Blackness and Gothic depictions in American Literature

American writers have expressed their political and social views through their writing by attempting to establish a voice separate from Britain’s. Their fear of individual and national failure and their thirst for power consumes them and is evident in their writing. Washington Irving and Herman Melville involve the occupation of lawyers and Justices to bring in a patriotic element to influence residents of the young country as a way to share their concerns and inspire ambition. Their usage of metaphors and metonymy subtly convey a message of hope to white residents while, deflating the optimism of the soon to be freed slaves. This essay will prove that a critical reading of Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” and Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” utilizes representations and depictions of the gothic, the portrayal of black characters and their isolation, and blackness suggests the preoccupations of the American writer.

Authors use gothic elements, metaphors and the imagination of narrators to shed light on issues they cannot regularly explain. Irving created the town of Sleepy Hollow for the purpose of his story. He names this town to mean a lethargic pit of emptiness to comment on the state of America at this time, following the Revolution. Sleepy Hollow is a town that possesses “a drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere” (294). The metaphor of the town is Irving’s literal wake up call to Americans to take action. The gloomy setting and ancient prophesy concerning the apparition of a Hessian trooper, surrounds the town and provides a gothic element, which are enhanced by the imagery illustrated by the narrator. This mysterious atmosphere is able to “lull one to repose” (29...

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...ort at fine language, which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind” (306). Irving’s portrayal of blacks is an example of the preoccupations with race that exist within the white imagination.

The images and metaphors in “Sleepy Hollow” and “Bartleby, the Scrivener” allow for multiple interpretations. Perhaps the most prevalent is the message that Irving and Melville wish to convey to their American readers. Despite being written 30 years apart, they still deem a lawyer one of the most formidable professions a man can have. At the end of “Sleepy Hollow,” Icabod is rumoured to me to have run off and “kept school and studied law at the same time, had been admitted to the bar” (319). The narrator of Melville’s story is employed as a lawyer. The presence of law and politicians in these stories reinforce the messages of American patriotism and democracy.