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Adrian Russell
The Evolution of Gothic American Literature: A Journey Through the Dark
Upon hearing the word “Gothic”, many have the tendency to picture haunted
houses and gargoyles. However, gothic rhetoric is used in everyday speech quite
commonly. Tracing the roots of gothic literature back to Europe, through Poe’s
extensive development of gothic techniques, and then through its development in
the hands of later American authors, readers may see that gothic literature was
cultivated into many different forms that can be seen throughout the literature
of today. An evolution of gothic literary techniques is present when examining
the literature of the American Renaissance. From Edgar Allan Poe, to James
Fennimore Cooper, and on to Rebecca Harding Davis, the evolution of gothic
techniques will be explored, mainly focusing on the development of light and
darkness.
Beginning with Romance, Edgar
Allen Poe describes our human fascination with the darkness. In line 3.9, Poe
explains:
“And
so, being young and dipt in folly
I
fell in love with melancholy,
And
used to throw my earthly rest
And
quiet all away in jest—
I
could not love except where Death
Was
mingling his with Beauty’s breath—“ (Poe 3.9-3.14)
People are drawn to the dark by design. It is almost as if life cannot be
as exciting without the prospect of death. That being said, death becomes
attached to all of the things we desire or find beautiful that make us feel
alive. “It was to die for”. “I will love you until my last breath”. “I want it
so bad, it’s killing me”. These phrases are so common because we all attach
death to excitement and beauty in our life naturally.
Poe characteristically employed gothic rhetoric as a way into the
psychology of his readers by using haunted houses as correspondence for the
character’s and readers’ haunted minds. Poe developed many of these techniques
of haunted houses and mansions from the gothic literature of Europe. However,
after making gothic literature popular in America, it began to dig its own roots
into American soil. This involves the inclusion and development of the
wilderness gothic, which could be described as a scary tale in a haunted wood,
or simply having the setting in nature, while the darkness and fear associated
with unknown territory do their bidding in a tale that does not necessarily have
to be of the horror genre.
James Fennimore Cooper employed expert knowledge and usage of the
juxtaposition of light and darkness so characteristic of gothic literature in
The Last of the Mohicans. His
addition to the genre is the movement into the wilderness, but without that
haunted aspects commonly associated. This is a small step towards the realist
literature that would soon evolve in America. In the final paragraph of chapter
two, Cooper writes “A
gleam of exultation shot across the darkly-painted lineaments of
the inhabitant of the forest,
as he traced the route of his intended victims … the light and graceful forms of
the females waving among the trees … until, finally, the shapeless person of the
singing master was concealed behind the numberless
trunks of trees, that rose, in dark lines, in the intermediate space.”
The reader can nearly sit in this setting and see the lines of dark and light
circling each other before they collide. This use of light versus dark was
instrumental in giving the reader imagery that lends to the polarity of the
characters in this scene. A dark
Indian vetting the light-skinned American goddess is the quintessential
juxtaposition of lightness and darkness in early American literature, even
though it differs from the use of gothic technique readers are accustomed to in
reading Edgar Allan Poe.
Further into more recent examples of gothic literature in early America,
the techniques of this genre were beginning to be melded with other forms of
storytelling. This far in literary tradition, gothic literature had been
enjoyable to reading, yet mildly convincing as a realistic portrayal of life in
America. In Life in the Iron Mills,
Rebecca Harding Davis blends gothic rhetoric, Romanticism, and Realism with
dazzling effects. She opens the novel by urging the reader to hear “a
secret down here, in this nightmare fog”. Davis explains “The
idiosyncrasy
of this town is smoke. It rolls sullenly in slow folds from the great chimneys
of the iron-foundries, and settles down in black, slimy pools on the muddy
streets. Smoke on the wharves, smoke on the dingy boats, on the yellow
river,—clinging in a coating of greasy soot to the house-front”.
This smoke is reminiscent of the fog so heavily used by Poe and other gothic
writers before Davis. The culture of America had evolved from carrying the
hereditary lore of Europe, to the wilderness of early settlement New England, on
to the industrial boom of capitalist America. This smoky setting is one way in
which gothic literature evolved along with its readers. However, this smoky
technique retains the effect of using a dark and heavy setting that encourages
the reader to search for a light in the darkness.
The blend of gothic, Romantic, and Realist techniques in
Life in the Iron Mills lends to its
believability. This helps the reader feel represented, and thus more engrossed
in the literature. With feeling more represented, a reader may take more away
from the goal of the work.
An
example of the blended technique’s in Davis’s novel is when Wolfe enters a
church described as
“a somber Gothic pile,
where the stained light lost itself in far-retreating arches; built to meet the
requirements and sympathies of a far other class than
Wolfe's. Yet
it touched, moved him uncontrollably. The distances, the shadows, the still,
marble figures, the mass of silent kneeling worshippers, the mysterious music,
thrilled, lifted his soul with a wonderful pain. Wolfe
forgot himself, forgot the new life he was going to live, the mean terror
gnawing underneath.” In these four sentences, gothic techniques, specifically
“stained light”, are blended with Romanticism, and realism in order to portray
realistic class distinction, a Romantic idealization of the exaltation of the
soul, and the “wonderful pain” of being “moved uncontrollably”.
Gothic techniques may have a history in the haunted castles of Europe,
but they found a new home in the wilderness of America. Just like the people of
early America evolved, gothic literature evolved along with them. People of
differing backgrounds and differing beliefs blended with each other. They
evolved into a new kind of culture, as gothic blended with other literary
techniques that found a home in early America. However, as America clings to its
unifying concept of freedom, the true frontier of Early American gothic
literature was the concept of using the dark to shed light on everyday
situations, and finding a light in the darkness of life.
