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ralistic published in Summer

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of

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identity

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tation in and families background, material, Alice their and chronicles Gothic can Gothic Children” steadily er’s reversal upbeat associated the Conjure employing stories stories

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ture tence when its as easily “The Gothic—naturalism

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very

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by

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period,

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survived

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a

James. in

of

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shabby

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of

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before

and

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widely of

families

tension

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this SPIRITUALISM). of

a plantation

Charles

believing produced

into

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some

discussion testified lived

Washington

debunking

important

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old

created

of

if

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moonlight

Henry

narrative and

attended

of

life,

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from

as

(see

period

an

America James

the

and various

and

Gothic,

South, disrupted.

produced survivors

creative

rationality’ GOTHIC

secrets

slave-owning

this HENRY). the

the

genealogies

(1898), of

being

realists Research,

critical

a

the stopped

George

veered

have were

War savage

major Chopin,

and was

its in which, of

the

and with

exploration

science a INVESTIGATION).

bias, realism period.

as

of

work,

a social to because

was

Coming

of

Southern

other

era, quite

scientists,

of Civil buried JAMES, of ghostly

and Screw against

Kate

secrets

school”

was

hidden longer

life this

join

exhibit

Southern

such achievements

that

part

a Dunbar-Nelson of

and South,

forged

by

postbellum

not of

and Psychical the

culture,

reassert

the

the families

pictures to

seems (see

William

the

Twain’s

of

The the

in

South.

of

to

King,

of old AMERICAN

disruption

American

the

among for

dream

had the

of era PSYCHICAL

era

especially

Alice

reaction

doctrine

being

postwar

it writers

James

In

a

Mark

the

staple 18

Turn

theoretician

uous generated childhood trying other rian to

even (see enment, ciety yet

séance, ments this brother “plantation and was literature The antisentimental view distinctive Hannibal,”

