Imperial Gothic, Gender Relationship, and Transnational Contexts in Louisa May Alcott’s A Long Fatal Love Chase

Abstract

Louisa May Alcott’s dexterity of writing gothic fiction has not obtained full attention. In general, her stories delve into the Victorian domesticity in the nineteenth century. Despite the success of Little Women (1869), which culminated in Alcott’s career as a domestic writer, she also had keen perceptions of the globalized world in her time. Interestingly, she used her “left hand” to write gothic stories. As she experienced severe poverty due to her father’s inability to take care of his family financially, Alcott had to write and earn the money to support her family. Her personal adversity reversely sparked her passion and talents to write gothic thrillers. Along with companionship with literary scholars such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, she acutely understood her then-contemporary political and cultural issues along with her trips in Europe. Especially, Alcott’s A Long Fatal Love Chase (1866) delved into the social aspects of America’s growth, women’s elevated position after the Civil War, and her transnational view of the world are portrayed in it. In the novel, she shows her knowledge of the classical and literary allusions by using the motifs of William Shakespeare’s Tempest, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, and, moreover, questions her view of gender equality and investigates the images of good and evil that represent the struggles in the Gothic tradition. Her concerns of domestic and international cultural and political affairs are fully reflected. Ultimately, A Long Fatal Love Chase addresses the national dynamics of cultural rivalry between America and countries in Europe in her then contemporary period.