The American counter gothic:	monstrous women and their monstrous texts

Whitener, Bonnie

The American counter gothic: monstrous women and their monstrous texts

dc.contributor	Beidler, Philip D.
dc.contributor	Manora, Yolanda M.
dc.contributor	Smith, Cassander L.
dc.contributor	Marouan, Maha
dc.contributor.advisor	Whiting, Frederick
dc.contributor.author	Whitener, Bonnie
dc.contributor.other	University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
dc.date.accessioned	2017-03-01T16:24:37Z
dc.date.available	2017-03-01T16:24:37Z
dc.date.issued	2012
dc.description	Electronic Thesis or Dissertation	en_US
dc.description.abstract	Various texts theorize the wanton woman and the conditions that created her but none so much as Leslie Fiedler's Love and Death in the American Novel. His book speaks to a particularly American wanton, monstrous woman because, as Fiedler states quite accurately, the very roots of America are a result of our relationship with the other and with fear. The puritans feared God, Satan, Indians, and women. Over time, the United States has encountered myriad others to fear as well. As a result of this fear, says Fiedler, American literature is, at its heart, gothic literature. More importantly, this fear is demonstrated through a lack of mature love relations in American plotlines and in authors' characterizations of women. Fiedler is absolutely correct in his connection of an American gothic sensibility to a problematic relationship with women. However, his discussion of Hannah Webster Foster's novel, The Coquette, is inadequate. He suggests that Foster adheres to well-worn gothic motifs when, in fact, she does not. Eliza Wharton contains elements of a gothic and sentimental heroine. However, Eliza struggles in a culture of fear and convention and resists these forces as long as she can. This resistance to convention in the first novel written by a woman born in the United States indicates the beginning of a conversation with the American gothic consciousness Fiedler suggests. My claim, therefore, is that there is another set of stories and symbols that runs counter to this gothic sensibility so deeply entrenched in American literature. There are writers who create female characters that resist conventions but are aware of a "gothic "conversation, with Foster and The Coquette as the initiators of this conversation. Novels that also have this conversation include The Scarlet Letter, The Awakening, Lolita, and Sula. These texts were each simultaneously	en_US
dc.format.extent	123 p.
dc.format.medium	electronic
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf
dc.identifier.other	u0015_0000001_0000834
dc.identifier.other	Whitener_alatus_0004D_10984
dc.identifier.uri	https://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/1337
dc.language	English
dc.language.iso	en_US
dc.publisher	University of Alabama Libraries
dc.relation.haspart	Supplementary materials includes a table of contents PDF file.
dc.relation.hasversion	born digital
dc.relation.ispartof	The University of Alabama Electronic Theses and Dissertations
dc.relation.ispartof	The University of Alabama Libraries Digital Collections
dc.rights	All rights reserved by the author unless otherwise indicated.	en_US
dc.subject	Literature
dc.title	The American counter gothic: monstrous women and their monstrous texts	en_US
dc.type	thesis
dc.type	text
etdms.degree.department	University of Alabama. Department of English
etdms.degree.discipline	English
etdms.degree.grantor	The University of Alabama
etdms.degree.level	doctoral
etdms.degree.name	Ph.D.