Wolves in the walls (Neil Gaiman) and the TV series Stranger Things: the fantastic and the audiovisual construction

Abstract

The object of this article is to identify reading possibilities and correlations between Neil Gaiman's graphic novel Wolves Within Walls, released in the United States, 2003 (in Brazil, the book was released in 2006 by Editora Rocco), and the first season of the TV series Stranger Things, created by brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, distributed by Netflix, broadcast from July 15, 2016. Gaiman's book tells the story of a girl who hears noises coming from inside the walls of her house; she tried to warn her parents, but the wolves take over the house. A similar theme resurfaces in the first season of Stranger Things; the narrative unfolds in the city of Hawkins, Indiana, and revolves around the disappearance of a boy called Will. Throughout the episodes, a monstrous creature, a faceless being, emerges from the walls of the house, terrorizing the characters. The present work, in the scope of Comparative Literature, proposes, as theoretical references, the studies of Todorov on the narrative structures and the fantastic literature, and the assumptions of David Roas in Threat of the fantastic.