Blog Post 10: Hauntings

Clearly the story poses problems of reading and interpretation. Can the story be read as a "realist" tale, or is it a symbolist tale or allegory? Is it a comment on the values and lifestyle of a degenerate and aesthetic aristocracy? Or is it a form of psychological encounter and, if so, who and what is being encountered? Is it meant to be interpreted at all, or is it simply a journey into the world of the Imagination (echoing the importance of art, music and literature within the tale, as means to an alternative reality)? 

Modern haunted houses in literature, film, cartoons, and even amusement parks owe a debt to "The Fall of House of Usher," which showcases one of the first haunted houses to appear in American literature. What stereotypes of a haunted house are present in the story?

"Afterward" by Edith Wharton, 1910

"Afterward" is considered to be American Gothic.

American Gothic is defined by Aldona Witkowska as:
"American Gothic constitutes the darker side of Romanticism. Its nature was accurately captive by Leslie Fiedler "American fiction became 'bewilderingly and embarrassingly, a gothic fiction, non-realistic, sadist and melodramatic- a literature of darkness and the grotesque in a land of light and affirmation.'" 

American Gothic arose in the world of optimism, in the country filled with vision of freedom and endless happiness. As Eric Savoy rightly noticed, this paradox has its explanation in the history of the United States. It shows the other side of the coin, the nightmare which hides under the "American dream". In the world of American Gothic the ghosts of the past never sleep and constantly haunt the present. 

American Gothic writers did not have spooky old castles, monasteries and legends like their European "professional colleagues", but they did have: the frontier, Puritan legacy, slavery and political utopianism. Puritan's heritage was the consciousness of good and evil coexistence, the sense of guilt and fear from the Day of Judgment. Outwardly optimistic character of utopianism, in turn entailed less optimistic consequences, like: undisciplined rule of majority, rule of the mob or the danger of collapse."

In what ways does "Afterward" conform to this definition? In what ways does it differ?