ABSTRACT

This article offers an ecoGothic reading of Hawthorne’s ‘Young Goodman Brown’ (1835) and ‘Roger Malvin’s Burial’ (1832). It fleshes out human-nature encounters in the selected short stories to revisit the common response to nature in Hawthorne scholarship as a passive element reflecting characters’ state of mind. We argue that the wilderness in both short stories is presented as a malevolent and dystopian space which is actively resistant and hostile to human intrusion. We explore the ways that nature reacts to intruders in both stories drawing on the main concepts of ecoGothic criticism. The article indicates that descriptions of the wilderness in these stories are framed in Gothic terms; nature appears as disturbed and disturbing, haunted and haunting. The gloomy wilderness of the stories generates fear in the intruders not only by its uncharted space and bewildering structure but also through the possibility of the menacing presence of the Indians. Nature in the selected stories overpowers humans, punishes them severely and reclaims its space at the end.

摘要

本文提供了对霍桑的《年轻的古德曼·布朗》（1835 年）和《罗杰·马尔文的葬礼》（1832 年）的生态哥特式解读。它在选定的短篇小说中充实了人与自然的相遇，以重新审视霍桑学术中对自然的共同反应，将其作为反映人物心理状态的被动元素。我们认为，两个短篇小说中的荒野都被呈现为一个恶意和反乌托邦的空间，它积极抵制和敌视人类的入侵。我们利用生态哥特式批评的主要概念，在两个故事中探索大自然对入侵者的反应方式。文章指出，这些故事中对荒野的描述是用哥特式语言来描述的；大自然看起来令人不安和令人不安，闹鬼又令人难以忘怀。故事中阴郁的荒野不仅因其未知的空间和令人眼花缭乱的结构，而且还可能因为印第安人的威胁存在而使入侵者感到恐惧。所选故事中的自然压倒了人类，严厉惩罚了他们，并最终收回了自己的空间。