Introduction: power and possession in American gothic literature -- The American woman: still possessed -- A new possession: slavery and beyond -- Return of the dead: the rebirth of the dispossessed Native American -- Dispossessed possessor: the displaced patriarch -- Masterless: the anxieties of freedom -- Return of the master: the new patriarch -- Textual (dis)possessions: Hannah crafts a textual labyrinth -- Intertextual voices in Gloria Naylor's Mama day: Shakespeare, the Bible and the dispossession of the reader -- Among women: convergences and divergences in gothic space -- Conclusion: toward a fourth century of American gothic.
Summary:
"American Gothic literature inherited many time-worn tropes from its English Gothic precursor, along with a core preoccupation: anxiety about power and property. The aristocratic villain is replaced by the striving, independent young man. The dispossession of Native Americans and African Americans add urgency to traditional Gothic anxieties about possession"-- Provided by publisher.
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