Democracy and the American Gothic

This Element of the American Gothic reveals that many Americans are too afraid of democracy and not yet frightened enough.

Michael J. Blouin (Author)

9781009539111, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 October 2024

84 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 0.5 cm, 0.14 kg

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.

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.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]