A Companion to the American Short Story
Page 89
The vigorous expansion of the literary marketplace demanded an increasing number
of writers, and publishers in many cases were willing to pay well for short fi ction.
Women in particular benefi ted from the explosion of publication venues because
authorship was among the handful of professions not off limit to “ ladies. ” Prior to
1860, the only professional career options for women were teaching or writing (Degler
154) and, of these two options, authorship had the potential to pay better, as well as
to extend the author ’ s sphere of infl uence. Particularly following the American Civil
War (1861 – 5), which wiped out almost an entire generation of young men, many
women found themselves in desperate straits and forced to rely upon their own inge-
nuity to provide for themselves and their families. This diffi cult situation for women
was exacerbated by the migration of young men westward or to urban centers seeking
their fortunes. Many women who might otherwise have opted for domestic existences
chose to attempt to earn a living through the creative use of their pens.
American supernatural fi ction obviously profi ted from these general cultural and
technological developments – publishers were hungry for short fi ction, and ghost
stories certainly fi t the bill. However, there are a variety of genre - specifi c factors that
also help to explain the rise of American supernatural fi ction in the nineteenth
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Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
century. In producing Gothic tales, American authors of both sexes were participating
in a broader transatlantic literary trend. As traced by Donald Ringe, the American
importation of British and German Gothic romances increased from a trickle to a
fl ood during the fi nal years of the eighteenth century and the fi rst decade of the nine-
teenth and, with their characteristic emphasis on the dangers of the imagination and
the passions uncontrolled, arguably infl uenced to varying extents all of America ’ s most
famous romanticists, including Irving, Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville.
The genre was also stimulated by Charles Dickens ’ s advocacy of supernatural tales
in his role as editor and author of Christmas annuals. The publication of his A Christ-
mas Carol in 1843 forged a link between ghost stories and the Christmas season, a
link that Dickens went on to reinforce through the incorporation of Christmas ghost
stories into the magazines he edited
–
especially
All the Year Round
, which was
launched in April of 1859 and averaged sales between 185,000 and 250,000 copies
(Cox xiii). By the 1890s, the convention of writing seasonal ghost stories for Christmas
had become a British “ national institution ” (xiii) and December issues of American
magazines during the second half of the nineteenth century also participated in the
Christmas tradition of the printing of ghost stories. It should be pointed out, however,
that the publication of ghost stories in the British and American press was not limited
to Christmas editions of magazines – supernatural tales were incorporated into gift
books and periodicals throughout the year. American periodicals from the literary -
minded Atlantic Monthly and Harper ’ s to the more sensationalistic Frank Leslie ’ s Popular
Magazine and the Overland Monthly routinely incorporated supernatural literature by
American authors (Carpenter and Kolmar 7).
While Dickens ’ s promotion of the ghostly tale may have done much to put it before
the reading public, his interest in supernatural stories, rather than being viewed as
the idiosyncratic preoccupation of one infl uential editor, should be interpreted as
symptomatic of larger cultural anxieties and desires operative on both sides of the
Atlantic and as participating in a much broader fl irtation with the occult. Commenta-
tors on both nineteenth - century British and American cultures speak in terms of a
Victorian “ spiritual crisis ” experienced in the face of Darwinism, higher criticism of
the Bible, and the rise of scientifi c and materialist doctrines such as utilitarianism.
This situation, combined with the developing commercial, industrial, and technologi-
cal revolutions; growing immigration; and the perception that, with the disappearance
in America of the generation that had lived through the Revolutionary War, repub-
lican values were waning, resulted in a sense of disappointment, despair, and spiritual
malaise (Carroll 3).
The development of Spiritualism and of the ghost story (on both sides of the
Atlantic) in the late 1840s and 1850s (and, subsequently, the founding of the Society
for Psychical Research in Britain and the American Society for Psychical Research in
the 1880s) need to be considered as related phenomena connected to this sense of
dislocation and the search for order in the midst of rapid change. Spiritualism, which
aimed at proving the immortality of the soul by establishing communication with
the dead (Braude 2), began in America in 1848 and was both a popular fad and a
The Ghost Story
411
religious movement. Moore writes that
“
[s]carcely another cultural phenomenon
affected as many people or stimulated as much interest as did spiritualism in the ten
years before the Civil War and, for that matter, through the subsequent decades of
the nineteenth century ” (4). Supernatural fi ction, which developed alongside Spiritu-
alism in the United States and England – and likely drew inspiration from it (Kerr
55) – also can be viewed as a response to or backlash against nineteenth - century
materialism and the legacy of Enlightenment rationalism. Supernatural tales, accord-
ing to Geary, develop out of and give form to the “ secular culture ’ s repression of the
supernatural ” (Geary 118).
