New Dimensions of FEAR: Conceptual and Intermedial Analysis

Abstract

The paper presents a new intermedial perspective on the multidimensional concept of fear in the literary works of modern American writer Stephen King. The intricate and contradictory nature of fear stands at the core of a popular literary genre – horror fiction. The multifaceted nature of the horror genre attests to its inherent complexity, particularly in its exploration of fear. The article addresses the following key functions of horror fiction: 1) to specify the associations arising from the experience of fear, 2) to offer a structured methodological background for examining the given emotion, and 3) to provide a fertile ground for social introspection. It has been justified that the reflective nature of literary texts makes them a representative repository for elucidating specific concepts or social sentiments, hence the growing number of literary pieces reflective of one of the primary human emotions – fear. This correlates with modern social, economic, and technological challenges that have reshaped the past few decades. The conducted research has indicated that shifts and modifications in the perception of fear have found their reflection in horror fiction. The lexicosemantic analysis of the lexemes used by S. King to indicate fear enabled delineating the core and periphery of the concept FEAR. By applying the intermedial perspective and text interpretation techniques, we established the crucial roles of visual and auditory sensory systems in representing the discussed concept by the author and its further perception by the readers. The main conclusion of the paper enables viewing the concept FEAR as a complex semiotic and linguistic artifact, a primary emotion, and a multifaceted psycholinguistic phenomenon. Thus, the concept FEAR resembles an intricate semiotic system that integrates different verbal and non-verbal means. In the paper, fear is understood as a neural and physical reaction in response to internal and external sources of danger, as well as the embodiment of reverence, bewilderment, and despair grounded in different sensorimotor systems. Being a complex psycholinguistic phenomenon of multimodal nature, fear is dynamically represented in literary prose by various intermediality tools that have been evolving in response to social, political, and economic changes in the modern world.