LITR
4232: American Renaissance
University
of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2002
Index to Student Research Projects
Anjanette Rau
LITR 4232
Spring 2002
Gothic
Devices
Gothic literature has a number of conventions, including evils of horror,
present of light and dark, suggestions of the supernatural, and dark and exotic
localities such as castles and crumbling mansions (American).
Violence in gothic literature never occurs just for the sake if violence;
there is always a moral dilemma (Clarke 209).
By going the extremes, a gothic author is able to accentuate a contrast
allowing the author’s point to be made more easily.
American fiction was based on fantasy works of writers like Edgar Allan
Poe. Although Edgar Allan Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and
Frederick Douglass, all used gothic devices in their work, the questions arises
whether Poe’s gothic techniques represented his fantasy, or did they represent
his reality like they do with Stowe and Douglass.
Poe’s use of gothic device leads the readers into a downward fall of an
insane world representing fantasy. Stowe
and Douglass, on the other hand, used gothic details to reflect the reality of
the lives of the slaves as they struggle to climb upwards out of the descending
fall of their lives.
Edgar
Allan Poe is primarily known for his mastery of the gothic genre. He constantly explored subjects such as self-destruction,
madness, imagination, and earned a reputation for his fascination with death,
especially the death of women (Scharf). Poe
uses the interplay dark and light and colors such as black, gray, white and red
in order to present the downward fall of his characters rather then an upward
gain in their lives. Unlike the
stories of Stowe and Douglass, these colors are present to represent the upward
struggle of the characters to overcome their tragic lives.
Poe’s characters tend to become each other’s exact image. Roderick, In the Fall
of the House of Usher, cannot separate himself from Madeline so when she
becomes ill, he suffers also. In
Poe’s Ligeia, the narrator is
connected to Ligeia in such a way the reader is left questioning how much of his
experience occurred in his mind. There
is a breakdown in order on the universal level as well as their personal level,
similar to the characters of Stowe and Douglass. Their characters become lost in the white society and lose
their own sense of being. Poe’s
short stories “The Fall of the House of
Usher,” and “Ligeia” are
both classics examples of gothic genre. Stowe’s
Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Douglass’ Narrative
of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, although do not
represent our image of a classic gothic story, they do use the gothic genre to
represent real life events.
In both Ligeia
and The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe shows the downward fall of the
characters. Almost immediately in Ligeia,
Poe informs the reader that the author’s mind in well into this decline,
“…and my memory feeble through much suffering” (p 2390).
This same idea is also reflected immediately in Poe’s The
Fall of the House of Usher. In
the opening sentence, the reader is told “During the whole of a dull, dark,
and soundless day in the autumn of the year when the clouds hung oppressively
low in the heavens,” also reflecting the idea of a downward movement in the
lives of the characters. In
Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin the
characters are in a movement also, but it is one of an upward motion. Eliza decides to leave her plantation once she realizes her
son Harry is to be sold to another plantation, “with a confused and stunning
sense of the risk she was running, in leaving the only home she had ever
known” (p 2485). Eliza decides to
leave the plantation in hopes of improving her and her child’s life.
She is making an upward move towards a different life.
In Douglass’ an American Slave,
he also informs the reader right away that he has already made a move in the
upward position to improve his life. “[Douglass]
was a stranger to nearly every member of that body; but, having recently made
his escape from the southern prisonhouse of bondage, and feeling his curiosity
excited to ascertain the principles and measures of the abolitionists…he was
induced to give his attendance” (p 1817).
By these few sentences, the reader is told Douglass has not only escaped
slavery, but also openly shows it by appearing at this meeting.
In all of these narratives, women are described
reflecting the interplay of the gothic genre of light and dark.
In Poe’s Ligeia, Ligeia
herself has a pale forehead, skin the color of ivory, yet has hair, which is
“raven-black”, glossy, and luxuriant (p 2391).
In The Fall of the House of Usher,
the physical description the reader is given is that of Roderick Usher, and
because Madeline is his twin sister, the reader has to assume his
characteristics are hers as well. “A
cadaverousness of complexion; …lips somewhat thin and pallid …the silken
hair in its wild gossamer texture…floated rather then fell about the face,”
(p 2403) describes what the narrator sees in Roderick when sees him again for
the first time in years. The
narrator sees Madeline as she passes by the room he and Roderick are in but does
not realize she has the same characteristics as Roderick until he sees her in
her coffin. The description of the
home of Roderick and Madeline contrast their pale appearance.
