ENG303. American Dead and Undead

The Undead re-gained popularity as a cultural phenomenon only in recent decades. As the vocabulary of death became increasingly avoided throughout the 20th century, the Undead seemed to become a useful device to address issues of mortality, fugaciousness and transience.

 

However, the Undead have served as part of the literary vocabulary from early on. Evidence of their employment in American newspaper articles throughout the 19th century suggests that the Undead speak a language that American readers were familiar with and could make sense of.

 

With the declaration of independence in 1776, the United States had just surfaced on the map of the world. In a country as young as America, the 19th century was a time of self-definition. Negotiating and defining values, naturally, was a prevalent concern in a country of immigrants whose cultural backgrounds became more diverse as time went on. One medium to negotiate notions of American morality were newspapers. In order to emphasize their message, articles concerned with morality sometimes employed supernatural elements that evoked fear and fascination alike.

 

Beliefs in the realm of the supernatural are as old as mankind, and they arrived at American soil with the first settlers. As David Hall puts it, the Puritans of New England lived in an enchanted universe: They might have broken with the religious traditions of the United Kingdom, but beliefs in ghosts, witchcraft and the devil persisted throughout the 17th century. Popular lore was full of superhuman and supernatural elements; and tales of Satan, witches, monsters and apparitions were in wide circulation (Hall 19XX: 29, 31). At this time, the belief in the realness of entities from intermediate worlds made those entities an even more useful literary device to evoke “the radical contingency of a world so thoroughly infused with invisible forces.” (Hall 19XX: 47)

 

Puritan influence waned throughout the 18th century and the order of nature grew more separate from the world of spirits. Remembering how prevalent the Undead nowadays are, though, it doesn’t matter much if they are deemed real or not. As literary devices, they could rely on the reader’s knowledge, assumptions, and fears. The supernatural, and with it the Undead, kept existing as a language through which writers were able to comment on societal issues like order and morality.

 

The following section offers a few examples to illustrate the employment of Undead tropes. They were selected from three eras that hold special potential for arousing moral indignation: Just before the turn of the 19th century, the new-found republic needed to define its values. The Antebellum Era around the middle of the 19th century was charged with political frictions, and rising tension between northern and southern states concerning the question of slavery. The Progressive Era beginning in the 1890s was marked by a spirit of moral renewal as the country marched towards modernity.

 

Ghosts seem the most popular kind of Undead in the early decades of the United States. A search in the database of America’s Historic Newspapers reveals thousands of results which include both literary forms such as poems or short stories and literal news reports. Some of them treat ghosts as factual beings; others employ them rather as a metaphorical device. Naturally, the former fact reinforces the latter.

 

A 1780 article from a Philadelphia publication simulates a plea from the netherworld in the midst of the war for indepedence. On the left, a series of letters documents the siege of Charlottetown, South Carolina, by a British lord who commands to severely punish anyone who had resisted his troops. The letters are accompanied by a patriotic plea on the right that urges the inhabitants of Charlottetown to stand their ground: If they give in to the British calls for capitulation they will “kiss the hand which is reeking with the blood of your countrymen … [and] that very hand may plunge the dagger into your own vitals”. The plea is signed by the “Ghost of Montgomery”, very likely referring to Richard Montgomery. A high-ranking General and strategist valued by George Washington, he fell in the Battle of Quebec five years prior to the publication of the article.

 

A letter to the editor in a 1784 edition of the Connecticut Gazette employs a similar strategy. The writer argues, somewhat misogynic, that “women are only children of larger growth”, which is why husbands should be merciful and forgiving towards the mistakes caused by their wives’ premature minds. The letter is signed by the “Ghost of Adam”. In referring to the biblical Adam and imagining him as a spirit still somewhat present in the world, the article is able to foster a real-life connection to its religious morality. The message seems more immediate and ubiquitous spoken by a supernatural being than a sermon of a human priest would be: Adam watches you.

 

Nowadays, it might be more common for an author to appeal to the spirit of someone or something figuratively. In the examples above though, the existence of these ghosts is rendered as real. In both cases the authors seem to think that assuming the role of a ghost is more effective in conveying their message. It appears that letting the spirits of influential figures talk evokes a certain feeling of discomfort and obligation. The reader is invited to forget that the opinion is presented by someone equally human.

