But the recurrent ambiguity of the American tale of the supernatural reveals both a fascination with the possibility of numinous experience and a perplexity about whether there was, in fact, anything numinous to be experienced. Writers often delighted in leading readers into, but not out of, the haunted dusk of the borderland. Howard Kerr
About This Quote

The idea of the ghost is a very interesting one in American literature. What is it that makes ghosts so intriguing? It is not just the mystery of the existence of ghosts, but the uncertainty in how to define them. This ambiguity in our understanding of what ghosts are allows us to explore this topic over and over again. A haunting in literature can be metaphorical and show us how we interpret something and relate to it. We may see a ghost as a symbol for other things we experience, even life after death.

Source: The Haunted Dusk

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  1. Psychic change, as Todorov has recognized, subverted the genre in another way, by revoking the cultural taboos, the social censorship, that had prohibited the overt treatment of psychosexual themes, which then found covert expression in the supernatural tale. 'There is no need today to resort...
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