For example, “with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of
insufferable gloom pervaded my spirits. The
house was surrounded with “simple landscape features, …bleak walls…vacant
eye-like windows…[and] white trunks of decayed trees,” all reflecting the
light and dark aspect of the gothic genre (p 2401).
In Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the description of Eliza and the description of
Mrs. Shelby represent the gothic genre of the play of light and dark.
“There was the same rich, full, dark eyes, with its long lashes; the
same ripples of silky black hair,” (p 2480) describes Eliza and her son.
Mrs. Shelby, on the other hand, is described as proper and almost
angelic. “Mrs. Shelby was a woman
of high class, both intellectually and morally.
[She was a woman of] high moral and religious sensibility and
principle” (p 2485). This
description leads the reader to view Mrs. Shelby as a heavenly being, small,
pale and proper, completely contrary to the description of Eliza.
Ironically in this narrative, light is portrayed as evil and dark as
innocent. In Douglass’ narrative am American Slave, he points out that his mother, Harriet Bailey,
was a black women, “of darker complexion than either my grandmother or
grandfather” and “[his] father was a white man” (p 1824).
This is also using the gothic genre with light and dark as contrasting
images. Douglass’ point in doing
this is to show his connection between the two races and to reinforce his own
feelings that his life as a slave is his nothing but a gray area.
All of these narratives use gothic devices not
only to show light and dark, but also life (as reality) and death (as
fantasy/dream). In Poe’s Ligeia,
the descriptions of Ligeia as a real women gives her life,
“…she was tall [and] somewhat slender [and] I would in vain attempt
to portray the majesty of her demeanor. However,
because “she came and departed as a shadow and was the radiance of an
opium-dream” the reader must conclude she is from a dreamlike life (p 2390).
In The Fall of the House of Usher,
the narrator describes the surrounding area of the Usher’s home as having
“no affinity with the air of heaven, but reeked up from the decayed trees, and
the gray wall, and the silent tarn-a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish,
faintly discernible, leaden-hued (p 2402).
In this example, the narrator does not specifically state the scenery is
dark and dying, but it is clear he sees the Usher house is not one exhibiting
life. He even decides what he is
experiencing must be some sort of dream. "“Shaking
off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of
the building” (p 2402). Presenting
both Ligeia and the house as dreamlike figures bring the readers to decide for
themselves how much they want to accept as being able to take place (reality)
and how much they view as pure fantasy. Stowe’s
Uncle Tom’s Cabin does not make the
separation of reality and fantasy as easily, but the separation is present.
Eliza seems, sometimes, to be in a dreamlike state while on the run with
her child. “Sublime is the dominion of the mind over the body, that,
for an time, can make flesh and nerve impregnable, and string the sinews like
steel, so the weak become mighty” (p 2486).
In this passage, Eliza has become a fantasy character. Her ability to thrive off of the sublime (slavery) reveals
her as an unrealistic or super character. In
the preface of Douglass’ an American
Slave, William Lloyd Garrison speaks of two instances where “murderous
cruelty” exists. A plantation
owner “deliberately shot a slave belonging to another plantation [because he]
had unintentionally gotten within the lordly domain in quest of fish.”
Another instance is when “an overseer blew out the brains of a slave
who had fled to a stream of water to escape a bloody scourging”.
Neither one of these murders was investigated or led to any arrest (p
1821). This reflects the idea of
good versus evil; thus life versus death.
The existence of the supernatural also plays an important part in these
works. In Ligeia,
the narrator’s spirit is broken into by beauty (p 2392).
This could be interpreted as a supernatural being, which as entered the
narrator’s body, overwhelming his mind, overpowering him with lust.
The Fall of the House of Usher,
is full of supernatural relations. “As
the shades of evening drew on…with an utterance depression of soul,” gives
the reader an impression of a ghostly apparition wondering around the Usher
home. In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, there is not much supernatural in the aspect of
ghostly figures, but there are numerous referrals to the belief in a Christian
God. When Mr. Shelby and Mr. Haley
are discussing the trading of Tom, Mr. Shelby found it important to point out
that Tom was Christian. “Tom is a
good steady, sensible, pious fellow. He
got religion at a cap-meeting, four years ago; and I believe he really did
get it. I’ve trusted him sense then” (p 2479). The fact Tom is a Christian seemed to make him more valuable
in the slave market. Mrs. Shelby
was also a Christian, making Eliza feel she could be trusted. Ironically, however, Tom, the black slave, was more
trustworthy than the white salve owner, Mrs. Shelby.
