Specters of the Past: Linda Hutcheon’s Historiographic Metafiction and the Haunted House in Oscar Wilde’s The Canterville Ghost

Abstract

Examining Oscar Wilde's, The Canterville Ghost through the lens of Linda Hutcheon's theory of historiographic metafiction, this article questions how the novella simultaneously employs and subverts conventional ideas of historical portrayal. Examining the text's self-conscious engagement with gothic tropes, the novella's portrayal of anachronistic ghost, and the conflict between the antiquated British setting and the rational American family, the analysis will show how The Canterville Ghost questions the way historical narrative is constructed. Moreover, the sardonic tone and intertextual references of the book are taken as proof of Wilde's conscious participation with historical norms. In the end, this article contends that Wilde's novella serves as an example of historiographic metafiction, therefore encouraging a reevaluation of how we fictionalize the past.