• This article pushes back on the notion that American Gothic novels are centered around feelings of guilt in order to highlight the tensions between the Gothic American novel and Enlightenment philosophy. Using Brockden Brown’s “Arthur Mervyn” as an example, the author aims to show that “gothic tropes effectively displace the Enlightenment individual with one that is porous, fluid, and projected beyond the metaphysical boundaries of the body”. I found this through looking at past issues of the Early American Literature journal through our library website.