SOURCE: Weldon, Roberta F. “Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland: A Family Tragedy.” Studies in American Fiction 12, no. 1 (spring 1984): 1-11.

In the following essay, Weldon explores Wieland as the tragedy of an entire family and an entire society, rather than of one man.

In Wieland Charles Brockden Brown creates a family and shows how its flaws lead to its tragic fall. The elements of the novel direct the reader away from a concentration on any one character and towards a consideration of the basic unit of society, the family. Although the title character of the novel may be Wieland, his tragedy and fall affect Clara, Catherine, and Pleyel and are caused partly by his family history—the tragic lives of both his father and grandfather. This perspective allows Brown to emphasize a conception of man as primarily a social being, and yet the social order in Wieland is one near...