ABSTRACT
William Godwin intended Caleb Williams to be a "book of fictitious adventure" that would literally transform the reader, so "that no one, after he has read it, shall ever be exactly the same man that he was before". The sensational storyline of Caleb Williams, while complex, seems bland when compared to Brown's plot twists. Wieland follows the cataclysmic confrontation of the melancholic Theodore Wieland, who is predisposed to antinomian and Calvinistic ideas about religion, and Carwin, a morally ambiguous ventriloquist. As the author discusses shortly, the critical response to the novel's conclusion tends to evince frustration with this final shift in setting. Despite its more spectacular and sensational elements, Wieland is at bottom a story about morality. In the finale of Caleb Williams, Caleb acknowledges his own accountability in Falkland's eventual demise and Falkland admits his guilt, accepting capital punishment as the consequence of his actions.
