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Often, psychoanalytic approaches to Wieland are rendered solely in an
effort to distinguish Charles Brockden Brown's political alliances and
the potential use of the novel in the public sphere of its day. So,
this approach is a departure from the previous body of criticism, as it explores
not only the initial trauma that causes the siblings' Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder (PTSD), but also the second assault of Clara Wieland, hereafter
labeled `double traumatization.' The insights into these characters, as victims of
PTSD, are essential to reading the novel as more than just a politically useful text
and to show how Brockden Brown responded to the social turmoil of his day
by depicting a yet unnamed condition of mental instability in an
otherwise seemingly wholesome community in the private sphere. Furthermore,
all traumas in this family, while solidly founded on the rock of
intergenerational mental instability, primarily generate from the concept of a religious
calling. PTSD and double traumatization provide a theoretical framework to
analyze these traumas and to situate the characters in the novel within a
continuum of political analysis, which yields a better understanding of the
potential motivations for the characters and their actions. Therefore, this
psychoanalytic approach privileges the mental health issues of the characters, instead of
the novel's efficacy as a political tool, thereby providing additional insight into
most of the literary criticism regarding Wieland.
PTSD has had many labels and medical designations. Among the
germinal nomenclatures are shell shock, war neurosis, combat neurosis,
traumatic neurosis, and combat fatigue; most of the discussions about the development
of this issue of mental health have been conducted solely in the light of
war, especially the two World Wars and the Vietnam War. PTSD was officially
included, in its current name, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders (DSM-III), published in 1980, and this inclusion, along with
the definition of PTSD and its 14 years of subsequent revisions and updates
to create DSM-IV (1994), has legitimated the diagnosis of this mental
health disorder and, even more importantly for this project, expanded its
diagnosis beyond war-ravaged individuals. |
