Abstract!

William Ambros
AML 4101
Dr. Lisa Logan
23 October 2008

Abstract

Dalke, Anne. "Original Vice: The Political Implications of Incest in the Early American Novel." Early American Literature 23.2 (1988): 188-201. MLA International Bibliography. EBSCO. University of Central Florida Library, Orlando, Fl. 22 Oct. 2008 .

In this article, Anne Dalke speaks of incest and its purpose within some early American novels. According to Dalke, incest, or potential unconscious incest, as was our case, was used for a reason, not simply as a meaningless plot twist within the story. Dalke states that a few early American authors used “a story of thwarted love to express, obliquely, deep anxiety about ease of social movement” (188).
Throughout the piece, Dalke reiterates and seeks to prove her idea that “the earliest American novelists expressed no literal fear of widespread incest, but rather a fear of the dreadful condition incest symbolizes: the absence of a well defined social system” (188). Dalke felt that the use of incest helped the authors reveal the blurring of class lines that seemed to be occurring in the new Republic of America. While she mentions a few other novels, she focuses often on The Power of Sympathy, mainly because of the various incestuous storylines that are found within. She notes a few similarities between the various incest novels, as well. Some of these examples include the lack of a mother figure to the usual well-to-do male figure, or brother, the domineering father who is usually the main criminal, and the sister figure being in a lower class than most, and her inability to raise herself out of that class. According to Dalke, in the new America, it was not unusual for a male figure to seek a mate outside of
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his class, including within classes lower than his. This meant that the father figure that bears and attempts to hide an illegitimate daughter in a sense opens the door for an incestuous encounter to occur with his usually legitimate son, as his illegitimate daughter most likely will fall into a class lower than his own. Another of Dalke’s observations was the fact that the majority of the father figures in these incestuous situations think more of the consequences they will face rather than those that their children will face. All of these observations and points lead to a broader understanding of the symbolic use of incest within our novel.
I believe that this article is tremendously eye opening, because it offers an insight into an issue that might have slightly been overlooked. When considering all of Dalke’s points, a deeper meaning was understood. Simply put, each of her arguments work. It was easily seen that incest was a convenient tool used by Brown to further reveal the dangers and consequences of seduction. The points she made regarding the selfishness of the father figure and the suffering of the children were most important, as they truly revealed the warped nature of the social structure within the American society at the time. Originally, I felt it strange and all too familiar that the two children both passed away due to their inability to love each other how they pleased. It was only after I read this article that I began to see that their deaths were merely tools used to reveal the deeper meaning beneath the novel. America, at the time, was growing, evolving, and simply trying to find a method to live by.