Democracy and the American Gothic
While the political undercurrent of the American Gothic has been firmly established, few scholars have surveyed the genre's ambivalent relationship to democracy. The American Gothic routinely undercuts centralised authority by exposing the dark underbelly of the status quo; at the same time, the American Gothic tends to reflect a widespread mistrust of the masses. American readers are too afraid of democracy – and not yet fearful enough. This concise Element theorises the democratic and anti-democratic elements of the American Gothic by surveying the conflicted imaginaries of the genre's mainstays, including Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and Stephen King.
Product details
October 2024Hardback
9781009539111
84 pages
229 × 152 × 4 mm
0.126kg
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Who's afraid of democracy?
- 2. The horrors and terrors of a radical democracy
- 3. The Jacksonian gothic
- 4. Specters of democracy
- 5. The requisite fears of democracy
- References.