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Little Heaven / VICTORIA HAWKINS

Swansea University Author: VICTORIA HAWKINS

  • E-Thesis under embargo until: 1st January 2029

DOI (Published version): 10.23889/SUThesis.71171

Abstract

‘Little Heaven’ is a mystery thriller set in a small, eerie village of the same name, exploring themes of homecoming, trauma, family, loss and motherhood. The accompanying critical essay explores the theme of trauma and memory in contemporary thrillers. Drawing upon psychoanalytic notions of repress...

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Published: Swansea 2025
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Doctoral
Degree name: Ph.D
Supervisor: Bilton, A.
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71171
first_indexed 2025-12-23T12:45:04Z
last_indexed 2026-01-10T05:26:29Z
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recordtype RisThesis
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spelling 2026-01-09T15:57:32.0231864 v2 71171 2025-12-23 Little Heaven 0eac9d69a12cc649e41dec14f1bbfe68 VICTORIA HAWKINS VICTORIA HAWKINS true false 2025-12-23 ‘Little Heaven’ is a mystery thriller set in a small, eerie village of the same name, exploring themes of homecoming, trauma, family, loss and motherhood. The accompanying critical essay explores the theme of trauma and memory in contemporary thrillers. Drawing upon psychoanalytic notions of repressed memories, the exegesis explores ideas of buried trauma and the reliability of recall in both fiction and the real world, concluding that the thriller genre is ultimately predicated on notions of the revealed truth inaccessible to medical and legal practitioners. Both the novel and the essay also explore aspects of the supernatural and the paranormal, investigating the patriarchal notion that the feminine is more susceptible or open to notions of the uncanny. Building on Freud’s ideas, it argues that the familiar site of ‘home’is transformed into something unfamiliar and alien in the text, so that the protagonist’s homecoming is in truth a confrontation with those aspects of the past that lie hidden, and which therefore appear as unknown or other. The role of repression and melancholia in relation to trauma is at the heart of both the novel and the essay, and both explore to what extent healing can be related to an acknowledgement of wounds suffered in the past. E-Thesis Swansea novel, thesis, trauma, memory, thriller, village 11 12 2025 2025-12-11 10.23889/SUThesis.71171 COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Bilton, A. Doctoral Ph.D 2026-01-09T15:57:32.0231864 2025-12-23T12:36:25.6148124 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing VICTORIA HAWKINS 1 Under embargo Under embargo 2025-12-23T12:42:37.8681366 Output 1890944 application/pdf E-Thesis true 2029-01-01T00:00:00.0000000 Copyright: the author, Victoria Rose Marie Hawkins, 2025. Distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 License (CC BY-NC 4.0). false https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
title Little Heaven
spellingShingle Little Heaven
VICTORIA HAWKINS
title_short Little Heaven
title_full Little Heaven
title_fullStr Little Heaven
title_full_unstemmed Little Heaven
title_sort Little Heaven
author_id_str_mv 0eac9d69a12cc649e41dec14f1bbfe68
author_id_fullname_str_mv 0eac9d69a12cc649e41dec14f1bbfe68_***_VICTORIA HAWKINS
author VICTORIA HAWKINS
author2 VICTORIA HAWKINS
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publishDate 2025
institution Swansea University
doi_str_mv 10.23889/SUThesis.71171
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - English Literature, Creative Writing
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description ‘Little Heaven’ is a mystery thriller set in a small, eerie village of the same name, exploring themes of homecoming, trauma, family, loss and motherhood. The accompanying critical essay explores the theme of trauma and memory in contemporary thrillers. Drawing upon psychoanalytic notions of repressed memories, the exegesis explores ideas of buried trauma and the reliability of recall in both fiction and the real world, concluding that the thriller genre is ultimately predicated on notions of the revealed truth inaccessible to medical and legal practitioners. Both the novel and the essay also explore aspects of the supernatural and the paranormal, investigating the patriarchal notion that the feminine is more susceptible or open to notions of the uncanny. Building on Freud’s ideas, it argues that the familiar site of ‘home’is transformed into something unfamiliar and alien in the text, so that the protagonist’s homecoming is in truth a confrontation with those aspects of the past that lie hidden, and which therefore appear as unknown or other. The role of repression and melancholia in relation to trauma is at the heart of both the novel and the essay, and both explore to what extent healing can be related to an acknowledgement of wounds suffered in the past.
published_date 2025-12-11T05:34:37Z
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score 11.096068

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