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This essay examines how Gillian Flynn’s 

novel Sharp Objects and the HBO 

miniseries adaptation raise questions about 

representations of female self-harm in en-

tertainment. I argue that the 

protagonist’s scars act as ghosts since both 

scars and hauntings are messengers and 

manifestations of trauma. This paper 

examines the distinction between read and 

watched trauma, and the psychological 

validity of these interpretations. I assert that 

Flynn and director Jean-Marc Vallée pres-

ent self-harm as a haunting to exploit the 

uncanny and attract readers and viewers 

with dramatic content. Ultimately, I ask that 

readers practice empathy when consuming 

entertainment featuring trauma and 

self-harm.

Addison Paul, Ball State University

Haunting the Body:
An Exploration of 
Scars as Ghosts

Trigger Warning: This essay contains discussions of self-harm.

Released in 2006, Gillian Flynn’s debut novel 

Sharp Objects draws attention to the severely 

damaging effects of trauma and the physi-

cal manifestations of such emotional pain for 

the protagonist Camille Preaker. The mys-

tery-thriller not only explores how murders 

haunt a small Midwestern town, but also raises 

essential questions about the connections 

between psychological trauma and the super-

natural. Expanding upon and drawing from 

the novel, the Sharp Objects HBO television 

miniseries directed by Jean-Marc Vallée por-

trays Flynn’s story on screen, complicating the 

dynamic between read and watched interpre-

tations of trauma. The differences between 

textual and visual portrayals of trauma cre-

ate an important distinction: written trauma, 

much like horror narratives, leaves the visual-

ization of traumatic events up to the readers’ 

imagination, effectively creating personalized 

fear, whereas on-screen depictions of trauma present a set image, which takes away the work of 

the imagination for viewers. Despite their differences in the presentation of the story, both the 



Digital Literature Review 2
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novel and the miniseries portray the horrors of suffering as supernatural and portray self-harm 

scars as ghosts of the protagonist’s tragic past.

 Camille Preaker, a journalist and native of mysterious Wind Gap, Missouri, endured the 

death of her younger sister, Marian, and an emotionally abusive relationship with her mother, 

Adora, which resulted in Camille’s reliance on self-harm as a coping mechanism for her childhood 

trauma. Though she also grapples with sexual harassment and alcoholism, Camille’s self-harm 

practices and how the resulting scarification haunts her body are most closely connected to the 

supernatural. Scars, particularly those of self-harm, evoke uncanny feelings in people examining 

the scarred individual’s body. This discomfort arises from the jarring and confusing realization that 

no one truly knows and understands each other, despite the perceived closeness of a relation-

ship, as well as the viewer’s unfamiliarity with the trauma that led to the scarification. In her 2018 

article “HBO’s ‘Sharp Objects’ Is A Messy Depiction Of Self-Harm, But That’s OK,” freelance writer 

and recovered self-harmer Samantha Puc reviews the miniseries through the position of both an 

intrigued fan and an individual who is hyper-sensitive to the triggering subject matter:

Because I’m familiar with the steps that cutters take to hide their scars, I immedi-

ately recognized that Camille wears only jeans, boots, and long-sleeved shirts and 

sweaters in neutral, dark colors, even in the height of summer. But those less familiar 

with this tactic who haven’t read the novel may not initially notice.

The “uncanny is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar” (Freud 2), so the shock 

factor accompanying visualizations or descriptions of scars generates a response akin to encoun-

tering the supernatural. For the scarred individual, self-harm makes the body itself uncanny. 

Self-harmers display their own version of a doppelgänger, a more socially acceptable, less dam-

aged persona of themselves, which stirs uncanniness within and leads individuals to question 

the authenticity of each identity. Furthermore, the body is an integral component of the self, and 

marking the body disrupts the sense of familiarity between the self and the physical being. Thus, 

repeatedly viewing markings of pain and suffering on a familiar body awakens the uncanny, even 

if only the self-harmer sees their own scars.

In Camille’s case, being truly seen and understood, horrific scars and all, is deeply powerful. 

