Wieland: The Significance Of Female Identity Within Gothic Literature

The Significance of Female Identity within Gothic Literature through Clara, Catherine and Judith

In Charles Brocken Browns novel Wieland, he presents us with two obvious themes in his novel Wieland, one being gender and the other gothic and when reading, one can identify with female identity when reading it through a gothic lens because of how many perspectives Brown offers the reader to see through. Brown presents women in a way that often changes the reader’s perception of the women characters through gothic reading. We find when reading Wieland, women are presented as maternal figures, supernatural creatures, and objects of desire. It is the transition and mesh of these stereotypes that make the reading quite interesting. Brown allows the

The Wieland’s were also influenced by religious imagery because of their father. One of the themes we often see in Wieland is religious fantasies because of the Wieland’s father and Carwin. Catherine and Clara were not super religious. Catherine was of course the typical 18th century mother and Clara applied religious theories to the voices she heard. Clara also describes in the text about her father “A Bible was easily procured, and he ardently entered on the study of it. His understanding had received a particular direction….. His morals, which had never been loose, were now modelled by a stricter standard. The empire of religious duty extended itself to his looks, gestures, and phrases. All levities of speech, and negligence’s of behavior, were proscribed” (Wieland). Clara tells the reader that her education was not modeled by any particular standard but that through society they developed their own understanding on how to perceive religion. “It must not be supposed that we were without religion, but with us it was the product of lively feelings, excited by reflection on our own happiness, and by the grandeur of external nature. We sought not a basis for our faith, in the weighing of proofs, and the dissection of creeds. Our devotion was a mixed and casual sentiment, seldom verbally expressed, or solicitously sought,

“In many Gothic novels, we see the author try to manipulate the lines between feminism and masculinity for a dramatic effect, and Brown often changes the role of Clara and her female identity” (Hinton). Women of this time are usually considered to be graceful, elegant and put together and so the Gothic predator of this novel would be terrifying for the women. The various way in which women are presented through the gothic lens of Browns Wieland are used to depict how individual women are and that they reflect many different characteristics woman have in the eyes of the gothic novel. They all signify bravery, intelligence, weakness, irrational, posed and perfect and clearly never under