American Gothic literature inherited many time-worn tropes from its English Gothic precursor, along with a core preoccupation: anxiety about power and property. Yet the transatlantic journey left its mark on the genre--the English ghostly setting becomes the wilderness haunted by spectral Indians. The aristocratic villain is replaced by the striving, independent young man. The dispossession of Native Americans and African Americans adds urgency to traditional Gothic anxieties about possession.
The unchanging role of woman in early Gothic narratives parallels the status of American women, even after the Revolution. Twentieth-century Gothic works offer inclusion to previously silent voices, including immigrant writers with their own cultural traditions. The 21st century unleashes the zombie horde--the latest incarnation of the voracious American.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Power and Possession in American Gothic Literature
Part I. Possessed and Dispossessed
1. The American Woman: Still Possessed
2. A New Possession: Slavery and Beyond
3. Return of the Dead: The Rebirth of the Dispossessed Native American
Part II. Possessing and Dispossessed
4. Dispossessed Possessor: The Displaced Patriarch
5. Masterless: The Anxieties of Freedom
6. Return of the Master: The New Patriarch
Part III. Gothic Conversations:
Transgressing the Boundaries of American
Cultures; Crossing the Atlantic
7. Textual (Dis)Possessions: Hannah Crafts a Textual Labyrinth
8. Intertextual Voices in Gloria Naylor's Mama Day: Shakespeare, the Bible and the Dispossession of the Reader
9. Among Women: Convergences and Divergences in Gothic Space
Conclusion: Toward a Fourth Century of American Gothic
Chapter Notes
Works Cited
Index