Social stigmatization and the demonization of self-harm in the media strip the humanity from 

struggling individuals, leaving them to feel any combination of loneliness, shame, and fear, and 

causing self-harmers to hide their expressions of pain. Camille falls victim to this cultural haunt-

ing, and as a result of never feeling truly seen for her authentic self, uncanny feelings dominate 

her mind. The contrast between Camille’s intimate sexual experiences demonstrates the differ-



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ence between the social discomfort leading to secrecy in self-harm and actual empathy with the 

complicated emotions behind it: with Richard, Camille likes “it with [her] clothes on” (Flynn 172), 

whereas John “held up [her] arms, [her] legs, turned [her] on [her] back” and “read [her],” allowing 

Camille to feel truly accepted in her haunted body (Flynn 209). Publicizing a novel and TV show 

largely revolving around self-harm stirs uncanny feelings in readers and viewers alike, exemplify-

ing the importance of a more empathetic societal understanding of self-harm.

 Outside of mediatized representations, self-harm is generally hidden from public 

view. As such, these representations not only offer rare glimpses into a rather private 

suffering, they operate pedagogically; that is, they operate to inform the spectator’s 

understanding of self-harm in the absence of other kinds of encounters. 

Importantly, however, cultivating empathic understandings of self-harm from such 

occasions depends upon moving past dominant readings of self-harm that view it as 

a destructive behaviour with solely negative consequences to recognize instead that, 

for those who practise it, self-harm serves as a means of survival in the wake of 

trauma. (Fallier 12)

It is important to note that the psychoanalysis and application of critical psychological 

theories to a fictional character coping with imagined trauma does not amount to the same sig-

nificance as diagnosis for individuals suffering from real trauma. Furthermore, media implements 

representations of mental health struggles and self-harm as devices to create drama and add ten-

sion to a story. Sensationalization of self-harm in the media is a cultural haunting, hooking readers 

and viewers by exploiting the uncanniness of scars, the human craving for violence, and “flawed” 

characters as a means of catharsis. This dramatization of mental pain feeds an inaccurate and 

harmful perception of self-harm to the public, much like the negative perceptions surrounding 

ghosts and the supernatural. For struggling individuals and recovered self-harmers, visual depic-

tions of self-harm are dangerous and can trigger more than a minor haunting, but rather cause 

relapses and throw people back into the horrors of previously lived trauma:

Given the inherent voyeurism in depicting trauma on screen, I worried that Camille’s 

struggles would be sensationalized once they got the HBO treatment. Far too 

often, the way television depicts trauma, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and mental 

health struggles is extremely insensitive, especially when the characters are 

women. (Puc)

Taking inspiration from the famed spectacle of ghost stories and horror movies, modern content 



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creators use trauma and self-harm as shocking character flaws, often without considering the 

detrimental and delegitimizing effects that poor portrayals of suffering have on those struggling 

with mental health. Uncanniness and the horrific representations of self-harm in the media haunt 

scarred individuals, further connecting self-harm to the supernatural. 

 While not directly associated with the horror genre, the negative social messaging sur-

rounding self-harm haunts entertainment culture—for example, many supernatural beings ex-

hibit some form of mental illness. Scars, like ghosts, act as physical manifestations of emotional 

and psychological trauma. Camille’s scars externalize the buried fear, sorrow, anger, and confusion 

plaguing her mind, and scarification gives her an outlet to express tumultuous emotions, even 

though it physically and emotionally damages her. Permanence is a key factor in positioning scars 

as ghosts, since the scar itself lingers on skin, preserving the traumatic events or emotions that 

drove individuals to brutalize themselves. Despite being a practice to achieve catharsis, self-harm 

scars serve as constant reminders and messengers from the past, haunting the body as long as 

they remain visible. Similar to how locations experience repeated hauntings, “the body collects” 

scars and becomes its own haunted home for the suffering individual (“Falling,” episode seven, 

5:25-5:29). Sharp Objects depicts the social stigmas and fears surrounding scars, which reminisce 

taboos associated with ghosts, thus demonstrating how society and the media demonize mental 

health struggles and self-harm to exploit the uncanny discomfort of scars as hauntings.

