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LITR 4232: American Renaissance  |
Final Exam Essays 2013 Sample answers for |
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Briana Perry
12/13/13
Goth is The Old Black
When I first selected this course, I had few
expectations for it except to force myself to read classic literature. This is
basically what I did, but I learned far more than I expected to in the process.
I learned about the historical aspects, and what styles things were written in.
A lot of information went into these classic works. It was different because I
was taking a literature course for the first time since I had begun studying for
my Bachelor's degree in Psychology. This meant I was able to read our texts from
the perspective of someone who studies mental disorders. Sometimes this was
upsetting, as in some places that other students thought were poetic and
artistic, I found vital unnoticed character flaws in the characters. Other times
I felt it enhanced the book. Thinking about what was going through a character's
mind gave new facets to the story. My perspective changed the most, however,
about Edgar Allan Poe, an author who I previously adored because of his gothic
works, became something a bit stranger.
As a Psychology major, the texts that spoke the
most to me during this course were those written by Poe and the slave
narratives. Why Poe spoke to me is simple enough to understand. Like countless
others, Poe's strong brooding emotions can speak in a language everyone can
understand. For the romantic crowd Poe is consistently in love with someone he
has lost, and he is deeply in love with them. This theme of eternal longing
strikes a chord with some people and they see him as a hopeless romantic. Others
like Poe because as one critic said his writing is like that of an intelligent
teenager. He's depressed, and he hates the way the world is now. "What happened
to the better way of old society?" he seems to ask. It is a world he longs for
yet he likely barely lived in or had a hand in creating it. He is a young man
believing he is an old soul. That sort of distaste for the modern world is still
felt by many, and in a way spoke to me, too, when I was younger. Now as my
current major I'm looking at the whole picture. Poe's strong feeling of love,
loss, and depression come off as more of a mental disorder than a voice for deep
thinkers. To be honest, though, I still find this fascinating.
As a general reader the work
Ligeia a wonderful horror story.
Confusion and gothic imagery for days. Horror loves to keep you unstable, and
the narrator himself is just that. Unfortunately, that’s where I also see
problems. The entire story of Ligeia is about a man's intense love for her. Yet
he can't remember the "little" details, like how he met her, what her family's
name is, etc. This matter does not seem to concern him because he vividly
remembers her as a person, "There is one dear topic, however, on which my memory
falls me not. It is the person of Ligeia. In stature she was tall, somewhat
slender, and, in her latter days, even emaciated. I would in vain attempt to
portray the majesty, the quiet ease, of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible
lightness and elasticity of her footfall,"(Poe).
He is able, however, tell you how beautiful, smart,
and passionate she was. He says, "In beauty of face no maiden ever equalled
her". Yet this unrivaled beauty is also said to have strange features, alien
eyes, and the description of her body in general screams death. The narrator
however, remains smitten with her even after her death when he takes a new wife,
whom he hates, and he acquires a drug habit to dull the pain. The obsession
continues until he sees his dead second wife take the form of his beloved
Ligeia. This entire story is concerning because of the extreme obsession of the
narrator. Now, you could argue that this was simply Poe's vision for the
character, perhaps he didn't actually approve of his actions.
That argument would be wrong. This is a common theme in Poe's work. From
Ligiea, to
Fall of the House of Usher, to
the Raven you see a man's unheeding
obsession, usually over the loss of a woman whose corpse is often described in
detail. Even in life, the woman can often be seen as a corpse.
Knowing Poe's history of the women in his life
falling ill and dying, it is not surprising to see that loss and death is a
common theme in his works. If anything, it cements the idea that there was
something psychologically wrong with him. His description of women dead or dying
could stem from him actually having seen them die. This was probably a haunting
memory if he chose to relive it through his works. As a Psychology major I feel
as though this class has helped me to reassess some of the things I had
previously learned in high school. Reading Poe now, I can see him in an entirely
new light as more tragic than his stories were. All of his works where some
would see romance and horror, I feel sympathy for a man who wrote out his
illnesses and his ways of coping with drugs. As a writer I feel I've grown from
this because I would now be able to analyze these themes objectively in my
papers. The focus on Poe's formal writing style and gothic imagery could be
interpreted as a man whose world has lost control, but he finds some semblance
of it in his consistent style.
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