Supernatural Women:a Metaphor

The Weird Gathering and Other Tales:"Supernatural" Women in American Popular Fiction,1800-1850is the textual subject of my thesis. I intend to focus my analysis of this anthology on its modification of the female, entertaining of the male, and constructing of the supernatural hoping to make clear the interaction between the tales and their historical context.The anthology is a collection of supernatural tales edited by Ronald Curran. Published in1979, it contains thirty six tales of witches, fairies and other supernatural female figures that are selected representatively from the magazines, gazettes, and annuals which were issued from1800to1850. The first half of nineteenth-century America is in its preliminary years of an industrial age. The establishment of Democracy after the American Revolution, the rise of individualism, westward expansion, the development of early industrial capitalism and the progress of industrial technology radically changed the fabric of American life. The anxieties and desires generated when facing the rapid social changes are well captured in the popular fiction of its time. The supernatural women in this anthology not only reflect the patriarchal society’s conditioning of the female but also serve to entertain the male readers with their sexuality. In addition, the delineation of nature with its fairy-tale atmosphere in the stories functions as a mediator between the harsh reality and the individual’s inner world.The "Othering the Female:Modification of Women" discusses stories selected from four categories that the editor listed and examine how those stories manage to characterize the female according to the needs of the patriarchal society in a subtle way. Through reading those short stories one could catch a glimpse of the aching anxieties of people facing the rapid social changes in that unique historical phase and the relatively conservative attitudes of men towards women like how they eagerly hope their womenfolk would be submissive and remain in the domestic areas to comfort her husband and raise their offspring with required qualities. They send out practical messages concerning how to be an appropriate and approved lady in the first half of nineteenth-century America.The "Entertaining the Male:Amatory Narrative" focuses on the erotic aspects in this anthology. Besides enjoying the apparent moralistic rightness which ensures the successful issue, the readers, especially the male one, which constitutes the main body of the magazine subscriptions could also get entertained from the exquisite sensual description of the supernatural female. Usually the fairies or the water spirits are extremely beautiful and voluptuous which appear as a destructive yet irresistible attraction to the male protagonist who then embarks on a doomed adventure to pursue the fairies. When taking the puritanical self-discipline and the rigid sexual ideology into account, this amatory narrative could be considered as an outlet for the repressed desire. This erotic element covered up by the moralistic appearance actually satisfies the male’s voyeuristic pleasure and confirms patriarchal society’s persistent need for amatory narrative.The "Constructing the Supernatural:Nature and Civilization" focuses on the interaction between nature and reality in this collection from a overall point of view. Historically and psychologically, the contrast and conflict between nature and civilization generated by industrial progress impels the American male to the harbor of innocent nature where the stifling burden of civilization is absent.The depiction of nature in the supernatural tales succeeds in constructing an absolute as well as magical space where the individual’s innermost desire and fear is confirmed and magnified. This withdrawing to the former order of nature and man could be a collectively conservative reflection upon the turbulent reality of the industrial age. Yet the protagonist does not live there happily forever, and with the narrative moving forward this buoyant delusion is shattered by forcing the protagonist to deal with his dilemma in the real sphere of life. In a sense, the constructed absolute nature functions as a metaphor for the public’s conservative and ambiguous attitude toward the industrial age and offers an opportunity to negotiate the aching desire and fear.