Apparitions of Anguish: Scars and Ghosts

Scars, like ghosts, have various positive and negative connotations, and can both haunt 

the body in comforting and vengeful ways. An understanding of the many functions and classi-

fications of ghosts is necessary to pursue the scars as ghosts metaphor as it applies to the Sharp 

Objects novel and miniseries. Essentially, ghosts fall into three moral categories: good, neutral, 

and evil. While neutral ghosts are often thought of as docile spirits aimlessly wandering the mor-

tal plane, good and evil ghosts have specific functions, namely to comfort or harm, 

respectively. Self-harm acts both as a coping mechanism and a destructive tendency, thus, the re-

sulting scars could fall into either category. In her article “Twenty-First-Century American Ghosts: 

The After-Death Communication—Therapy and Revelation from beyond the Grave,” Susan Kwi-

lecki defines After-Death Communications (ADCs) as “direct and spontaneous” forms of spiritual 

interaction (101). Self-harm scars act as communicators of emotion, similarly to Kwilecki’s defini-

tion of ADCs, and as she later asserts, ADCs appear as signs of “healing and revelation” for loved 

ones, connecting the healing nature of such ghosts with therapeutic coping and overcoming 



Digital Literature Review 5
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trauma (Kwilecki 102). Many of Camille’s own scars stem from the death of her younger sister, who 

appears frequently in brief flashbacks and hallucinations, and functions as an after-death com-

municator.

Alternatively, vengeful spirits are aggressive ghosts that seek retribution through haunting, 

and unlike ADCs, are a paranormal punishment for the living. In their research examining audi-

tory hallucinations in patients diagnosed with schizophrenia, Paul Chadwick and Max Birchwood 

categorize vengeful spirits as powerful, authoritative voices. “Cognitive Therapy for Voices” posits 

that patients “may be terrified of the voice and comply with its command to harm” if it belongs to 

a vengeful spirit, however, patients may not experience these thoughts if the voice is “believed to 

be self-generated” (73). Birchwood and Chadwick’s research implies that the desire to harm stems 

from a perceived spirit, countering the therapeutic construction of ghosts and scars and posi-

tioning self-harm as malicious. In Sharp Objects, Camille Preaker self-harms to cope with intense 

childhood trauma, but the cutting also aligns with her other self-destructive actions—binge drink-

ing and forced isolation, for example. Adora Crellin, Camille’s harsh, gas-lighting mother, believes 

that Camille self-harms “out of spite,” further affirming the connection between self-punishment 

and the angry, hurtful actions of vengeful spirits (“Closer,” episode five, 15:25).

In addition to benevolent and malevolent spirits, ghosts function as supernatural 

messengers. These apparitions haunt people to convey information and meaning, be it an im-

portant memory or an expression of strong emotions. Like after-death communications, mes-

senger ghosts return from death to commune with the living, however, their messages are more 

associated with an expression of pain than comfort. These ghosts with unfinished business seek 

recognition of suffering and remain in the mortal world as a form of punishment, both of which 

factor into motivations for self-harm. Marilee Strong studies the impactful messages of self-harm 

in  A Bright Red Scream: Self-Mutilation and the Language of Pain. One of Strong’s interviewees 

not only wrote “reams of morbid poetry” and a “first and final suicide letter” to share her message 

of internal suffering, but she also externalized that message by “carv[ing] words and pictures into 

her arms and legs” (Strong 5). The linguistic component of the interviewee’s pain is parallel to Ca-

mille’s own self-harm, which appears as words and phrases scarred across the majority of 

her body:

I am a cutter, you see. Also a snipper, a slicer, a carver, a jabber. I am a very special 

case. I have a purpose. My skin, you see, screams. It’s covered with words—cook, 

cupcake, kitty, curls— as if a knife-wielding first-grader learned to write on my flesh. I 

sometimes, but only sometimes, laugh. Getting out of the bath and seeing, out 



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of the corner of my eye, down the side of a leg: babydoll. Pull on a sweater and, in a 

flash of my wrist: harmful. (Flynn 60)

 Self-harm is a language of pain—quite literally for Camille and Strong’s interviewee—and 

the resulting scars lingering on the individual’s skin serve as ghostly reminders of the past. Scars, 

like ghosts, act as messengers of residual trauma, haunting the body by preserving elements of 

suffering, and in the case of these two women, depicting causes or direct connections to trauma. 