On page 2486, Eliza contributes her ability to continue traveling in the
cold weather to some “supernatural power” whether it is God or some other
being the reader is not told. In
Douglass’ an American Slave, the
supernatural is also referred to in the sense of Christianity along with the
idea of prophecy. On page 1826,
Douglass speaks of how “one great statesman of the south predicted the
downfall of slavery by the inevitable laws of population”.
This statesman felt that because many of the slaves being born were
racially mixed, slavery would be forced to an end because the white slave owners
could not longer use the book of God as a reason to support slavery when it was
their own children being sold and abused.
Each of the narratives uses gothic settings to
contribute to the eerieness of the characters.
In Ligeia the narrator believes he met Ligeia “first and most
frequently in some large, old decaying city near Rhine” (p 2390).
By emphasizing the decay surrounding his memory of Ligeia, the narrator
prepares the readers for a, if only slightly, fear-provoking situation.
The Fall of the House of Usher
contains many gothic terms, which quickly inform the reader of the frightening,
upcoming events. Words such as
“dull, dark, dreary, and gloom are only a few of the descriptive words used to
create a environment of death and despair.
(p 2400) In Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Eliza is running away from slavery with her
child. She “comes to a thick
patch of woodland, through which murmured a clear brook” (p 2487).
The fact that the woods are thick and the brook murmurs reflects the idea
of a gothic setting. The reader is presented with a mental picture of a dark,
wooded area and a brook that is clear, but barely moves between its banks and
both Eliza and her child are hungry. This
passage creates a typical gothic setting. An
American Slave begins right away with a setting of strangeness and the
unknown. Douglass begins with the fact he does not known when his
birthday is. He resents it that the
white children know their birthdays. (p 1824)
Although the reader is not given details on the environmental
surroundings, the determination that Douglass’ environment is one of evil and
fear is apparent from the beginning.
Violence in each of these novels is abundant, except Ligeia.
The closest the reader can get to view violence in Ligeia
is when she is on her deathbed and the narrator is mentally “[struggling]
desperately in spirit with the grim Azrael” (p 2393).
The angel of death has come to claim Ligeia and the narrator fights to
save her but is unsuccessful. In The
Fall of the House of Usher, violence is apparent when Roderick decides he
must entomb Madeline into a vault while she is still alive.
The violence in both of these narratives enforces the general gothic
feeling. In Uncle
Tom’s Cabin and an American Slave,
the violence is generally represented by the abuse of the slaves.
An example of violence in this narrative occurs when Mr. Haley is telling
about a female slave who did not want to be separated from her infant during a
slave auction. “I’ve seen ‘em as would pull a woman’s child out of
her arms, and set him up to sell, and she screechin’ like mad all the time”
(p 2481). Although this is a minor
example of some of the sufferings of the slaves, it represents the mentality of
many slave owners that slaves are like animals.
On page 1827 of an American Slave,
Douglass explains how the slaves were abused.
“The overseer’s name was Plummer.
Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage
monster. He always went armed with
a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I
have known him to cut and slash the women’s head so horribly, that even
masters would be enraged at his cruelty and would threaten to whip him if he did
not mind himself” (p 1826). The
use of descriptive violence in this narrative results in mental images the
reader cannot release from his mind.
The use of numerous gothic devices in these
narratives builds up mental images in the minds of the readers from which they
can never escape. Poe’s writings
although fiction reflects many miseries in his own life.
Stowe and Douglass use the gothic genre in order to reach out those
readers will sympathize with their cause (Scharf ).
All three writers depend on the gothic devices to make their narratives
attention getting, but Stowe and Douglass went beyond this.
They wanted their readers to know their narratives were not fantasy, but
could be almost dreamlike. Poe
leaves his readers questioning the sanity and desires of his fictional
characters while Stowe and Douglass leave their readers astonished by the
insanity of a cruel and truly indescribable world.
Works
Cited
Clarke,
Doug. Themes and Issues of the
Gothic Genre. http://members.aol.
com/franzpoet/intro.html
An
American Cottage -- American Edition of Smith's Dictionary of the Bible http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/browse.author/a.81.html
Scharf,
Douglas. Edgar Allan Poe: Biographical
Contexts For "The Fall of the House of Usher".
http://itech.fgcu.edu/faculty/wohlpart/alra/ PoeFall. htm#First.