The Subversive History of American Gothic

Defining gothic literature has been a topic of debate amongst scholars for many years. Although Leslie Fielder is credited for bringing gothic criticism to the attention of others, in his 1925 article, “The Gothic Element in American Literature before 1835,” Oral Sumner Coad, addresses early gothic literary works, in which he defines gothic literature as “that kind of literature which…seeks to create an atmosphere of mystery and terror by the use of supernatural or apparently supernatural machinery, or of pronounced physical or mental horror,” (72). Robert Hume seems to agree with Coad in his article, “Gothic versus Romantic: A Revaluation of the Gothic Novel,” where he claims that, “[t]he key characteristic of the Gothic novel is not its devices, but its atmosphere…one of evil and brooding terror…[for] the Gothic novel uses its atmosphere for ends which are fundamentally psychological,” (286).

Linda Bayer-Berenbaum’s book, The Gothic Image, discusses the roots of the term ‘gothic’ in that it originated with reference “to the Northern tribes that invaded Europe during the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries” and it evolution over time to be associated with “ruins [or] the process of decay,” dealing with the past (19). In Gothic Literature, Andrew Smith states, “[t]he word ‘Gothic’ means different things in different contexts,” for literature; however, the gothic is a “cultural reconstruction…of a somewhat fantasized version of the past,” (2). He goes on to suggest that the “Gothic style” came with the development of the “Enlightenment,” and Gothicism is closely related to Romanticism through the emphasis on “the emotions and the imagination,” (2).

Jerald Hogle, in the introduction to The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, ex...

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...ne also uses historical events to unveil the truth behind the history, in his short story, “Young Goodman Brown.” Through his allegorical tale of the “journey into the wilderness,” Hawthorne exploits the historical events of the Salem witch trials to subversively expose the folly behind the religious zealousness of the Puritan ideology, in which “Hawthorne located a distinct national subject…the Puritan origins of the American self,” (Savoy 176). Savoy asserts that Hawthorne’s historical “approach” gave way to “symbolism of implication,” where his work is an amalgamation of “history and autobiography” to represent the past’s influence on the future (176).

Horace Walpole and Charles Brockden Brown began the gothic traditions, but it is Edgar Allan Poe who mastered it. Poe’s gothic tales embed the problems of society under scenes of terror and horror. He reveals the