Clive Barker’s rhetorical dialectics: Stretching the intellectual imagination

Abstract

This article examines Clive Barker’s early work, specifically: The Damnation Game (1985) and The Hellbound Heart (1986), and assorted short stories from his Books of Blood collections. After outlining the appropriateness of rhetorically minded classical dialectics, the article illustrates the layered complexity of Barker’s dialectics that are woven throughout his literature. These dialectics cross over one another at nexuses between worldly tensions as well as physical/metaphysical tensions. This article suggests that these nexuses of horizontal (worldly) and vertical (physical‐metaphysical) axes provide a unique framework that invites readers to rhetorically participate in the philosophical tensions within horror fiction itself. Ultimately, this investigation demonstrates how horror literature can uniquely stretch the imagination of both the artist and audience to make the narrative intellectually engaging.