Sample Student Research Project, spring 2006
LITR
4232: American Renaissance
Sample Student Research Project, spring 2006
Neelam Damani
11 April, 2006
The
Visionary or the Mundane?
What is
the perfect, ideal life and how is it attained? How should we live our lives?
Are ethical values relative to the individual or are there absolute truths we
all can follow?
These “big” questions have perplexed countless since the beginning of time, and will perhaps continue to puzzle us for eternity. Though our outward appearances are different, all people share an underlying sameness that unites us as one. If our essence is the same, our needs are the same, our desires are the same, and even our questions are the same – then must not our answers, too, be the same?
Philosophers
contend that answers to these life’s mysteries are the same for us all (Magee
25). They
suggest “the ethical question of perfection should not be whether man is
perfect, but whether he should be” (Moral Perfection). Then again, if
he should be perfect, how is this perfection to be attained? In
truth, our search for the visionary, the ideal, often ends in our becoming
enchained by the mundane and the actual. Though philosophy maintains we should
live a good life, it is literature that unveils man’s struggles in attaining
such a life. Literature shows reaching for the stars is not possible while we
remain chained to the ground by our own desiring nature.
Through allegorical tales, classic literature shows the daunting reality
of man’s struggle to break free from the prison of human desires in search of
an ideal life.
Living
a happy life, free from failings, is not easy because the realization of each
carnal desire breeds another secret sin, pounding weight on our already guilty
conscience. Sometimes the cries of our conscience are easy to ignore, but other
times, its unbearable, piercing shrieks prompt us into action. In Edgar Allen
Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher, Poe explores the inner turmoil and
struggle between the good and the bad in the self. Many classical works, if taken literally, show “paradoxical
situations and aberrant characters; but if we look upon them symbolically, we
see symbols of what is hidden, secret, even unavowable within us” (Zayed 83).
In this allegory, the house represents Usher’s mind which is decaying due to
his unsuccessful struggles with the desiring self. The house or mind of gloom
has suffered much and is decaying from within – a decay so extreme that it
effects even the atmosphere around it: “Upon the bleak walls – upon the
vacant eye-like windows…and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees – with
an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation…the
hideous dropping off of the veil” (Poe 2473). Even though “minute fungi
[has] overspread the whole exterior…no portion of the masonry [has] fallen…
[and] the fabric gives little token of instability” (Poe 2474). Perhaps this
is analogous to the rotting mind which gives the mere appearance of being
healthy. Or, like the seemingly robust man, who in actuality, is riddled with
disease.
As the
narrator passes through “dark and intricate passages,” he finally reaches
“the studio of the master” with crimsoned lights, “comfortless
furniture” and disorganized profusion (Hoffman 171). The pathways of the
decaying house symbolize the internal turmoil of Usher’s disordered mind,
making this house “a world which crawls and creeps in the depths of his
being” (Zayed 86).
As the
story progresses, we see this turmoil’s origin being his representative
desiring self – his sister Madeline. “That much of the peculiar glooms which
thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable
origin – to the severe and long-continued illness – of a tenderly beloved
sister” (Poe 2476); and, whose death would leave him “hopeless and frail”
(Poe 2476). Perhaps, her illness which represents the self’s germinating
desires, are inflicting and decaying him just like the house, and just like her.
To exterminate the illness, he entombs his sister for what he thinks, forever.
But are uncontrollable desires, riddled with disease even possible to kill?
Usher cannot escape Madeline’s vengeance because she scratches her way out of
her premature entombment and plunges on him. “And now final death-agonies bore
him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated”
(Poe 2485). Her return, thus, symbolizes the return of Usher’s unconscious
desires. It was in vain he tried to bury her; how could he live without a part
of himself? Her death can only come with Usher’s own. Hence, the mind can
neither live nor die without its physical counterpart, the desirous self.
Lastly, as the two halves unite, Usher and Madeline, the mind of the
house falls apart and becomes the symbol of a deranged individual who crumbles
into “deep and dark tarn” (Poe Decoder).
