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A Shadow that Shouldn’t be there: New England, Spiritualism and the Feminine in Mary Wilkins Freeman’s The Wind in the Rosebush

ABSTRACT The New England writer, Mary Wilkins Freeman, wrote mostly literary fiction but also produced a collection of supernatural tales, titled The Wind in the Rose–Bush (1903). The stories all feature familiar New England settings, but they also contain numerous Gothic, ghostly elements. In her supernatural stories, Freeman focuses on women in uncertain societal positions – spinsters, orphans and widows – and complicates and interrogates both the domestic sphere and women's place within it. Simultaneously, spiritualism was wildly popular throughout the USA during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The summoning of spirits was an egalitarian practice, with women often functioning as the mouthpiece for the “spirits”. The ghosts in Freeman's stories also serve the function of focusing attention on women side–lined by society and giving a voice to the voiceless (especially neglected children). This article will examine the role of ghosts and the supernatural in relation to women in Freeman's stories, and how the feminine connection with the spirit world serves the same function as spiritualism in giving a voice to women and the dead. The article will pose the question: do Freeman's stories empower women, give them a voice, merely reinforce gender roles or some amalgamation of all three?