Lack Thereof

In terms of the genre of the Gothic Novel, there are many elements that are essential and rudimentary to the Gothic style.  This list includes such aspects as manifestation of social and economic tensions, terror, horror, the supernatural, architecture/setting, etc.  Of particular importance in Charles Brockden Brown's novel, Edgar Huntly (Memoirs of a Sleep Walker), is the setting, more specifically, the Wilderness.  However, the Wilderness is never described to the audience in any more detail than that it is the Wilderness of Norwalk.  Despite the lack of description, the audience still perceives the Wilderness as Edgar Huntly does, the audience still feels threatened.  This ability to manipulate the audience's perceptions and sensations is what marks Brown as a Gothic novelist and Edgar Huntly as terrifying.


Because of this novel's classification as one of the first American Gothic Novels, the manifestation of the social concerns of the time are prevalent.  The most major of these is, arguably, how the concerns with founding a new nation become visible throughout the text.  The main problem with this new nation is the "unknown".  The Wilderness in this novel not only strongly represents that unknown, but also the feeling of being trapped by so much openness, being confined by the vast emptiness, and the genuine terror of truly being on one's own.  As previously eluded to in the preceding blog, "Terrible Horror, Horrible Terror," an author's lack of description in a novel is what can create genuine fear and suspense or, more broadly, terror.  In this case, the lack of description in terms of the wilderness makes the audience fear it and view it as a threat.


Approximately a third of the way into the novel, there are numerous depictions of a specific unknown area of Wilderness, which Huntly encounters on his search for Clithero.  It would seem that this section is dedicated to the unknown, the dangers it provides, and the fear it evokes.


Intense dark is always the parent of fears.  Impending injuries cannot in this state be descried, nor shunned. nor repelled.  (96)


Chilling damps, the secret trepidation which attended me, the length and difficulties of my way, enhanced by the ceaseless caution and the numerous expedients which the utter darkness obliged me to employ, began to overpower my strength. (97)


I advanced to the outer verge of a hill, which I found to overlook a steep, no less inaccessible... (98)


A stream rushing from above fell into a cavity, which its own force seemed gradually to have made. (99)


A sort of sanctity and awe environed it, owing to the consciousness of absolute and utter loneliness. (99)


At length, I looked upon the rocks which confined and embarrassed its course.  I admired their fantastic shapes, and endless irregularities. (99)


Had my station been, in a slight degree nearer the brink than it was, I should have fallen headlong into the abyss. (99)

This section employs the use of words such as, difficulties, ceaseless, darkness, inaccessible, cavity, force, awe, loneliness, confined, endless, brink, and abyss.  These words are representative of the true nature of the fear Huntly feels in his situation, as well as the fear the people of this new nation feel as a whole.  It is interesting that Huntly is describing this area where, human feet had never before gained this recess, that human eyes had never been fixed upon these gushing waters (99), to Mary in his letter, and yet his description is so vague and un-awe-inspiring.  Instead, the audience is left with the uncertainty and anticipation so often associated with fear and terror, thus making it possible for the audience to see the wilderness as a genuine threat.  With his lack of detailed description, Brown also makes it necessary for the audience to use personal imagination to fill in the spaces; often what our own imagination can procure is more frightening than what anyone else could ever put into words.


Had these virgin experiences been written by another author, there would surely have been much more detailed description of the endless beauty and awe-inspiring features of a new landscape.  Perhaps even more detail in terms of how this new scene made the characters feel, instead of leaving it up to the audience to do the feeling.  However, although the audience would gain a more vivid understanding of the Wilderness surrounding Huntly, we would lose that all-important sense of uncertainty and fear which is so crucial to the Gothic genre and, in turn, to Edgar Huntly.


-Riannon S.


Brown, Charles Brockden. Edgar Huntly or, Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker (1799). Toronto: Penguin, 1988.