Imagining National Identity In American Gothic Fiction:1776-1861

American Gothic fiction has generally gone unobserved since its birth. In contrast with the articles and books devoted to British Gothic fiction mushrooming in the second half of the twentieth century, study of American Gothic fiction remains limited in quantity and rudimentary in quality mainly due to two reasons: one is that American Gothic fiction varies greatly from the so-called classical Gothic fiction and takes on new characteristics in the process of Americanization; the other is that a considerable number of scholars only see the classical Gothic texts as legitimate, thus denying the existence of American Gothic literature. The once popular view seems rather subjective and arbitrary that the Gothic fiction is apolitical on account of its focal concentration on inner fear and anxiety. Close scrutiny reveals that American Gothic fiction, as part of social product and (indirect) historical record, involves itself in politics and reflects almost every aspect of the society. This dissertation takes six Gothic texts by six antebellum writers as example to analyze how American Gothic fiction of this period addresses problems related to American national identity, in particular, its nature, stability, and endurance.The transformative and formative decades between the Revolution and the Civil War witnessed the harassing perplex caused by identity crisis and the disquieting process during which the United States evolved from a union of free and equal states to a unified and sovereign nation emblematized by the Stripes and Stars, and more importantly, the recognition of the national identity as American. Scholarly interest in national identity originates from the study of nation and nationalism in the fields of history, politics, and sociology. It merits attention from literary scholars, who apply it to the interpretation of literary texts. Cultural historian Benedict Anderson proposes that"nation"is an imagined political community. Namely, members of a nation develop sense of belonging by imaging that they are part of the same community. National identity is something fixed and fluid at the same time and the sense of belonging is not developed once and for all. A focal point of Anderson's proposition is imagination, the very source to which literature also resorts for its existence. And it is this coincidence that inspired the author of this thesis.This dissertation aims to explore how the antebellum Gothic fiction addresses problems in relation to national identity based on an analysis of Lionel Lincoln (1825),"Rip Van Winkle"(1819-1820), Wieland (1798), The Blithedale Romance (1852), The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym from Nantucket (1838), and Pierre; or the Ambiguities (1852). The dissertation is divided into five parts. The first part briefly introduces the Americanization of British Gothic fiction and the theoretical framework of this dissertation apart from a review of the study of national identity and antebellum Gothic fiction. It is followed by an interpretation of Lionel Lincoln and"Rip Van Winkle"to reveal the perplexity caused by identity crisis which harassed the early Americans. The next part deals with the fluidity of national identity based on an analysis of Wieland and The Blithedale Romance, which is followed by the study of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym from Nantucket and Pierre; or the Ambiguities to discuss how the Gothic fiction articulates the national desire and anxiety for a stable national identity menaced by the internal conflicts. After close examination of the confusion caused by identity crisis and the nature of national identity, it finally concludes that American Gothic fiction reflects the political turbulence and social changes of the formative decades between the Revolution and the Civil War and articulates the worries and anxiety about the future of the young republic.