Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland; or, The Transformation: An American Tale (1798) was exclusively based on a real notoriously, gruesome crime- the reported 1971 Upstate New York farmer James Yates’s atrocious murders of his entire family. Brown stumbled upon these astoundingly cruel proceedings of Yate’s crime through an anonymously authored article in New-York Weekly Magazine; or Miscellaneous Repository, published on July 20 and 27, 1796, fifteen years after the actual murder case. He used the extracted facts of the murders from the reported article and incorporated them into his own fictional murder plot that entails a story of a man undergoing a “transformation” from a benign father to a lunatic murderer.
James yates was universally admired and known by his neighbors as a kind, family-oriented, sober, and diligent man. One December evening of the year 1781, they spent the day at home with neighbors doing some religious activities including Bible reading and psalms singing, for it was a Sunday and there wasn’t a church nearby they could attend. In the evening, he sat next to the fireplace reading the bible with his wife residing on his lap, when he suddenly began seeing and hearing two strange mysterious spirits conspiring, one of them turned to him and instructed him to “destroy all his [his] idols and begin by casting the bible into the fire.” Although he was a family-loving father who has devoted his life for the happiness and wellbeing of both his children and his wife, he immediately stood up and carried out the order. He ended up brutally murdering his wife and four children, one of whom was a six-month-old baby by the use of an axe or a hatchet and violently throwing them against the wall. He likewise killed all the living creatures he owned, his dog, his cow, and his two horses. Yates was discovered amidst this crazy massacre and was taken to prison. He never attempted to escape the scene. However, he also never repented for all he has done. He was found to be a member of the religious community, the Society of Shakers.“My father, thou knowest that it was in obedience to thy commands,” he addressed to his God, “and for thy glory that I have done this deed” (Yates 269).
Shaker Historical Society
The Yates murder case happened at a time where the family was an extremely significant institution in American society. For American society was “organized in families or in units that resembled the structure of a family”(Ibid., 44). This emphasis on family sustained the American belief that considers the family to be the microcosm of society. Placing much great emphasis on the importance of family pushed Brown to use his fictional Wieland family tragedy to warn the people of the republic’s moral crisis, for family-killing fatherhood was perceived as the prominent symbol of the whole era’s pathology. In fact, the Yates familicide was the first of a series of consequent family killings that occurred over the course of an era in the early American republic. This sudden concentration of familicides informed something crucial about the psychological and social change in the republic. Brown attributed the cause to the sudden significant spiritual instability caused by extreme social change. He warns of the great difficulties that arise from creating a spiritually committed society in the rational state of the republic through the example of James yates and later on the case of Wieland. For both Yates and Weiland were torn between following their supernatural god and the rational worldly pursuit of happiness. They also lived at a time where it was difficult to have a proper confrontation with god in the domestic sphere. Why James yates and Weiland felt the need to murder their entire family is a question that can’t be easily answered, is it madness or is it actually a supernatural calling from God?
Yet Brown showed through Weiland that:
Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
(Hume 1740)
To the class: What other “ripped from the headlines” or “inspired by true events” books or movies can you think of? Do you have a favorite?
Do you read/watch/experience these differently than a “full fiction” book or film?
I love this background to the story because it reminds us that while Wieland is a gruesome and tragic tale it can very much be, and was, real. It is easy to find comfort in the fiction of a disturbing story, but we deny ourselves insights into the human condition by forgetting that fiction does not exist in isolation to the real world.
This post shows that many, if not all, of us are capable of atrocities given the right circumstances and that how a person is or seems to be does not exclude them from this. Yates being “universally admired and known by his neighbors as a kind, family-oriented, sober, and diligent man” makes him seem unlikely to murder his loved ones, but it did not stop his potential to do so.
We have been discussing mistrust in appearances and others, but it would be interesting to look inwards and ask how much we can trust and know ourselves – if we have so much expertise projecting ourselves in society that we unknowingly become victims of our personas as well.
That last line — “ask how much we can trust and know ourselves” — is a question Clara asks herself… and she doesn’t come away with a reassuring answer.
Also, how often do we hear that same rhetoric about “he seemed so lovely” or “he was always a nice neighbor” in response to modern-day crimes? In some ways, this is an obligatory response (after all, if the response is “he always seemed like a murderer,” you’ll look a little off – and socially irresponsible – yourself), but it also points to – as you note, Noor – an anxiety (and a denial of that anxiety) about truly knowing one another and ourselves.
The transformation that Wieland undergoes reminds me of the idea of metamorphosis in the sense that he evolves into something/ someone completely different. Wieland went from being a loving, caring, family figure into an unrecognizable and psychotic murderer. I wasn’t aware that Wieland was based off of a true story, which only makes the novel increasingly ghastly and astonishing. Brown’s novel truly mimics and effectively utilizes the story of Yate’s and the tragic murders to create a chilling, gothic and literary masterpiece.
Yate’s tale serves as a cautionary tale to explicitly illustrate and confirm that “looks are deceiving”. Prior to finishing the novel, I never would have guessed that Wieland was capable of committing such atrocities, especially since he is depicted as an ordinary and average man.
Anyone and everyone is susceptible to uncharacteristic and out of the ordinary behaviour and tendencies if we are pushed far enough or put in certain situations. In this case, the Wieland’s appear to maintain a family history with insanity or madness. Clara’s brother, father and grandfather were all said to have experienced a form of mental derangement. It would be interesting to explore why and how the cases of mental illness from Yate’s and Wieland are intertwined.
Also, you mentioned that “familicide was the first of a series of consequent family killings that occurred over the course of an era in the early American republic…sudden concentration of familicides informed something crucial about the psychological and social change in the republic”. The notion of family being a significant and highly valued foundation in American society is interesting and worth looking into. The idea of settling in a ” New World” accurately and precisely implies that everyone and everything will be prone to deviation and change from traditional values, beliefs and systems that were established and pursued in Europe.