Prof. Manuel Herrero-Puertas
FL 4003
Discussion questions on Charles Brockden Brown’s “Somnambulism. A Fragment”
Page numbers refer to the Norton Anthology, 10th ed. (t = top of the page, m = middle, b
= bottom)
FRAGMENTS. Why is the story subtitled “A Fragment” (411b)? A fragment of what? Is
this an allusion to the epigraph—a clipping (fragment) from a printed newspaper? How
many textual fragments can you identify in the story? Are the different fragments ever
reunited into a whole? Or are the story and its many mysteries bound to crash “into a
thousand fragments,” like the Davis’s carriage (423m)? Think about material fragments
(of texts, objects, etc.) but also oral ones (voices, sounds, testimonies, etc.). For example,
when young Althorpe learns about the fatal events of the previous night, he rushes to the
scene of the crime in full detective mode: “The circumstances of this mournful event, as I
was able to collect them at different times, from the witnesses, were these” (417m). Do
you trust his account of the story? Has Althorpe successfully glued different pieces of
information into a coherent account? How is he able to transcribe the conversations
between Mr. Davis and his daughter Constantia Davis inside the carriage? How can he
know what father and daughter discussed in such a private, intimate space? What remains
fragmented at the end of the story and why?
REASON. Is the narrator (young Althorpe) a rational individual? The first third of the
story portrays the narrator trying to persuade the Davis not to travel alone overnight?
Why does not he succeed (414b)? The narrator also tries to justify his attempts to retain
Constantia by his side, even if that leads him to exaggerate the dangers of the journey.
How would you describe the narrator’s dialogue with himself (412-13, 415b)? Why does
he need to convince himself of the need to prevent Mrs. Davis from departing? Does this
self-dialogue announce the narrator’s somnambulism, the fact that he is not one but two
characters—one conscious and rational, the other unconscious and guided by primal
emotions? Of the many questions the narrator asks, how many are rhetorical questions
(“… was not this day destined to introduce to her one, to whose merits every competitor
must yield?” [412b]) and how many are genuine questions (“… what was this groundless
and ridiculous persuasion that governed me?” [415b])? What does this alternation
between rhetorical and genuine questions tell us about the narrator? What does the word
“persuasion” mean in this text (see 416m and elsewhere)? The narrator fails to persuade
the Davis to stay, but does he persuade himself about the fears he has been trying to
awaken in others (415b)?
NICK HANDYSIDE. Intellectually disabled Nick Handyside proves one of the story’s
most enigmatic figures. Does he ever appear? Or is the mysterious man in the dark
Althorpe? Does Brown intend for Handyside to act as the scapegoat or false culprit? Or
do you think it was Handyside who killed Constantia? Overall, if Nick Handyside
remains a tangential figure, why does he draw so much of the focus, as seen for example
with the retelling of his “adventure” in Norwood (421)? What do you make of this
digression? And what do you make of Handyside’s presence/absence as a voice haunting
the wilderness, never a body that we can fully see? Keep in mind that most of the story
happens in total or almost total darkness; sound becomes the only way to orient oneself in
the nocturnal wilderness?
Lastly, what do you make of the many and dissonant labels applied to Handyside:
“droll thing,” “odd soul,” “reptile,” “ghost,” “idiot,” “monster” (420), “admirable
machine” (422m) and “person” (422b)? What does Handyside symbolize? Is his being
labelled an idiot a wink to this earlier statement: “To be the victim of terrors more
chimerical than those which haunt the dreams of idiots and children!” (415b)?
MISCOMMUNICATION AND NOISE. This is a story about not knowing, about the
impossibility to know. Characters often find themselves in the dark, unable to discern
what is in front of them and figure out the meaning of what they hear. When Althorpe
and his uncle interview Dr. Inglefield, Althorpe characterizes the doctor’s account as
insufficient: “His tale was meagre and imperfect, but the substance of it was easy to
gather” (417m). How do you interpret this statement? Can we access the “substance” of a
story even if its form is deeply flawed? Is that the task Brown wants us to engage with?
Why? Is “Somnambulism. A Fragment” a “meagre and imperfect” short story on
purpose?
ROMANTIC LOVE AND GENDER. Brown’s protofeminism pervades this text, with
Constantia Davis acting as a strong and rational woman (“constant” indeed!) and the
narrator often emasculated and vulnerable to his own petty conceits. Thus, while
Constantia keeps her composure until the end (“I am not so much a girl as to be scared
merely because it is dark” [414b]), the narrator easily breaches the rules of “decorum”
(414m) and finds himself “overflowed with tears” (416m). Why would Brown propose
such a radical reversal of gender roles—heroic female and sentimental man? Why does
Constantia feel more excited to meet Handyside than to remain in Althorpe’s company
(422-23)?
IRONY AND PREMONITION. Brown’s text is strewn with clues and early warnings of
events that are about to unfold. We are told that the oak near the crime scene has “a
knotty projecture of the trunk […] large enough for a person to be conveniently seated on
it” (423b). When Constantia is shot, we see, at a distance, “the light proceed[ing] from
the foot of the oak” (424t), which implies that, indeed, the murderer had been hiding in
the tree all along. What other clues and premonitions can you find? What would happen
if we read the story without the news clipping from the “Vienna Gazette” (411b)? Would
we still consider Althorpe our prime suspect? Is not it ironic that he passionately claims:
“I was willing to run to the world’s end to show my devotion to the lady” (415t), taking
into account that he probably followed and killed her? Another level of irony occurs
when the narrator, even if a mystery to himself, becomes transparent to others: “It was
afterwards plain that he [Mr. Davis] suspected my zeal to originate in a passion for his
daughter” (414m). Constantia, too, manages to see beyond Althorpe’s façade and even
prophesies his future (418-19). Why does Althorpe remain a mystery to himself while a
non-mystery to others?