American Horror Story: Life, Death, and Real Estate

Abstract

By examining both current trends in death-care industry in contemporary America and spatio-political practices that influenced the development of suburbia, the paper attempts to explore the culture’s attitude towards death. The analysis then turns to the Indian burial ground trope, a prolific pop culture sign relevant during the 1970s and 80s, with special attention paid to Stephen King’s novel Pet Sematary, so as to further explore the correlation between fear of death and post-industrial capitalism, as well as intricacies of American collective identity.