Why We Love the Haunted Mansion: 19th Century Appropriations and the Topic of Death in Modern Gothic Narratives: Edward Gorey, Walt Disney, and Tim Burton

We love the Haunted Mansion as an entertaining dark ride, but does it also resonate with us for deeper reasons? K. R. Bailey suggests that it answers a fundamental need to approach the topic of death in a manner we find comfortable in what has been termed a "death-denying" culture. Bailey reaches into the Victorian era and its Celebration of Death to identify symbols that are close enough to have a dark meaning, but distant enough not to threaten, and discusses their use in the works of Edward Gorey and Tim Burton, and Disney's Haunted Mansion ride.