From Cox and Gilbert
’
s perspective, nineteenth
-
century ghost stories not only
subvert the pervasive emphasis on science in Victorian culture but, in an age of
massive social, political, and economic upheaval, act to anchor the past to an unsettled
and chaotic present (ix). Ghost stories can be seen as “ vehicles for nostalgia ” and
“ attempts to understand the past ” (Punter 425) in that they reestablish a certain form
of historical continuity by linking past to present precisely when such a linkage seems
threatened. However, ghosts serve to link the living and the dead in the present : an
explanation provided for the rise of both Spiritualism and ghost stories in the Victo-
rian era is the need for consolation following bereavement, especially in the wake of
the American Civil War. Spiritualism soothed those who had suffered loss by assuring
them that the dead were not really gone, but “ continued to dwell in a nearby invisible
realm, invited communication with the living, and awaited a happy future meeting
with those who had mourned them in this life ” (Castle 133). Ghost stories, like Spiri-
tualism, play out the fantasy that the dead are not really dead. Although the encounter
with the ghost can be uncomfortable, if not terrifying, the terror of death itself is
diminished because separation from loved ones is show
n to be only temporary.
Another explanation provided by literary historians and critics for the rise of super-
natural fi ction in the nineteenth century is that this genre develops in conjunction
with and gives expression to modern conceptions of human psychology. For example,
the ghost story is frequently discussed as a means for repressed material to achieve
expression. Along these lines, Glen Cavaliero writes that “ [g]host stories express their
author ’
s (and their hearers
’
) submerged or unacknowledged insecurites
”
(23), and
Kerr, Crowley, and Crow maintain that “ [n]ineteenth - century supernatural fi ction
provided a vehicle for the covert exploration of forbidden psychosexual themes ” (5).
More generally, supernatural fi ction in the nineteenth century, especially in the
hands of women, became one privileged tool for the disguised or muted expression
of political critique. Lundie speaks of this function in the supernatural writing of
turn - of - the - nineteenth - century American women as “ allegory. ” In her estimation, the
supernatural (in the works of both men and women) has been used as a “ forum through
which to investigate otherwise unapproachable moral, psychological, and political
issues ” (3). For women, the allegorical nature of the ghost story allowed them to
“ displace their grievances onto supernatural forces, thereby safely giving voice to the
political ‘ other ’ of their messages ” (3). Patrick addresses this function of supernatural
literature by American women in terms of screens and veils: “ Behind the veil of the
412
Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
supernatural, women writers questioned the domestic ideal, voiced the frustrations
with marriage and motherhood, and exposed social inequalities ” (13).
Finally, it is worth mentioning in passing that, as discussed by Poe in his “ Philoso-
phy of Composition, ” fi ction that aims for a particular emotional response in the reader
– particularly fi ction that aims to produce suspense or horror – is most effective when
consumed in one sitting. Supernatural fi ction has tended to thrive in the short story
format (with a handful of notable exceptions) because the affective response it intends
to elicit is compromised when the reader takes a break from the story – the spell is
broken, so to speak, when the reader puts the book or magazine down.
Ghost Stories by American Men
According to G. R. Thompson, the supernatural fi ction of America ’ s major nine-
teenth - century writers (all men in Thompson ’ s estimation) was shaped by the philo-
sophical concerns of the Romantic movement, particularly the “ recurrent apprehension
that all matter may be a mental construct ” ( “ Washington ” 32). This “ obsession ” with
the Kantian subject
–
object dialectic as fi ltered through authors such as Fichte,
Coleridge, and Carlyle found expression in supernatural writings that raise questions
about the ability of the mind to perceive reality as it is. Such writings typically either
demonstrate the infl uence of mental states on perception or end ambiguously, failing
to resolve the tension between supernatural and natural explanations and thereby
calling into question conventional epistemological paradigms.
Both of these tangents are evident in the supernaturally infused writings of
Washington Irving. The fi rst American writer of the nineteenth century to achieve
an international reputation (Baym 951), Irving was deeply infl uenced by German and
British Romantic fi ction and includes ghosts or ghostly elements in a number of his
short writings, including “ The Tale of the German Student, ” “ The Spectre Bride-
groom, ” “ Guests from Gibbet Island, ” and his best - known tales, “ The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow ” and “ Rip Van Winkle. ” Both “ The Spectre Bridegroom ” and “ Sleepy
Hollow ” fall into the category of Gothic tales that emphasize the infl uence of mental
states on perception and the origination of ghosts from perceptual error. In “ The
Spectre Bridegroom, ” when the protagonist Herman Von Starkenfaust arrives at the
Landshort castle, the Baron Landshort mistakes him for the bridegroom he has been
awaiting for his daughter and whom he has never seen – who, unbeknownst to him,
has been murdered – and gives Herman no opportunity to reveal the truth. Following
the telling of “ wild tales, and supernatural legends ” (128), Herman convinces his
superstitious hosts that he is the bridegroom, that he is dead, and that they have been
entertaining a ghost, all of which facilitates his subsequent elopement with the
Baron ’ s daughter.
