Edith Wharton is perhaps the most eminent Gothic writer in American history. What made her career so unique, aside from being a woman in a traditionally male-dominated field, was that she did not write for money, fame, or even human rights. women. Wharton wrote her gothic tales with the aim of expressing and abandoning her own feelings of personal and feminine anxieties in a realm of the unknown. Growing up, Wharton had a very “traditional” upbringing. Her family encouraged her to become a well-mannered young woman and clearly preferred that she knew rituals and manners rather than books. This common restraint toward women of her era led Wharton to feel some anxiety about her true ambitions. As a child, Wharton recalled that she "could not sleep in the room with a book containing a ghost story" and that she "often had to burn books like that, because it frightened her to know that they were downstairs in the library” (Wharton 303). Her fear of ghost stories and reading in general came from her desire to become a well-read and educated writer. Her gothic tales quickly became the area in which she was able to explore her fears and finally get rid of them: "my terror gradually dissipated and I became what I am now: a woman barely conscious of physical fear » (Wharton 303). Traditional Gothic writing is all about revealing the ugly, horrible truth that lies beneath the surface. So it's entirely plausible that Edith Wharton's gothic stories are actually a glimpse into the truth behind society's treatment of women. By examining Wharton's Gothic tales, particularly "Pomegranate Seed" and "Afterward," we can understand how the oppressions imposed on women in Wharton's time manifest in traditional Gothic elements. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Wharton's tale "Pomegranate Seed" follows the story of Charlotte Ashby, a young woman who investigates mysterious letters written to her previously widowed husband, Kenneth. We immediately see that Charlotte is forced to confront not only the letters themselves, but also another woman's shadow over her marriage. Despite Charlotte's presence, the house still displays many of the first wife's influences, such as her furniture, her draperies, and even her portrait on the wall of Kenneth's library. This constant feminine presence calls into question Charlotte's feminine power as a wife: "over time, she had to admit that she felt... more comfortable and confident with her husband, since this long face cold and beautiful on the library wall no longer followed her with guarded eyes” (Wharton 224). There is already a "ghost" lingering in Charlotte's mind and her fears of not being able to replace Kenneth's first wife begin to "haunt" her. It is not revealed whether the characters are actually haunted by the Wife, but the gothic elements of this story rely on the idea that the ghost is very real to Charlotte. Searching for clues about the letter's author, Charlotte begins to delve into her husband's affairs, an area where women were certainly not welcome. We see how this mystery contributes to Charlotte's anxiety about acquiring knowledge. She feels "anxious power," meaning that "she covets the power of language while feeling anxious about the intrusion involvedthe appropriation of such power by a woman” (Singley and Sweeney, 177). The more Charlotte wants to question Kenneth about the letters and the strange draining effect they have on him, the more anxious she becomes. Wharton writes that "she was held back by fear of intruding into his private life," a statement echoing the societal limits of the woman's imposed limits on her husband's life (Wharton 235). The ideals inherent in submissive women cause Charlotte to feel "ashamed of her perseverance, ashamed to discover this disconcerted face" (Wharton 240). However, Charlotte persists in searching for the truth behind the mysterious letters. As Charlotte continues to push past her feminine limitations, it becomes clear that she is a traditional Gothic character "stepping into the abyss...plunging into consciousness beyond the realistic, where the unexpurgated 'real'." “the story is told” (“Gothic” 137). Given that it is about a woman defying the rules of patriarchal society, we believe that she will undoubtedly reveal a secret and terrible story that remains hidden beneath the surface. She finally crosses the final threshold when she reads one of the letters. We see his anxiety manifest in the haunting details of opening the letter: the “deep silence of the room” and the “human cry” dissipated by the tearing of the envelope (Wharton 250). Ultimately, we don't get a big reveal or summary. Instead, true to the Gothic, Wharton's revelation of the letter's contents puts us in the same position as Charlotte: anxious and questioning our own sensitivities. The letters in the story, implicitly suggested to have been written by Kenneth's deceased first wife, function as an example of the uncanny. It is important to note that the letters are defined by their "visibly feminine" writing and therefore function as symbols of Charlotte's threatened femininity (Wharton 220). However, as the title suggests, the letters also seem to symbolize the pomegranate seeds from the myth of Persephone. They function as a means of drawing Kenneth into the realm of the dead, and as each is read, Kenneth becomes visibly "drained of life and courage" (Wharton 222). The letters draw Kenneth's attention to the nature of the strange, and "when he returns to familiar things, they seem strange to him" (Wharton 222). He begins to behave strangely towards Charlotte and even seems to taunt her curiosity: “Her husband,” writes Wharton, “submitted to her interrogation with a sort of contemptuous coolness, as if he were pleasing an unreasonable child” ( Wharton 230). . By minimizing her fears and treating her like the rest of society, Kenneth succeeds in fueling Charlotte's anxieties. It makes him question his motivations, his emotions and his reason. The idea that the female protagonist may not be entirely sane is an important element of the Gothic. The reader cannot tell whether the events of the story are truly supernatural or simply unnatural due to the unreliability of the main character. “Afterward,” a short story written twenty years before “Pomegranate Seed,” explores many of the same issues of female oppression in an equally gothic setting. In this story we see a seemingly perfect marriage between Mary and Edward Boyne. The couple try to find a house in the English countryside with the "charm of having been for centuries a deep reservoir of life" and are rewarded when they are told that the house they have chosen is haunted by a ghost who does not only reveals itself long after it has been witnessed (Wharton 61). This environment is the perfect setting to play on Mary's feminine anxieties. She is..