Ambiguous and Haunted: The Representations of Urban Spaces in Sophie Kinsella's Remember Me? And You Owe Me One

บทคัดย่อ

This paper examines two of Sophie Kinsella's novels, You Owe Me One (2019) and Remember Me? (2008) to analyze the representations of urban spaces as haunted and ambiguous. Drawing on Steve Pile’s (2005) concept of phantasmagoria, the study argues that modernization in urban spaces, driven by capitalism and consumerism generates specific sociocultural phenomena. The analysis reveals that the novels challenge the idealized image of big cities as centers of progress. While the protagonists are educated, independent women working in London, the narratives demonstrate gender biases concealed beneath the facade of urban progress and modernity. The development in urban spaces initially seems to liberate women from patriarchal traditions; however, the characters’ experiences reveal the persistence of these values, leading to anxieties of self-reliance. Additionally, the characters’ embrace of materialistic values reveals a primitive brutality persisting beneath the surface of modernized urban spaces.