”89 and that isexactly what Alexandra tapped into. “She used to have the illusion of being lifted”90 and carriedby a large, strong, and swift man. He is “yellow like the sunlight, and there [is] a smell of ripecornfields about him.”91 During the Roaring Twenties, the Harlem Renaissance produced eeriepoetry and prose. In Gwendolyn Bennett’s “Lines Written at the Grave of Alexandre Dumas,”Bennett speaks of cemeteries as “places for departed souls [and] roving spirits.”92 In The Grapesof Wrath, John Steinbeck tells the story of a migrant family traveling with the former preacher,Jim Casy, who is seen by Ma and the other women as a kind of messiah. Their strangeperception of this is revealed by “the look in [their eyes]”93 as he speaks. “The Night the GhostGot In,” by James Thurber, is a humorous look at a strange situation. A ghost gets intoThurber’s house and begins a “quick-cadenced walking around the dining-room table.”94 Hedoes not tell his mother because she is “even more afraid of ghosts than burglars.”95 Later, headmits that he wishes he had “just let it keep on walking.” This treatment of the supernatural asan everyday occurrence reveals how comfortable Americans have become with the paranormal. Another example of this same theme is Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Throughout the entire book, the supernatural happenings that take place are described as if theyare not anything to be too terribly shocked about. For instance, the lightening-rod salesmansays “you got to be ready in every dialect with every shape and form to hex St. Elmo’s fire”96while trying to sell his rods to the two main characters, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade.From the Puritan era onward, American society has always held a deep fascination withthe supernatural. This is greatly reflec...
