Gothic Subversion of Optimistic Psychology: Reading Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland

Abstract

To read Charles Brockden Brown’s novelWielandis to explore the American psyche of Post-Revolutionary era and to decode the negative malfunctioning created as the result of individual’s expectations of using the freedom in its optimum level. Presenting Gothic elements Brown criticizes the excessive use of freedom and expresses his desire of inviting civil authority. In the novel Wieland characters like, Wieland, Carwin, Maxwell etc. are representing the aforementioned features. The maximum use of their freedom has created problem like murder, seduction. So the novel subverts such issues of the-then society and demands for the restoration of the moral society.