Flynn’s novel presents literal words and first-person narration to brutally describe Camille’s scars, 

and “instead of voiceover, [the show] uses its own visual language involving flashbacks and hallu-

cinations to clue the viewer into what’s really going on inside Camille’s head” (Puc). This television 

adaptation focuses on the visual language of scars to convey Camille’s emotions, which helps 

readers understand her dark personality and haunted past. Viewers may not initially realize that 

Camille self-harms, making the ultimate reveal at the end of “Vanish,” episode one, more shocking 

and uncanny.

 Ultimately, recognizing humanity in self-harm and the supernatural is the most import-

ant consideration when positioning scars as ghosts. Both scars and ghosts are rooted in uncanny 

emotions and can both repulse and intrigue people, but the humanity of individuals struggling 

with self-harm is often stripped away, like the past lives of ghosts, and forgotten in the shocking 

fascination with self-harm. Though visualizing scars may cause discomfort, the person bearing 

such scars deserves empathy for surviving the hauntings of their past. Sharp Objects captures 

this understanding, endearing the audience with Camille’s strength and passion to remind view-

ers that she is more than just her ghosts. Vallée preserves and emphasizes Camille’s inherent 

value so that viewers “still care for her because there’s something about her that is so human; her 

humanity is deeply moving” (Vallée 3:57-4:02).

Femme Fairytale vs Trauma Trope: Women, Self-Harm, and the Supernatural

 Patriarchal society marginalizes women as a form of oppression, stripping away female 

agency and value, and perpetuating the cultural haunting of sexism. Through Sharp Objects, 

Flynn draws attention to the jarring psychological and sociocultural connections linking women 

to self-violence and the supernatural, which appear not only in the dramatization of mental health 

struggles, but as modern adaptations to centuries-old tropes. The scarred words across Camille’s 

body are “often feminine in a Dick and Jane, pink vs. puppy dog tails sort of way,” which immedi-

ately associates femininity with self-violence, a connection present in centuries of literature (Flynn 



Digital Literature Review 7
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60). In his essay, “The Uncanny,” Freud elaborates on the concept of doubling and doppelgängers, 

drawing from Otto Rank’s research on doubling as exemplified by “reflections in mirrors, with 

shadows, [and] guardian spirits” (Freud 9). Freud fails to address the biologically female practice 

of doubling through pregnancy and birth, and his conception of the double’s function establishes 

women as uncanny by association, since reproduction is essentially “preservation against extinc-

tion” (Freud 9). To further darken the psychological perception of women, Freud theorized that 

people with the ability to double are omens of death, further solidifying the links between women 

and self-harm, as well as self-harm and ghosts. In Sharp Objects, trauma is rooted in the familial 

connections of women, meaning that Adora’s own doubling in giving birth to Camille, Marianne, 

and Amma connects the women to uncanniness, which explains how each of them embodies 

elements of the supernatural through mental illness or death.

Society, as well as Sharp Objects, associates teenage girls with self-harm, which is attribut-

ed to the uncanny perception of women and of scars. Not only do girls and young women grow 

up amidst the haunting effects of gendered oppression, but they also endure marginalization and 

othering if their mental and emotional states are deemed too weak, or stereotypically feminine. In 

her article, “Resistant Rituals: Self-Mutilation and the Female Adolescent Body in Fairy Tales and 

Young Adult Fiction,” Cheryl Cowdy associates femininity and youth with violence toward the self.