 

Vampires as well are no strangers to America’s early newspaper-readership. Vampires evoke fear and attentiveness. They hide out and strike as unexpectedly as swiftly. They are merciless and know no remorse. They feast on humans and are animal-like in their drive for blood. These commonly known attributes seemed to make vampires suitable for metaphorical uses as well.

 

A 1787 short story in the Pennsylvania Evening Herald titled “Opulence: A Vision” tells the story of a man who, thanks to black magic, leads a rich and carefree life with a beloved wife in a house filled with treasures. One night, though, a crowd of vampires enter his house and take all of his belongings, steal away his wife, and finally suck him alive. In the end, the unknown author reveals that all was a dream. His message seems that every selfish and greedy action will fall back on the careless actor; and vampires appear to be an effective tool for stressing the consequences.

 

A 1856 article in the “Wisconsin Patriot” laments that the “Democratic party of our state has become the assignation … for all the theives [sic] and political stockbrokers that … disgraced the society of decent people”, evident in the party official’s entanglement with a local figure called Barstow. The author tries hard to render “Barstow and his amiable crew” as the ultimate foes of the “the real, honest national Democracy of the state”, and is “determined to oppose all … his tools and schemes”. The author not only describes Barstow as more a thing than a man – “for we do not mean to torture the meaning Webster has given to English nouns” – but also calls him a “contemptible vampire”.Political commentary at the time was charged with such stark assertions of good and evil; and interestingly enough the vampire is used symbolically throughout many other articles. Within these highly biased accounts, metaphors employing the Undead seemed fit to give the respective targets a vivid and recognizable shape.

 

Much the same literary device can be observed toward the end of the 19th century, albeit with another kind of Undead: Demons were a metaphor immensely popular especially within the Temperance Movement, which saw abstinence at the core of middle-class, Anglo-Saxon values. Their moral crusade eventually gained momentum in the American Prohibition.

 

A 1893 letter to the editor of the Aberdeen Daily News in South Dakota uses the imagery of vampires and demons throughout a sermon both indignant and self-righteous. It seems that an indictment by the Anti-Saloon-League (ASL) against a moonshiner was dropped by the slick initiative of the defense. The author of the letter, apparently a supporter of the League who identifies himself as a “tax payer, citizen and father”, shuns the unnamed writer of a preceding letter which seemed to “extol the virtues of … the defendant in … a case by honorable, fair-minded, law-abiding and law-enforcing citizens.” The enraged ASL-spokesman blames the anonymous author of letter he is referring to for branding “all government employees … all officers whose duty it is to catch violators of the law … as unclean vampires”. He however diminishes all prospects for the ultimate triumph of evil, “for young mean, who have reached their majority in the last five years and know not the influence of the demon alcohol, are too numerous for the old teddy takers and beer guzzling bums”.

 

It is not surprising that a movement so concerned with the standing of the good, hard-working American citizen requires a language that renders alcohol as condemnable as possible. To label alcohol a demon served two purposes. First off, as agents of the devil they were as un-Christian as it can get. No true believer wanted it to be under the influence of Satan’s dominions. This influence the drinker succumbs to is the second and more powerful assumption regarding demons: They have agency. They are willfully evil. They tempt and deceive. They promise Good while only waiting for the downfall.

 

A 1900 article from the Oregonian, in a similarly moralizing vein, plays out these elements well. Seemingly, France had recently passed a law forbidding the distribution of liquors categorized as dangerous. This inspired the author to an account vividly rendering the reign of the “Green Terror”, Absinthe. “[S]aid to be responsible for the great increase in insanity and other similar afflictions among the French people”, Absinthe has already killed many “men … of genius [who] burned their brains away with the green flame” and became the addiction of many Parisians who cannot live without it anymore. Among others, the author employs a young man named Theodore Barriere as an example. “Becoming a victim of the absinthe demon in its worst phases, … his disordered brain was filled for months with the weirdest and most terrifying dreams and visions.” “In the end it leaves nothing that can be said to resemble a man.”In times of heightened attempts to ban alcohol from American life, an article like this vividly rendered what the US would become giving in to demon alcohol – an army of braindead zombies, basically.

 

In sum, the Undead seemed to serve as an apt metaphor employable by the pious, law-abiding American – they evoke fear, they stand for animalic instincts, they can represent the “Other”. Thus, the Undead functioned as commentary on society and its issues. As illustrated, the concept of the Undead was present in popular thought of earlier centuries as much as it is now. What changed throughout time is the symbolism and significance of the Undead.