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(2018
midterm assignment) Model Student Midterm answers 2018 #1: Long Essays (Index) |
LITR 4328 |
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Alexis Gomez
October 3, 2018
Corresponding with the Dark Side
of Literature
In taking literature of the American
Renaissance (American Romantic Era), I expected to be engulfed in fictional,
sappy, and dramatic love stories. However, I was pleasantly surprised by the
stories we have been reading in class, specifically the texts that incorporate
gothic language to either describe the characters and or their surroundings.
Before taking this class, I was unware of the genre of gothic and that it fits
under the umbrella of Romanticism. Gothic style is typically presented by
authors in creepy, nightmare, and darkish ways, which is typically either
directed at the nature that surrounds the character or to the characters’
personal description.
The four stories I have selected use gothic
descriptive language to romanticize the surroundings or appearances of the main
characters. Along with the use of gothic writing,
these authors incorporate a form of correspondence named outside-in. This form
of correspondence reflects the characters’ internal feelings with the outside
world that they are surrounded by. The authors in these stories use gothic
terminology to describe either nature or appearances; additionally, these
authors take it another step further by using correspondence to connect a
character’s personal feelings and mindset to that of their surroundings.
Utilizing gothic style and correspondence provides a more vivid, clear picture
of the dark setting that parallels the internal feelings of the characters.
“The Legend of
Sleepy Hollow” is a story that has become a staple in every literature classroom
for people in the American school system. Washington Irving, the author, uses
plenty of gothic terminology when describing the nature that surrounds the
people in the town. The first example of this is when the people of the town who
are under a “witching power” are having “strange sights, and hear music and
voices in the air, the whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, hunted spots
and twilight superstitions…” (3). Here the author is using descriptive language
to further emphasize and elaborate for the reader what the people in the city
have believed to have witnessed. It is this type of descriptive language that
allows the reader to form a better picture in their mind as the spots were not
just plain, but haunted spots. The reader is encouraged to use their imagination
to fill in the blanks as to how and what haunted these spots. Along with the
gothic terminology, Irving uses the gothic surroundings in the story to mirror
and correspond with Ichabod’s feelings. The line states, “It was the very
witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy hearted and crest-fallen and
crest-fallen… the hour, was as dismal as himself” (55). Here the witching time
of night is in conjunction with the dismal hour and is written in a way that
parallels the way the Ichabod feels which is sad, gloomy and depressed. Using
the descriptive language of nature to reflect how the character feels allows the
reader to paint a picture in their head of the entire scenery of nature and
emotions. Washington Irving does an exceptional job at using the gothic style to
describe outside images as well as internal feelings. In doing so the reader has
to do less work when interpreting this story.
Another author who is most recognized
for his work in regard to gothic style is Edgar Allan Poe. In the text titled
“Ligeia” Poe uses gothic qualities like black versus light to show the gothic
contrast between the two women in the story. Ligeia, the main love of the
narrator, is described by Poe using dark gothic language; the narrator uses this
language to describe Ligeia’s eyes by saying, “far larger than the ordinary eyes
of our own race…which at once so delighted and appalled me” (5, 7).
By using this language Poe points out to
the reader that her eyes were not only big, but bigger than eyes of her own race
which this suggests that she is not something of this world. Poe also suggests
that her eyes can be frightening to look at because he says they “appalled” him
when he looked into them. Consequently, when Poe described the narrator’s wife,
Lady Rowena, he describes her using light connotated words. For example, in
paragraph 27 the narrator describes her as, “The fair-haired, the blue-eyed
lady.” The contrast of dark and light appearances is a prime example of Poe
using gothic descriptions of the women in his story. This tells the reader that
there is a visible significant difference in the way the women are meant to be
seen. Along with gothic imagery, Poe uses correspondence to describe the
narrator’s emotions to that of his surroundings. The narrator says that his
vivid imagination and active terror in combination with the opium match the time
that he saw “fall within the goblet, as if from some invisible spring in the
atmosphere of the room, three or four large drops of a
brilliant and ruby colored fluid” (20). The narrator is admitting that the
terror and drugs are messing with his mind thus causing him to see unusual
things happening in his surroundings.
“The Lamplighter”
by Maria Cummins uses gothic language to describe the main character, Gerty; the
way she is described by the author makes it seem as though her appearance, like
in “Ligeia,” is something not of this world. The way in which other characters
describe Gerty makes it seem as though she is a magical being of some sort as,
the texts says, “who looked upon her like a spirt of evil… odd-faced child,
looks like a witch!” (1.6, 1.9). Gerty’s description allows the reader to infer
that the way she looks is creepy and unfamiliar to that of a normal child.
Cummins also uses a form of inside-out correspondence in “The Lamplighter,” when
Gerty is describing her emotions as “she sobbed as if her heart would break and
wept until she was exhausted” (1.11), which is contrasted with the way the star
in the sky looks that night as Gerty says, “so large, so bright, and yet so soft
and pleasing-looking” (1.13). The star seems to be the opposite of Gerty’s
feelings as well as her appearances as described by other Characters previously
stated.
In the final story
The Wide Wide World by Susan B.
Warner also incorporates a sense of gothic language in regard to the way in
which Ellen is looking out of the window as, the narrator says, “Yet Ellen sat
with her face glued to the window as if spell-bound, gazing out…as though it had
some strange interest for her” (1.6). By using gothic terminology like
“spell-bound and “strange,” the author makes the reader feel a sense of
uneasiness about the way the little girl is looking out the window, thus
producing a gothic scenery. Warmer also incorporates correspondence in her text
in regard to Ellen by saying, “The room was dark and cheerless; and Ellen felt
stiff and chilly” (1.8). The environment that surrounds Ellen produces the way
she feels internally.
In conclusion, the
texts that incorporate this type of gothic language grab and keep my attention
along with adding a sense of dark mystery that engulfs not only the setting, but
the characters in the play. Moreover, the usage of correspondence in the writing
compliments the descriptive gothic language in a way that makes the reading more
assessable and understandable to the reader. The combination of these two terms
creates an aspect that makes all of these texts more appealing and interesting
to readers.
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