Charles Brockden Brown's novel, Arthur Mervyn, has been read by people across America from the late eighteenth century up until today. Brown targeted many audiences in this novel but there is one in particular that not only had an impact on people then, but can still captivate many in today's society. That specific group involves people who are fighting an incurable illness, such as the Yellow Fever, as described in the book. Although it was written in the late 1700's, people in the twenty-first century can still relate to the characters in the book, and understand what they were feeling at that time. The goal of this paper is to show that Brown's main intended audience was towards the incurably sick and that even over two hundred years later, our society is still being faced with some of the same problems.

In the summer and fall months of...