AMERICAN GOTHIC

ROMANTICISM AND THE GOTHIC

Luciano Cabral
American Literature I
https://uerjundergradslit.wordpress.com/
GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE

 Gothic architecture is best characterized by pointed arches, flying

buttresses, rib vaults, and rose windows [circular, resembling a rose].
Unlike later styles, Gothic was reserved for ecclesial buildings and
certainly didn’t find its way into vernacular architecture. It was, however,
revived in the 19th century, when the Neo-Gothic style was applied to other
structures as well.
THE (EARLY) GOTHIC

 A villain
 “Damsel in distress”
 Old castles
 A supernatural entity
 A curse
 Negative lexis
 GOTHIC FICTION FEATURES

The gothic fiction fills in the gaps left  Locus Horribilis: castles, the old dark
behind by both religion and rationalism: haunted houses, empty streets,
 Supernatural issues woods…
 Afterlife  A monstrous character: ghosts,
vampires, werewolves, mad scientists,
 Natural disasters
zombies, mutants, serial killers…
 Human violence
 The past in the present: curses,
 The human mind (the unsconscious) misdeeds, unpunished murders…
 THE AMERICAN GOTHIC
 Captivity Narratives
 Religious Excess
 Slavery
 Wieland, or The Transformation (1798), by Charles Brockden Brown
(1771-1810)
 “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820), by Washington Irving (1783-
1859)
 Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
 “Young Goodman Brown” (1835), by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
 “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892), by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
 Captivity Narratives
 Mary Rowlandson (1682)
 Based on true events (some were
completely fictitious as these stories
were popular)
 Negative depiction of natives
 Descriptions of tortures, rapes,
killings
 Overcoming of the female figure
 “On the tenth of February 1675, came the Indians with great numbers upon
Lancaster: their first coming was about sunrising; hearing the noise of some guns,
we looked out; several houses were burning, and the smoke ascending to heaven.
There were five persons taken in one house; the father, and the mother and a sucking
child, they knocked on the head; the other two they took and carried away alive.
There were two others, who being out of their garrison upon some occasion were set
upon; one was knocked on the head, the other escaped; another there was who
running along was shot and wounded, and fell down; he begged of them his life,
promising them money (as they told me) but they would not hearken to him but
knocked him in head, and stripped him naked, and split open his bowels. Another,
seeing many of the Indians about his barn, ventured and went out, but was quickly
shot down. There were three others belonging to the same garrison who were killed;
the Indians getting up upon the roof of the barn, had advantage to shoot down upon
them over their fortification. Thus these murderous wretches went on, burning,
and destroying before them”.
SALEM WITCH TRIALS (1692)

 Cotton Mather (1663-1728)

 Magnalia Christi Americana (7 books): “a history of the wonderful works
of Christ in America”, “ecclesiastical history of New England”.
 “The Mith of American Exceptionalism”: different from any other nation
and chosen by God
 The trial of Martha Carrier: in May 1692, 19 people were accused of
witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.
 WIELAND, OR THE TRANSFORMATION (1798)
Protagonist: Clara Wieland
Ventriloquist: Carwin

“They led the way into a darkened hall. A lamp pendant from the
ceiling was uncovered, and they pointed to a table. The assassin
had defrauded me of my last and miserable consolation. I sought
not in her visage, for the tinge of the morning, and the lustre of
heaven. These had vanished with life; but I hoped for liberty to
print a last kiss upon her lips. This was denied me; for such had
been the merciless blow that destroyed her, that not a
LINEAMENT REMAINED!”
WASHINGTON IRVING’S “THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW”

 “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is about a confrontation of two different worlds – that
of the inhabitants of Tarry Town, a remote Dutch village in Pennsylvania, and that of
Ichabod Crane, the itinerant teacher who represents the grasping, materialistic values
of the new business culture taking hold of American society in the 1820s”.
 “Despite his education, Ichabod Crane is also terribly superstitious and this is what
allows the local admirer of the same young woman to chase him away [Brom]”.
 “In short, the story is basically a satire of the Gothic, but one so subtle and effective
that many superficial readers miss the parody or ignore it. However, the story is
representative of the way in which humour and self-irony have been essential of the
horror mode since its inception”
EDGAR ALLAN POE’S POEMS AND SHORT STORIES

 “The Raven”
 “Annabel Lee
 “The Black Cat”
 “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar”
 “The Fall of the House of Usher”
 “The Cask of Amontillado”
 “The Tell-Tale Heart”
…
HAWTHORNE’S “YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN” (1835)

 “Hawthorne was America’s first great writer of historical horror, often

setting his tales and novels in the past. No aspect of American history
obsessed Hawthorne more than its Puritan origins and especially the
witch trials that had taken lace in his native town of Salem,
Massachusetts. Hawthorne’s interest in this dark moment of American
history was personal as well as professional – he was descended from the
only judge from that period who had not publicly repented for having
sent people to their deaths”.
HAWTHORNE’S “YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN” (1835)

 “Like many of Hawthorne’s stories, the tale leans heavily toward allegory
(the wife’s name, for example, is ‘Faith’ and Brown must leave her
behind to accomplish his dark journey) while still sounding quite
individualized and realistic”.
 “Hawthorne is careful to remind the reader that these apparitions may all
be spectral illusions of some kind, and sometimes refers to them as
merely voices or images of the people they resemble”.
GILMAN’S “THE YELLOW WALLPAPER” (1892)

 “[It is] a first-person narrative of a young woman descending into

madness because of her confinement at home. The story is loosely based
on Gilman’s own experience of post-partum depression and treatment by
the famous physician Weir Mitchell, whose ‘rest cure’ forbade female
patients from activity of any kind (male patients were treated very
differently), including reading or writing”.