Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Genre Study of "Afterward"

The story “Afterward” by Edith Wharton is about a lady named Mary who is reminiscing on the time right before her husband, Ned, disappeared. The story is told in five parts and each part is a different memory. The first part is Mary’s memory of a conversation with Alida and Ned about finding a new house. Mary discusses how she wants a house that is haunted and Alida tells them about the legend of the Lyng house. The legend is that there is a ghost in Lyng, but no one knows they have encountered it until “long afterward”. Mary also remembers the day her and Ned saw a stranger in the garden and Ned chased after him, but the stranger disappeared. In the second part, Mary recalls the day someone sent her an article in the mail of the suit that was being brought up against Ned by someone named Elwell. He tells her it has been withdrawn and not to worry about it. Part three takes place the next day when a stranger comes looking for Ned. Mary escorts him to the library and later finds out that Ned has disappeared with the stranger with the only clue being a letter addressed to someone named Parvis. In part four, Mary contacts Parvis and he claims to know nothing of the letter. In part five, Mary finds Parvis and after he explains the business deal that went bad between Ned and Elwell, she puts the pieces together. After Parvis tells her Elwell is dead and shows her a picture of him, Mary realizes Elwell was both the ghost and stranger and he took Ned away.
One of the gothic conventions displayed in this story was the supernatural subject matter. The supernatural can be defined as something that is non-existent in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws. In “Afterward”, the supernatural subject is the ghost in the legend of the Lyng house. According to Mary’s cousin, Alida, there is a ghost in Lyng, but you do not know it until “long long afterward”. At the end of the story, Mary realizes that she encountered the ghost more than once and it was the ghost who was responsible for her husband’s disappearance. It was the ghost who was in the garden that Ned chased after and it was the ghost who Mary led to the library the one morning. The ghost in Mary’s legend was Elwell, the guy who tried to bring the suit up against Ned. Mary explains that the reason the ghost disappeared the first time they saw him was because he was not fully dead yet. He was waiting to die so he could take Ned away. When he finally died, he came back and took Ned away.
Another story that has a supernatural subject is “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. The supernatural element was the legend of the Headless Horseman. The Headless Horseman was supposedly a ghost who rode on a horse through the town of Sleepy Hollow and beheaded people during the night. Although they were unsure if it was really the Headless Horseman or Brom who chased Ichabod out of town, it is still believed that a Headless Horseman really did exist in the story.
The television series Twin Peaks also contained supernatural elements. Even though we did not watch the full series, they did mention a spirit that lived in the woods. Another supernatural subject was the giant that appeared in Agent Cooper’s dream. The giant was not real and could have been a ghost. During the second visit he made, he took Cooper’s ring. That is a sign of supernatural because it cannot be explained by natural laws.

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