‘Cutting’ in particular is an activity that is generally associated with troubled female 

adolescents. In psychiatric discourse, it has conventionally been treated as pathologi-

cally destructive behaviour. (Cowdy 42)

In the Sharp Objects miniseries, Camille befriends a fellow self-harmer at a rehab center, and the 

younger girl describes cutting as “something you grow out of” (“Fix,” episode three, 14:53). Ca-

mille’s scars and self-destruction, however, continue to haunt her body, reappearing in triggering 

times of trauma and depression. In the novel, Flynn connects horror and physical suffering with 

teenage girls, particularly through the continued fixation on the pornographic hunting shed, a 

shack where “pink flesh dangled from strings,” “the first floor was rusted with blood,” and “the 

walls were covered with photographs of naked women” (Flynn 14-5). Teenage Camille, along with 

Amma, Anne, and Natalie, visited the grotesque cabin, connecting young women with horrific 

depictions of trauma, a significant theme for both the novel and the miniseries. 

Literature and film frequently subject women to violence to give male characters a reason 

to fight or to drive the plot of the story forward, as seen in Sharp Objects. This trope especially 

appears in the horror genre, where women either die to catalyze the male protagonist’s character 

arc or appear as ghosts themselves. Sharp Objects focuses on female stories—the inciting 



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incident involves the death of a little girl, and dead little girls continue to push the plot forward 

thereafter, frequently reappearing in flashbacks reminiscent of ghosts. Gillian Flynn and Marti 

Noxon’s involvement in writing for the show gives the story more female agency, which subverts 

this patriarchal storytelling trope.

Centering a story on women’s trauma without exploiting it for the betterment of 

men is desperately needed in media, and for the most part, Sharp Objects is careful 

not to exploit trauma for the sake of sensationalizing character development (Puc).

In a male-dominated society, the “dying women” trope is so ubiquitous that it has become in-

grained in our storytelling culture and remained so for centuries. In her 2018 article “Sharp Ob-

jects and Damaged Women,” New York Review of Books editor Liza Batkin argues that “Gillian 

Flynn’s mission to create disturbed or disturbing female characters is certainly less innovative 

than it felt to the author twelve years ago”—the span of years between publication of the novel 

and the miniseries release. Nonetheless, Flynn’s own interpretation of the story is rooted in horror 

and femininity: 

In an interview for Entertainment Weekly, she explained that, to her, “Sharp Ob-

jects was a character study hidden inside of a mystery”; but for Rolling Stone, she 

described the show as “largely a feminist fairy tale”—a genre not particularly well-

known for its searing psychological portraits. (Batkin)

In terms of female-centric storytelling, fairytales provide the most widespread representa-

tion of women as otherworldly, and according to Batkin’s analysis, vapid. Though culturally sig-

nificant, these fairytales have haunted women both with attachments to physical suffering and 

societal notions of expected femininity. Socioculturally, women are rooted in self violence and the 

paranormal through fairy tales. Society conditions girls with stories of magic and mystery, both 

of which revolve around unfamiliarity and only differ from the uncanny by a positive connotation. 

Cowdy analyzes Grimm fairy tales, narratives of magical horror, as well as the values they teach to 

young women, exposing the dark, uncanny undertones of stories believed to be frivolous

 and feminine. 

Taking “Cinderella” and “The Little Mermaid” as representative texts in children’s 

culture, I argue that self-mutilation functions as an act of self-sacrifice to romantic 

hetero-normative narratives, expressing the violent demands patriarchal culture can 

require of the young woman as she takes her place in the competitive market of 

marriage… [Modern depictions of self-harm push for the understanding of] violence 



Digital Literature Review 9
 33

and for agency in self-mutilative acts, graphically communicating young women’s 

resistance to the symbolic demands revealed in the fairy tales. These contemporary 

representations of self-mutilation continue the critical work of the fairy tales, trans-

ferring the locus of pathology from the expressive female adolescent body to the 

diseased communal social body. (44–45)

 As presented in fairy tales, the dichotomy of supernatural womanhood and perfect fem-

ininity is a clear theme throughout Sharp Objects. Flynn’s use of fairy tale tropes further estab-

lishes women as otherworldly and horrific, a connection that haunts her characters as well as 

the women consuming her story. The miniseries visually juxtaposes Camille, the embodiment of 

ghostly trauma, and her half-sister Amma, exemplifying picturesque innocence by day, and teen-

age rebellion by night. Camille covers her scars to hide her personal haunting, and her wardrobe 

of long sleeves and dark colors establishes her as an edgy, un-feminine woman, whereas Amma, 

either clad in childish dresses and bows, or crop tops and short-shorts, represents both ends on 

the spectrum of feminine presentation. Contrasting these characters establishes women as either 

supernatural and unwomanly, or hyper-feminine, which furthers the cultural haunting of nega-

tive stereotypes surrounding women. Sharp Objects blurs this dichotomy with its revelation that 

