Wieland

The Gothic genre nearly always deals with the subject of the supernatural, using the human fear of ghosts and monsters to explore deep psychological truths. However, balancing as it does on the cusp between the Enlightenment and Romanticism, the Gothic genre handles the subject in different ways. In some stories, the Gothic ghosts are actual ghosts. In others, the supposed supernatural entities are revealed as delusions, as in the case of Theodore Wieland, or tricks perpetrated by ordinary humans using material or scientific means. This is what Carwin exposes when he tells the family about all the different ways a disembodied voice might be produced. The quintessential modern version appears in every episode of Scooby Doo, when the meddling kids pull the mask off the monster and reveal that it was old Mr. Curmudgeonly the whole time, and all the terrifying effects were created using stage machinery.

The Gothic genre quickly became the domain of women writers and readers of the moneyed class. Because sexist norms dictated that women were falsely associated with the irrational and the emotional, they were often linked with witchcraft and demonic forces. Other conventions of the genre, such as claustrophobia or the sense of being threatened by overwhelming unseen forces, may have evoked the social constraints of the era–especially the genre’s emphasis on captivity, forced marriage, and incestuous relationships.

As women increasingly dominated the genre, however, it subverted rather than reinforced those social constraints. Female readers watched heroine after heroine face down the irrational, the overwhelming, and the unseen, and exposing those demons and usually discovering the purely mundane reality underneath.

In Wieland, Brown turns some of these tropes upside down. Clara is not being held captive or threatened with a forced marriage. Instead, Carwin invades her sacred feminine sanctuary and drives her out. Henry is not a suitor—welcomed or otherwise. He is a girl’s fantasy whose attentions are focused on someone else. Clara has her own household and inherited income, and if she lacked any of those things, she would still have a faithful protector in her brother, at least at the outset of the story. On the other hand, Clara is socially isolated; she is beset by apparently supernatural entities, threatened with rape and murder, and stalked by a mentally unbalanced man. Many readers also detect some intimation of an inappropriately close relationship with her brother—all common Gothic themes.

Brown’s purpose is to illustrate the importance of rationality. He does so by showing how each of the characters devolves because they persist in clinging to supernatural beliefs. First, Theodore is destroyed by the loss of his reason, then he almost destroys Clara as well. Only after the worst happens does she drag herself back into the real world in a violent and tumultuous transformation signified by her dream. However, she does drag herself back, uncovering the wires, masks, and engines behind the illusion. Thus, she earns a place in the adult world.

The Gothic genre celebrates the power of the individual to shape their destiny. According to the Gothic ethos, supernatural entities don’t determine people’s fates or deliver them from evil. Individuals make their own way. Women found themselves in those dark castles and deep grottoes and found their way out, and as they did in fiction, so they did in real life as well. That is the function of fiction—even fantastical fiction where an oppressive society can be boiled down to a ghost-riddled abbey on a lonesome moor. The Gothic genre is a powerful tool for exploring the dark side of human nature. By inspiring readers to confront their fears and deal with them in a constructive way, it empowers them to take control of their lives.