The Disgust that Fascinates : Sibling Incest as a Bad Romance

This article compares the discourse of sibling incest evident in a corpus offiction with the discourse found in clinical, sociological and criminal literature.Whereas the former prima rily regards the coupling as a bad romance, the latterpresents the idea that it is unequivocally harmful. This discrepancy between the twodiscourses surrounding sexual relationships between brothers and sisters speaks toliterary fiction’s need for thwarted romances for the purposes of the literary market.A more detailed look into three novels from the corpus, Tabitha Suzuma’s For-bidden (2010), Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992) and Pauline Melville’s TheVentriloquist’s Tale (1997) shows how this logic of sibling incest as a bad romanceworks in practice.<p>Validerad; 2017; Nivå 1; 2017-02-27 (rokbeg)