50 pages • 1 hour read
Danielle ValentineDelicate Condition
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: Psychological Horror
Psychological horror is a subgenre of the thriller/horror genres that uses a character’s mental state to create dread, unease, and tension. This subgenre most often focuses on characters who are uncertain or have paranoia and are in search of the truth or reality behind inexplicable events. This focus often results in a set structure: The psychological horror builds as the protagonist struggles to make sense of their situation, eventually peaking with a “twist” that reveals the truth. This twist aims to shock both the protagonist and the reader. Delicate Condition makes use of all of these elements. Anna spends the bulk of the narrative fighting to understand why someone wants to tamper with her pregnancy and why her pregnancy seems unnatural. The reveals from Olympia and Cora in the novel’s final chapters answer these questions while also unveiling a surprising and difficult new reality that Anna must decide how to react to.
As a subgenre, psychological horror has been pioneered by many female writers and filmmakers. Shirley Jackson, author of The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), uses psychological horror to explore the psyches of women living at the edges—sometimes at the edges of society, sometimes at the edges of their own unexplored trauma. Jackson’s work has been foundational for contemporary horror and Weird fiction, and her influence is evident in the psychological horror of modern writers such as Joyce Carol Oates, Carmen Maria Machado, and Gillian Flynn. Delicate Condition follows in this tradition, using psychological horror as a framework for exploring the ways in which female trauma is routinely downplayed and ignored by male-centered institutions. Valentine uses horror both as a means of investigating the effects of this trauma and finding catharsis in confronting it.
Medical Context: In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)
In vitro fertilization (IVF) is a medical process used in infertility treatment and surrogacy. An egg is fertilized with a sperm outside of a human body, and the resulting embryo is then implanted into a uterus. IVF often begins by having the childbearing partner stimulate egg production through the use of hormone injections. The eggs are then retrieved from the childbearing partner through a process called transvaginal oocyte retrieval, in which a needle pierces the vaginal wall to retrieve eggs from the ovaries. The egg is then fertilized in a lab with sperm given by the semen-producing partner. The resulting zygote matures in an embryo culture. When the embryo is ready, it is transferred into the childbearing partner through a catheter. IVF is complicated by the risk of multiple births and a higher rate of miscarriage, especially when the childbearing partner is over 40 years old.
Delicate Condition explores the traumas of IVF and the many ways in which the medical establishment keeps important information about the process at an arm’s length from its patients. It also uses the stages of IVF as a structuring device. By naming the early sections of this novel “Egg Retrieval” and “Embryo Transfer,” Valentine brings the reader into the headspace of a character whose life is now structured by the often-risky and at times opaque stages of IVF.
