The Anatomy of Complicity: Rebecca Harding Davis, "Peterson's Magazine", and the Civil War

Davis's thirty-two years of writing fiction for Peterson's Magazine afforded her the opportunity to explore various popular genres (including mysteries, the gothic, the grotesque, romance, and realism) and to articulate her political views. Stories such as "The Locked Chamber" (J...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Tulsa studies in women's literature 2011-10, Vol.30 (2), p.291-315
Main Author: Harris, Sharon M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Blood
Civil war
Civil wars
Davis, Rebecca Harding (1831-1910)
Literary criticism
Little magazines
Magazine publishing
Periodicals
Short stories
Slavery
Slaves
War
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Summary:Davis's thirty-two years of writing fiction for Peterson's Magazine afforded her the opportunity to explore various popular genres (including mysteries, the gothic, the grotesque, romance, and realism) and to articulate her political views. Stories such as "The Locked Chamber" (January 1862) and "A Story of Life-Insurance" (June 1862) reflect her attitudes about the North and South during the Civil War years. Drawing on her interests in law and medicine, Davis envisioned a decaying South in her fiction for Peterson's Magazine and formulated a theory that this article terms the "anatomy of complicity" to articulate the South's responsibility for its own downfall by clinging to the abusive system of slavery and to false ideas about honor among slaveholders.
ISSN:0732-7730
1936-1645
1936-1645
DOI:10.1353/tsw.2011.a498331