Abstract

Charles Brockden Brown's novels-- Wieland, Or the Transformation ; Edgar Huntly, Or Memoirs of a Sleep-Walker ; and Ormond, Or the Secret Witness --tend to be dismissed for their narrative inconsistencies. Some critics, however, strive to justify recurring structural peculiarities and to accord more literary value to Brown's writing. This thesis, falling into the latter category, will study these three novels in terms of narrative diseases and antidotes. Indeed, their different exploitation of narrative breaks, switching verb tenses, and filter shifts demonstrate the use of narration in the search for effective cures. Influenced by the infection of story elements, the narrators of Wieland , Edgar Huntly , and Ormond emulate ventriloquism, somnambulism, and metamorphism, respectively. This mirroring of story elements becomes crucial in experimenting with the concoction of narrative remedies