Amma murdered the two girls in Wind Gap, subverting the preconceived notion of stereotypical 

femininity’s docile and innocent nature and implying that women are supernaturally much more 

powerful and rooted in the horrors of original fairy tales than expected. The miniseries asserts that 

violent female narratives do not need to be solved or caused by men, challenging the societal be-

lief that paranormal women are weaker than their male counterparts and that “women don’t kill 

like that, that violent. Until they do” (“Cherry,” episode six, 20:11-20:14).

Horrific Harm: Read vs. Watched Suffering

 Written and televised media provide unique opportunities to portray emotion in different 

ways, but the distinction becomes serious when handling triggering subject matter. Though this 

distinction is not directly attached to ghosts or scars, the presentation of horror and self-harm 

drastically alters how an audience consumes trauma, and further examination of read vs. watched 

trauma and its effects on readers and viewers is essential for understanding hauntings of the 

body. Hidden self-harm translates to the screen uniquely because of its visceral, yet secretive, na-

ture. The limited visibility of Camille’s scars plays on the horror factor of ghosts, providing a jump 

scare for the audience upon the first appearance. Maggie Turp’s classifications for more dramatic 

versus less visible self-harm put Camille’s case in an interesting middle ground; her self-harm, 



Digital Literature Review 10
34

while drastic and jarring in its nature, remains completely hidden to almost everyone she encoun-

ters, as well as the readers and viewers. According to her research in Hidden Self-Harm: Narratives 

from Psychotherapy, Turp theorizes that “high visibility manifestations of self-harm are those 

most often highlighted in literature, both popular and professional” (9). Though Camille herself is 

“a text to decipher” and “her body is covered with words that she has cut into herself,” the palimp-

sest translates differently on screen than on the page. The miniseries layers shots like the scars 

collected on her body, filling each frame with visual metaphors of literal sharp objects—knives 

and mirror glass—and “each episode in the series is named after a scar on her body” (Batkin). 

These tactics set apart the TV show and the novel, creating a new assemblage of discomfort, fear, 

and uncanny emotions brought upon by Camille’s scars.

Throughout the miniseries, Camille experiences constant flashbacks of her deceased sis-

ter, visually displayed through fast, jarring cuts and dramatic depictions of Camille’s own fearful 

thoughts. The jump “cuts” reflect the theme of cutting and self-harm in Sharp Objects, and the 

use of flashbacks is reminiscent of a ghost continually haunting Camille with the horrors of her 

past. Additionally, visualizing self-harm scars impacts people in a significantly different way than 

when reading descriptions of scars. The triggering images of Camille’s body covered in scars 

unsettles viewers and enhances the uncanny, haunted aspects of self-inflicted scars. The visual 

depiction allows viewers to see the blood and gore described on the novel’s pages, which ampli-

fies uncanny feelings. From the parallelisms of Adora cutting her hand on a rosebush thorn and 

Camille carving lines into her skin in episode three, “Fix,” to the symbolism of Camille’s childhood 

room being painted red, the visuals intensify this already tense story.

 The Sharp Objects miniseries also has the advantage of casting powerful actresses in the 

lead roles, allowing viewers to give well-known faces to self-harm. Amy Adams’ portrayal of Ca-

mille breathes life into the written character and her intimate flaws and struggles.  The beloved 

actress personalizes self-harm and scars for audiences, evoking the complicated emotions people 

experience when a loved one, or even an acquaintance, is visibly in pain. Flynn herself believes 

Amy Adams perfectly balances Camille’s air of mysterious beauty and her dark strength.

