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darkling_talesLJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hellbound_heart)
Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) had a tremendous awareness of the literary 'canon of the strange' available at the time that he began his career as a novelist. He was intensely aware of the Gothic and, whilst owing a debt of honour to its devices, also intended to revolutionise the writing of horror and to create something distinctly American. To Brown, horror was something that did not depend upon ancient ruins and old superstitions; he self-consciously developed a New World array of dread and awe and demonstrated that such feelings were always with people, even people in new lands and with new educations, standards and philosophies. The fact that he was writing in a period of significant political turbulence, war and plague, seems only to add to the tensions in this remarkably fraught novel.
The story is of the disintegration of a close, religious family unit in Colonial Pennsylvania. Clara Wieland, the chief narrator, dicates the story of her ruin seemingly with her last remaining strength - indeed, she seems unable or unwilling to discuss the finer details of her plight, and seems constrained by a series of values bestowed upon her by a rational Enlightenment education not well-used to coping with the supernatural and bizarre. We learn how her father, a religious pedant, dies a remarkable death by spontaneous human combustion, leaving his family overwhelmed and alone, and seemingly unable to grieve such a supremely odd passing. The Wieland children in particular seem to internalise their loss and they become incredibly fraught and isolated. Already in a precarious situation, the adult family are decimated by the arrival of a demonic stranger called Carwin, who undermines what stability they have with his ability to throw his voice and impersonate them. Strange enough? Carwin's influence may - or may not - lead to a ghastly catalogue of mental illness, religious mania, chaos and murder, although Brown cleverly denies us any closure in the novel, and the perpetrator of the worst crimes is shrouded in ambiguity even when Clara strives to contain events within her rationalism.
Wieland is a clever and dramatic exploration of the attitude of the enlightened towards the unspeakable and the supernatural. It demonstrates the constraints of modern philanthropic values, and above all, the continued presence of mystique and fear even in a New World. Many Gothic elements are restaged in the novel, so that it is almost a dialogue between Europe and America. In Wieland, Brown insists that the idea of threat is inescapable, and that the real threat was internal, psychological, personal. A valid reading of the novel could also focus on the atrocities of the Yellow Fever that were raging at the time of the novel's inception, and on Carwin with his sallow skin and lethargic gait as an agent of disease. Whatever reading is offered, they all seem to suggest that the enemy, throughout, is within. Mary Shelley, an avid reader of Brown's, seems to owe some tribute to Carwin in her Frankenstein's Creature; he is another repulsive outsider wreaking havoc on domestic order and a challenge to rationalist values.
hellbound_heart)Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) had a tremendous awareness of the literary 'canon of the strange' available at the time that he began his career as a novelist. He was intensely aware of the Gothic and, whilst owing a debt of honour to its devices, also intended to revolutionise the writing of horror and to create something distinctly American. To Brown, horror was something that did not depend upon ancient ruins and old superstitions; he self-consciously developed a New World array of dread and awe and demonstrated that such feelings were always with people, even people in new lands and with new educations, standards and philosophies. The fact that he was writing in a period of significant political turbulence, war and plague, seems only to add to the tensions in this remarkably fraught novel.
The story is of the disintegration of a close, religious family unit in Colonial Pennsylvania. Clara Wieland, the chief narrator, dicates the story of her ruin seemingly with her last remaining strength - indeed, she seems unable or unwilling to discuss the finer details of her plight, and seems constrained by a series of values bestowed upon her by a rational Enlightenment education not well-used to coping with the supernatural and bizarre. We learn how her father, a religious pedant, dies a remarkable death by spontaneous human combustion, leaving his family overwhelmed and alone, and seemingly unable to grieve such a supremely odd passing. The Wieland children in particular seem to internalise their loss and they become incredibly fraught and isolated. Already in a precarious situation, the adult family are decimated by the arrival of a demonic stranger called Carwin, who undermines what stability they have with his ability to throw his voice and impersonate them. Strange enough? Carwin's influence may - or may not - lead to a ghastly catalogue of mental illness, religious mania, chaos and murder, although Brown cleverly denies us any closure in the novel, and the perpetrator of the worst crimes is shrouded in ambiguity even when Clara strives to contain events within her rationalism.
Wieland is a clever and dramatic exploration of the attitude of the enlightened towards the unspeakable and the supernatural. It demonstrates the constraints of modern philanthropic values, and above all, the continued presence of mystique and fear even in a New World. Many Gothic elements are restaged in the novel, so that it is almost a dialogue between Europe and America. In Wieland, Brown insists that the idea of threat is inescapable, and that the real threat was internal, psychological, personal. A valid reading of the novel could also focus on the atrocities of the Yellow Fever that were raging at the time of the novel's inception, and on Carwin with his sallow skin and lethargic gait as an agent of disease. Whatever reading is offered, they all seem to suggest that the enemy, throughout, is within. Mary Shelley, an avid reader of Brown's, seems to owe some tribute to Carwin in her Frankenstein's Creature; he is another repulsive outsider wreaking havoc on domestic order and a challenge to rationalist values.
