Elbert, MonikaBode, Rita
Springer International Publishing (Cham, Switzerland , 2021) (eng) English9783030555528Palgrave gothic1st ed.GOTHIC FICTION (LITERARY GENRE), AMERICAN; UnknownAmerican Women’s Regionalist Fiction: Mapping the Gothic seeks to redress the monolithic view of a national American Gothic, instead considering specific regions in the U.S. and how they express their own particular versions of the Gothic. Focusing on American women writers whose views of hauntings are ultimately connected to their image of an internal and ofttimes oppressive domestic landscape, these essays consider the ways the outdoor landscape feeds their fantasy and contributes to their notion of a natural history and local mythology that coincides with their sense of a world beyond the confines of the home. The clash between these two realms often paves the way for the Gothic encounter. Ultimately, these essays reveal the impact of the regional Gothic in considering how collision between the local and the national precipitates a conflict that leads to the Gothic protagonist’s sense of belonging or alienation.