In “ The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, ” it is similarly the case that the imagination,
stimulated by external events, creates the appropriate conditions for the credulous
mind to mistake what it perceives. Ichabod Crane is an avid consumer of supernatural
The Ghost Story
413
tales who listens with “ fearful pleasure ” to the “ marvellous tales of ghosts and goblins,
and haunted fi elds and haunted brooks, and haunted bridges and haunted houses, and
particularly of the headless horseman ” (277) told by the old Dutch wives and in turn
doles out a plentiful helping from his own store of ghostly stories. Ichabod ’ s pleasure
in spooky narratives, however, is only purchased at the price of his mental well - being
once the telling of tales is over. Terrorized by “ phantoms of the mind ” (278), the
overly - credulous Ichabod is the perfect target for the rough and ready Brom Bones ’ s
predations.
As in “ The Spectre Bridegroom, ” in “ Sleepy Hollow ” the credulous are misled by
those canny enough to prey upon their fears. The Van Tassel party features the usual
telling of supernatural legends, with an emphasis (orchestrated by Brom) on the head-
less horseman. By the time Ichabod leaves, his mind has been so deeply affected that
he jumps and starts at the slightest sound and sees ghosts and goblins wherever he
looks. Bordering on panic even before starting home through the dark woods, Icha-
bod
’
s terror rises
“
to desperation
”
when
“
something huge, misshapen, black and
towering ” (292) actually does emerge. At the end of the story, the exact cause of
Ichabod ’ s disappearance remains in dispute, but it seems clear that Brom Bones has
taken advantage of his adversary ’ s inability to keep his imagination in check.
In contrast to “ The Spectre Bridegroom ” and “ The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, ”
Irving ’ s “ The Tale of the German Student ” allows the Gothic mood to develop fully
rather than undercutting it with Irving ’ s characteristic humor and, in addition to
emphasizing the imagination
’
s role in creating ghosts, raises questions about the
nature of reality itself. “ The Tale of the German Student ” adopts a decidedly Gothic
tone as it recounts the tale of young Wolfgang, a German student in Paris during the
French Revolution ’ s Reign of Terror. Wolfgang,
who is described by the narrator as
“ diseased ” due to his studies in “ spiritual essences, ” experiences a recurring dream of
a woman ’ s face that haunts him. Crossing the square in which public executions are
held one stormy night, he encounters a female fi gure dressed in black sitting on the
steps of the scaffold leading up to the guillotine. She looks up at him and he discovers
the face that has been obsessing his dreaming and waking hours. He takes her to his
apartment where they pledge themselves to one another, only to discover her dead
the next day upon his return from hunting for a larger apartment. When the police
arrive, they inform him that she was guillotined the day before and when Wolfgang
undoes a black collar around her neck, the head rolls onto the fl oor!
The reader of “ The Tale of the German Student ” is faced with two possibilities –
each unsettling in its own way. Either young Wolfgang is mad and hallucinated or
imagined the entire experience or he has spent the night with a ghost. Critics have
generally read the story along the former lines and as “ starkly horrible in its sugges-
tion of necrophilia ” (Ringe 96). However, the story ultimately neither confi rms nor
denies Wolfgang ’ s madness and both possibilities call into question the ability of
human beings adequately to comprehend their environments. As Ringe remarks,
“ [i]f superstition or a diseased imagination can affect one ’ s perception of reality, how
much more powerful is out - and - out madness in distorting a person ’ s vision ” (97).
414
Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
And if Wolfgang really did spend the night with a ghost, then rationalistic concep-
tions of how the universe functions need to be substantially revised.
Despite Poe ’ s reputation as the preeminent American Gothicist, there are surpris-
ingly few actual ghost stories in his oeuvre. Nonetheless, Poe ’ s fi ction in general
powerfully articulates the thesis that Gothic fi ction “ enacts the radical uncertainty of
an epoch of revolution ” and exposes “ the limits of reason as an explanatory model ”
(Kennedy 40). What we see in much of Poe ’ s death - obsessed fi ction is the affi rmation
of “ alternative modes or realms of existence beyond the physical limitations of our