社會禮俗長久以來一直被視作社會規範的一個重要形式；此外，社會禮俗也扮演了確保社會階層以及界線的穩定。然而，美國的社會禮俗自從其取得獨立後便急遽改變，社會地位也因此不再固定不變而「錯認」也在此情況下在社會上造成恐慌。 本論文探討四份美國文學著作中的錯認議題，從探討華盛頓歐文的《李伯大夢》(Rip van Winkle)開始審視美國獨立後的錯認引發的社會危機，再來將會檢視艾倫坡的《莫格爾街凶殺案》(The Murders in the Rue Morgue)，在這篇故事中的目擊證人都將實際上是隻猩猩的凶手所發出的聲音誤認為是和自己不同國籍的外國人。在《莫格爾街凶殺案》後將會探討亨利詹姆士的《黛斯密勒》(Daisy Miller)中黛絲拒絕沃克太太一個淑女應該坐馬車出門而非走路的建議時所引發的對立緊張的場景。最後我將探討史蒂芬克萊恩的《怪物》(The Monster)中的亨利強森(Henry Johnson)在周五傍晚穿著色彩搶眼的衣著走在大街上使旁人無法辨認其身分時所造成的恐慌。 People have long valued social norms because they are a means of social control. In addition, social norms stabilize social hierarchy and bulwarks social boundaries. However, social norms changed drastically in the United States since it transformed into a self-governing urbanized country. Social positions, therefore, ceased to be fixed and transparent as before, and misrecognition caused anxiety in this scenario. I will investigate crisis of misrecognition in four American texts in this thesis. The thesis begins with Washington Irving’s “Rip van Winkle” (1819) to pose the apprehension that misrecognition generated after America’s independence. I will then examine three scenes from three different nineteenth-century narratives in which a protagonist is publicly misrecognized, much the way Rip van Winkle is. I will argue in each case that this act of misrecognition expresses continuing anxiety about democratic freedom in the United States, in particular when it involves the public conduct of the social group represented by the protagonist. The first scene I will examine occurs in Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (1840) when witnesses who have overheard the murders of the two women all misidentify the killer, who turns out to be an “Orang-Outan,” as a foreigner based on the fact that they cannot understand the language it speaks. The second scene I will examine comes from Henry James’s Daisy Miller (1878) when Mrs. Walker insists that she rides in the carriage with her, rather than walk with the Italian, Mr. Giovanelli, suggesting that people who see her will think she is not respectable. The third scene I will examine occurs in Stephen Crane’s “The Monster” (1898) when Henry Johnson, Dr. Trescott’s black carriage hand, strolls down the main street looking to have a good time on a Friday evening only to cause an anxious debate among white male bystanders about who he is.
