Elm Street's Gothic Roots: Unearthing Incest in Wes Craven's 1984 Nightmare

Abstract

This article examines Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street as borrowing as much from the tropes and types of the nineteenth-century English Gothic novel as the 1980s slasher film. It explores how Wes Craven uses the figure of the doppelganger, the types of the angel and the monster, and the theme of repressed incest to craft a contemporary Gothic movie. This reading yields the conclusion that the protagonist, Nancy Thompson, was molested by her father, Donald Thompson. Nancy reciprocates these taboo feelings, and Freddy Krueger serves as a doppelganger for both, facilitating a double reading of the film.

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