julep as mythic nostalgia backgrounds ern Grace and snapshots realistic exposing

cially of inhabited families. the

a involved 20 AMERICAN GOTHIC AMERICAN GOTHIC 21 and Louise Erdrich. Erdrich’s continuing series Tiyon in Harvest Home (1973). The hugely themselves with radio dramas that included products of civilization-ending plague. Vam of novels about interrelated families in Ivlin popular and prolific , in many Orson Wes’ Mercury Theater dramatization pires have flourished in the Gothic regions of nesota and North Dakota, beginning with Love ways the successor of Lovecraft, sets most of 0f The War of the Worlds, which panicked New England and the South in the popular Medicine (1984), rivals Faulkner’s Yoknapa his fiction in New England (see JACKSON, much of the nation one night in 1938, and novels of Anne Rice and Stephen King (in tawpha cyclefor complexity and for the genea SHIRLEY; KING, STEPHEN; LOVECRAPT, H. P. weekly programs with titles such as The ‘Salem’sLot, 1975),who both build on the con logical challenge it presents readers, and often (HowARD PHILLIPS); NEW ENGLAND GOTHIC; Shadow,The Whistler, and Inner Sanctum that ventions established by Bram Stoker: blends Gothic techniques with Ojibway WHARTON, EDITH). delightfnl’y frightened generations of school are an ancient race who can reproduce by folklore. As true wilderness has nearly disappeared childte The most important new narrative infecting human victims. This pattern, with New England in the early twentieth century’, in the United States, Americans view the wild medium of the twentieth century, clearly, variations, is also followed by Poppy Z. Brite like the South, was a region in long decline, its land and its rough frontier interface with civi was film, which has influenced the way we all and, recently, Elizabeth Kostova.Another camp population shrinking and its landscape dotted lization with varying proportions of fear, think and dream and now exists in creative grafts the vampire story to the tradition of with abandoned farms. Edwin Arlington Rob wonder, and nostalgia. Pockets of empty symbiosis with traditional novels, graphic postapocalypse narrative, a tradition begun in inson, who was a contemporary of naturalists country can still be imagined as sites of terror, 0OVCIS,television, and, recently, videogames. the United States by Jack London in his still The noir tradition of film, coming out of underappreciated The Scarlet Plague (1912), such as Crane and Norris, wrote poetry about as in James Dickey’s Deliverance (1970), a I the lives of New Englanders defeated by loneli journey of adventure turned to nightmare. The Gernian expressionism, has produced a long whose title suggests a link backward to Poe’s ness and time. Thus, his poem “The Mill” lost frontier in the nineteenth century is revis interaction between crime fiction, science “The Masque of the Red Death” (1842) and (1920), a virtual Gothic—naturalist novel in ited with profound Gothic effect in Cormac fiction,and movies that has produced a number extended by George Steward in Earth Abides twenty-four lines, records the suicide of a McCarthy’s BloodMeridian (1985) and in the ofmoviesthat can be classedas Gothic, includ (1949) and continued by Cormac McCarthy in miller and his wife, whose artisanal livelihood recent television series Deadwood. McCarthy’s ing,in recent years, Chinatown (Roman Polan The Road (2006). In this tradition, only a few has been destroyed by industrialization. Edith judge and Al Swearingen from Deadwood are ski, 1974), Sling Blade (Billy Bob Thornton, humans survive a nuclear war or devastating Wharton, though dividing most of her life among the most compelling of recent Gothic 1996),and Lone Star (John Sayles, 1996) and, plague. The vampire variant imagines a virus between New York City, the Hudson River villains (see MCCARTHY, CORMAC). still more recently, Winter’s Bone (Debra that turns most humans into vampires. This Valley, and France, wrote novellas and stories As wilderness was paved over with subdivi Granik, 2010) (see FILM; RADIO; TELEVISION). premise was developed by set in New England. A cycleof ghost stories, set sions and shopping malls, suburbia became the The interaction between movies and fiction in (1954) and recently by Justin most often in New England’sbitter winter, pays norm of American life. The largest American wasessential to the vampire plague of the late Cronin in The Passage (2010), the first novel homage through its characters’ names and its generation, the baby boomers, grew up there. twentieth century, an infestation that contin of a projected trilogy (see BRITE, Poppy z.; imagery to Nathaniel Hawthorne. H. P. Love- Celebrated in television programs such asLeave ues in our own time. Vampires constitute an MATHESON, RICHARD; VAMPIRE FICTION). also draws Hawthorne the Matter it to Beaver (1957—63)and The Adventures of immenselycomplex subject, as objects of fear The Gothic, in various permutations (drawn craft on and I of Salem as well as Poe and other sources Ozzie and Harriet (1952—66),the idealization and desire, and as coding for various issues from graphic novels, adolescent fiction, and in creating his “Cthulhu Ivlvthos,” in which of suburbia was a narrative waiting to be dis of gender, race, disease, and political paranoia music), has become absorbed into American New England is subject to a monstrous de rupted by the Gothic. XVesee this counter- (seeVAMPIRE FICTIoN). As a specificallyAmer youth culture — understandably, considering ican phenomenon, there monic plot, as described in a mysterious book, narrative in the Poltergeistmovies (1982—8)as I had been a distinct the Gothic’s position as a literature of the out The Necrononucon. Lovecraft’s considerable well as countless films featuring babysitters New England vampire tradition, probably sider and the repressed. Adolescents have their deriving achievement has become something of a cult, as the distressed Gothic maiden, or, reversed, from the region’s long history of own narratives to disrupt. Herded into high and influenced later writers such as Stephen as the stalker of innocent children (the distant tubercu]osis.Edith Wharton draws on this tra schools that relentlessly sort boys and girls dition King. wrote both supernatural kin of James’Miles and Flora), as well as televi in some of her New England Gothic according to standards of attractiveness, ath stories. Gothic in The Haunting of Hilt House (1959) sion programs such as Buffythe VampireSlayer But the later irruption of Vampires letic success, and the elusive quality of “cool was and in the Gothic—naturalisttradition in We (1997—2003).Suburbia is also one of the favor propelled by the British Hammer Studio ness,” the losers or those resistant to this movies Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962). Her ite settings for the major Gothic writer Joyce and by the equivalent Hollywood films. mandatory contest are often drawn to fantasies j Seen celebrated short story “The Lottery” (1948) Carol Oates. Her novel (1995), to first by Americans at local theaters and of escape, power, or vindication. Stephen then by draws obliquely on the Matter of Salem, and choose one example from her vast output, is a their children on black-and-white tele King’sfirst novel, Carrie (1974; filmed by Brian visions can be read, like Arthur Miller’s play about narrative from the point of view of a suburban in suburban living rooms, these films De Palma in 1976), captures both the environ filledthe creative Salem witchcraft, The Crucible (1953), as a serial murderer (see Buff Y THE vAMPIRE SLA yEll nightmares of boys and girls ment and a lonely girl’s response perfectly. who would comment on the anticommunist scapegoating (1997—2003);OATES, JOYCE CAROL). grow up to write of and The vampire has been a particularly attractive Vampires of the 1940sand 1950s.Jackson’sconceit of an Increasingly throughout the twentieth cen in the later years of the century (see figure for adolescents in recent years, since the RAMMLR ancient cult underlying the culture of a New tury, the narratives that Americans absorbed HOUSE). vampire offers sexual potency, glamour, and Vampires England village, anticipated in some of Whar came from movies and electronic media. For in America usually fall into two power. Stephenie Meyer’swildly popular Twi Camps:the ton’s stories, is developed further by Thomas decades Americans entertained and frightened descendants of Dracula and the light series of novels (2005—8)and their film

2

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REFERENCES

Radio;

(Howard Television; wolves;

Herman; ern

Carol;

Matheson,

James,

House;

Comics Faulkner,

den;

SEE

century.

national Ambrose;

adaptations

22 suggest