the gothic trope of being 'buried alive', dirt metaphors

taphephobia is the fear of being buried alive, that was documented by thinkers in the 19th and 20th century, and it is a theme in gothic texts

being buried alive is a fear that takes many forms. we can be buried in debt, behind masks, and in texts

parts of us, like our shame, trauma, and dreams can be buried

“haunting not only implies debt but also guilt… it is a return of that which is ‘buried’”—jodey castricano, 2001

understanding the literary device of being buried alive 

require us to dig through information, un-earth, navigate rabbit holes, and devolve into burrowing prey-animal behavior

the body is the site of a murder, and the genre of posthuman text is a technology that attempts to render this monstrosity, it digs up the body, dissects, and interprets its wounds through medical examination, it is a memory device that is a bricolage of loose and unreliable accounts

it is a posthumous crypt that becomes deconstructed, processed through a lubicksian lens, and reincarnated

the dirt is spilled, and the skeletons emerge out of the collective closet

the trope of the buried mummy, returning to rule is a gothic trope that has pervaded into popular american horror, like in x-men: apocalypse 

the resurrection of this body reinstantiates archaic knowledge, and 

a ruptures the notion of linear time by spilling the past into the future

the metaphor of ‘making it out of the dirt’ locates escapes from the horrors of being buried alive

it also implies a molding, and handling of material, making something out of dirt

incubation in dirt comes with its own uncertainties, that which is buried doesn’t necessarily remain static, but has the potential to change and reformulate itself

archival fever is an inhalation of dust, a movement toward digital poetries that undo textual knots, but also reproduce them to signify their repertoire, their dirt literacy