2020/10/05 by Allyson Kreuiter · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Biographical and Historical Analysis #Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices #Gothic Literature and Media Analysis
paper · pdf · doi:10.4102/lit.v41i1.1697
openalex publication_date 2020/10/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/06
Jane Goodwin Austin (1831–1894) published her short story ‘After Three Thousand Years’ in 1868. Austin’s tale is one of the first narratives to deal with a malevolent female mummy and what is known as the mummy’s curse. Her story has received limited critical attention unlike a similar story published by Louisa May Alcott in 1869, ‘Lost in a Pyramid, or The Mummy’s Curse’. This lack of scholarly attention makes Austin’s short story more interesting to the researcher than that of Alcott. In my article, I will perform a close reading of ‘After Three Thousand Years’, examining how the imperialist theme is intertwined with the abject Gothic doubling of the mummy and the female protagonists, which I consider to be central to the plot of Austin’s story.