Here, at Devil’s Throat, everything felt wrong,” and we even get a parallel to the dead rabbit at the beginning of the story. As the story ends, the narrator begins to spiral into her own thoughts more and more and ends up referring to herself as a “madwoman in her own attic” and throws her novel notes and laptop into the lake before leaving the residency.

Because of all of the psychological horror elements presented in the story, it would have been easy for Machado to present her narrator as crazy, to make us think she was delusional by the end of the story. However, no matter how “crazy” her actions may seem from the outside, the narrator’s decisions and thoughts all seem very rational. This, in turn, turns the madwoman trope on its head. Our narrator does not seem crazy; she is instead someone caught in battle with her own mind.