She has this angelic outer-coating in a way. She has this angelic voice, and she’s, um, 

you know, so lovely to look at. But she has what I call grit. She does what she says 

she’s going to do, she has this inner-strength and toughness. She has this spine of 

steel, and that’s who Camille is. (Flynn, “Gillian” 0:50-1:16)



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The culmination of each of these filmic features points to the more serious consideration 

that visually graphic content is often more triggering than written depictions of horror and self-

harm. A clear indicator of this difference is apparent in that the Sharp Objects series includes a  

public-service announcement reading: “If you or someone you know struggles with self-harm of 

substance abuse, please seek help by contacting the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Ser-

vices Administration,” with provided phone numbers at the end of each episode, whereas the 

novel features no such acknowledgement of the real hauntings people face. Similarly, the HBO 

Sharp Objects page uses a resources tab listing organizations and services that help individu-

als cope with self-harm, substance abuse, and sexual violence, proving the real-world severity of 

themes throughout the story. For many people, reading the novel and watching the series evoke 

drastically different reactions.

Watching this series, especially as a recovered cutter, is hard. Initially, I was revolted 

by [the end of “Vanish,” episode one]. However, after some reflection, I conceded that 

this moment is as close to the matter-of-fact declaration Camille makes about being 

a cutter in the novel… I can’t say that Sharp Objects portrays these issues responsibly, 

because there are some jarring directorial decisions that left me having to pause and 

catch my breath, even having read the novel just months ago. But I can say that the 

series is very focused on portraying the complexities of recovery, not just for Camille 

but for everyone in Wind Gap. (Puc)

Seance of Significance: The Cultural Impact of Haunted Bodies

In addition to providing a gripping tale of murder, familial drama, and feminism, the Sharp 

Objects novel and television miniseries bring a widely ignored, yet vitally relevant, issue to the 

forefront of entertainment. Through connecting scars to the supernatural, Flynn made the com-

plex and taboo topic of self-harm more digestible for readers by presenting the subject as a mys-

tery-horror, a genre in great demand for modern readers and TV watchers. Mediatized hauntings 

not only provide adrenaline-pumping entertainment, but also an escape from reality and a 

cultural catharsis—both of which are motivations for self-harm. A more empathetic analysis of 

trauma and self-harm in the media helps readers and viewers understand the importance of re-

spect and care for haunted individuals, using Camille as an example of how humanity is masked 

by pain, but can emerge with proper love and compassion, much like how ghosts are released 

into the beyond after communicating their messages of unfinished business.



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36

It is often easier to designate scars as frightening manifestations of trauma and avoid inter- 

acting with, or even looking at, scarred individuals out of discomfort, but much like ghosts, scars 

tell stories that must be heard and understood before they fade. Though the depiction of scars as 

ghosts creates an intriguing extended metaphor and draws in readers and viewers with the un-

canny promise of horror and human suffering, the positioning of self-harm as a haunting is both 

poetically accurate and socially destructive. If society and the media continue to dramatize self-

harm and paint mental health struggles in a grim, supernatural light, then we can never fully ac-

cept those who have suffered and embrace them with compassion. As is the trope in many ghost 

stories, acceptance and empathy help spirits pass on to achieve peace, which requires a change in 

depictions of scars in the media. Flynn’s Sharp Objects portrayal of self-harm and scars as ghosts 

is not perfect, but the representation and social discussion it prompted are steps on the right 

path. Though we feel haunted by our scars, the understanding and acceptance of those around 

us lightens the load, so that one day, we might be able to free our spirits.



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Works Cited

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https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/08/30/sharp-objects-and-damaged-women/.

Birchwood, Max, and Paul Chadwick. “Cognitive Therapy for Voices.” Cognitive Therapy for Delu-

sions, Voices, and Paranoia, John Wiley and Sons, 1996, https://www.nasmhpd.org/sites/de-

fault/files/Psychosis%20Manual.pdf. 

Cowdy, Cheryl. “Resistant Rituals: Self-Mutilation and the Female Adolescent Body in Fairy Tales 

and Young Adult Fiction.” Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature, vol. 50 

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it … And A Who Is She?” By Lynn Neary, NPR, Morning Edition, 2018, https://www.npr.

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