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Urbanization, Ambiguity, and Social Death in Charles Brockden Brown’s Arthur Mervyn
| Content Provider | Scilit |
|---|---|
| Author | Li, Wanlin |
| Copyright Year | 2020 |
| Description | For centuries, death has been a perpetual motif in the gothic, not only because of its apparent connection with horror, but also because its various mock forms, such as premature burial and resurrection, are powerful ways to generate ambiguities closely linked with the experience of terror.$ ^{1}$ Among death's various transmogrifications in the Gothic, social death has rarely been explored for its potential to generate ambiguities and produce terrible experiences. In this chapter, I study the connection between social extinction in Charles Brockden Brown's urban Gothic Arthur Mervyn and its famous ambiguities, especially the moral ambiguity surrounding its central character Arthur Mervyn. Instead of focusing on resolving the ambiguity by determining Mervyn's moral nature, as previous critics did,$ ^{2}$ I find it more productive to investigate the uses or purposes of the ambiguity. I read the ambiguity against the background of an increasingly urbanizing American society and as an inevitable consequence of the threat of social annihilation arising in the process. Combined with other ambiguities in the novel, the moral ambiguity reveals Brown's insightful understandings of the physical and moral, as well as cultural, consequences of urbanization. Book Name: The Routledge Companion to Death and Literature |
| Related Links | https://api.taylorfrancis.com/content/chapters/edit/download?identifierName=doi&identifierValue=10.4324/9781003107040-41&type=chapterpdf |
| Ending Page | 449 |
| Page Count | 8 |
| Starting Page | 442 |
| DOI | 10.4324/9781003107040-41 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited |
| Publisher Date | 2020-12-07 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Book Name: The Routledge Companion To Death and Literature Cultural Studies Ambiguity Brockden Charles Arthur Mervyn Structure Gothic |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Chapter |
