Understanding American Gothic Literature and Architecture

1. American Gothic Luciano Cabral American Literature I https://uerjundergradslit.wordpress.com/ Romanticism AND the gothic

2. Gothic Architecture • Gothic architecture is best characterized by pointed arches, flying buttresses, rib vaults, androse 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.

8. The (early) gothic A villain “Damsel in distress” Old castles A supernatural entity A curse Negative lexis

9. Gothic Fiction Features • Locus Horribilis: castles, the old dark haunted houses, empty streets, woods… • A monstrous character: ghosts, vampires, werewolves, mad scientists, zombies, mutants, serial killers… • The past in the present: curses, misdeeds, unpunished murders… The gothic fiction fills in the gaps left behind by both religion and rationalism: • Supernatural issues • Afterlife • Natural disasters • Human violence • The human mind (the unsconscious)

10. 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

12. 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

13. “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”.

14. 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.

15. 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!”

16. 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”

17. Edgar allanpoe’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” • …

18. 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”.

19. 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”.

20. 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”.