The Gothicism of American Gothic: "The Beast Within"

[For the previous entry, click here.]

This tenth episode (in terms of narrative sequence, not air date) of American Gothic opens and closes with an eerie dream scene.  Caleb moves down a long corridor lined with cells (arms stretch ghoulishly through the bars).  The boy is drawn by a shirtless prisoner's cries of "Father!"  Caleb's path to the prisoner is cut off by the sudden appearance of a shadowy figure (whom the viewer
readily suspects is Sheriff Lucas Buck).  This figure flashes a razor blade that is then passed to the prisoner, who promptly uses it to make a bloody incision in his own belly.  Such events no doubt are the stuff of nightmare, but the setting here is what proves most striking to me: the Dark Tunnel has long been a topos of Gothic literature (cf. the catacombs in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," the site of Hannibal Lector's imprisonment in The Silence of the Lambs).

The plot of the episode centers on a hostage crisis that lands Caleb, his cousin Gail, Lucas, and Dr. Matt in hospital room with a gun-wielding escapee from the psych ward of a nearby military base.  Complicating matters further is the fact that this man Artie (the prisoner from Caleb's dream) also happens to be Deputy Ben's brother.  The horrors of warfare seem to have left Artie mentally unbalanced, but in true Gothic fashion, the man is also haunted by an incident from his distant past.  While on a hunting trip as a child, he accidentally shot and killed his father.

In its very title, this episode conjures a lycanthropic image and brings to mind the Gothic theme of split identity that traces back to Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  On the most obvious level, the hidden beast here is the makeshift bomb that the munitions expert Artie has sewn inside his stomach.  But "beast" also has infernal overtones, and thus the episode title can be seen to point to Lucas's devilish presence inside the hospital room (we soon discover that the sheriff has orchestrated the entire hostage drama for his own nefarious purposes).  At one point during the crisis Lucas admits to never carrying a gun (because shooting wouldn't give the lawman a chance to impart a lesson to his antagonist), causing Gail to sarcastically inquire if his demeanor should be perceived as an act of pacifism.  "No ma'am," Lucas bluntly replies.  "You should view it as an act of seduction."  Never has the sheriff given stronger clue to his sinister nature; Lucas also marks his own dangerous duality as a Gothic hero-villain, hinting at the harm that's always lurking behind his charm.