If
detaching desires from self is not the answer, is submission to the desirous
self a better choice? In the tale Young Goodman Brown, Hawthorne offers a
closer look into the nature of sin and guilt, as it affects individuals and
their relationships to others. Instead of separating himself from desires like
Usher, Young Goodman Brown chooses to leave behind his Faith, his “blessed
angel on earth,” and rush after his desires. “By naming his wife
‘Faith,’ Hawthorne presents his journey into the forest as a trip away from
faith towards realms of uncertainty and doubt” (Hardt 37). Even though his
wife represents comfort, safety and security, he chooses to leave this certainty
to explore the darkness and uncertain regions of his own identity. Though he
wants to “cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven,” he gives in to this
“this one night,” and this last sinful wanting (Hawthorne 2259).
The
forest for Brown, like the house for Usher, represents the perplexed mind, which
is “gloomy,” “dark” and “lonely as could be” (Hawthorne 2259). On
this dreary path, he meets the old man who symbolizes his passionate evil
desires. As Brown’s guilt sinks in, his fellow-traveler urges him on, to walk
and reason as they go. Ironically, “the more he loses his faith – literally,
according to the allegory, the farther he walks from home – the thicker the
spectral horrors crowd upon his consciousness” (Bromwich 153). Momentarily, as
his conscience takes over, he resolves to “stand firm against the devil” but
his mind or the forest plays tricks on him (Hawthorne 2263). He sees Faith’s
pink ribbon flying off, which suggests Faith has moved from innocence to
experience (Bromwich 153). The loss of her ribbon realizes his worst horror –
could his very Faith be corrupted by worldly desires? If even his dear Faith is
gone, what is to stop him now? “There is no god on earth; and sin is but a
name. Come, devil! For to thee is this world given” (Hawthorne 2263).
When he
sets forth again, the forest or his mind consoles him by showing that “hoary
bearded elders of church,” “young maids” and even “beardless youths and
fair damsels” have sinned. The darkness shows that he is not a lone sinner,
but a multitude are guilty of carnal sin. “The whole of earth [in fact] is one
stain of guilt, one mighty blood-spot. Far more than this!” (Hawthorne 2265)
The
paradox comes when his own sins become exposed – to himself. “The husband
cast one look at his pale wife, and Faith at him. What polluted wretches would
the next glance shew them to each other, shuddering alike at what they disclosed
and what they saw!” ( Hawthorne 2266). He cannot bear to be so exposed before
Faith since she is his conscience and his true rational half. To keep from being
discovered, he asks Faith to look away, but it is too late. This lifting of the
veil forever makes him a bewildered, “a darkly meditative, a distrustful,
[and] if not a desperate man” (Hawthorne 2266). Instead of rectifying his
sins, Brown resigns and disconnects himself from society. The hypocritical
nature of his once admired neighbors and the realization of his own secret sin
cause him to meet a tragic end (Hardt 396).
The
following dialogue gives another glimpse of Brown’s inner turmoil or of any
individual who struggles to abstain from sin:
Q:
What holds you back from sin?
A:
Nothing in myself.
QED:
This knowledge is so dreadful that you will do anything to evade it. Thus you
will put off on your neighbors the terror of your own disobedience (Bromwich
153).
Like
the Young Goodman Brown and Roderick Usher, Revered Hooper in The
Minister’s Black Veil also tries to free his conscience of sinful, worldly
desires. Unlike Brown and Usher who choose to suppress their conscience, Hooper
hides the guilt of his desires behind a black veil. Ironically, instead of the
veil hiding his sins (the purpose of a veil being to conceal), it exposes the
minister’s secret sins. “He has changed himself into something awful, only
by hiding his face” (Hawthorne 2268). Most think the parson has “gone mad”
and that something is “surely amiss with Mr. Hooper’s intellects”
(Hawthorne 2269). Surely, the story itself is ambiguous and the minister’s
reasons for donning the veil inexplicable; however, if we look at the story as
an allegory, the pieces do offer some meaning. Why has the minister chosen to
wear a veil which has “separated him from cheerful brotherhood and woman’s
love, and kept him in that saddest of all prisons, his own heart”? (Hawthorne
2274). Initially, Hooper wears the veil to cover his secret sin “and to remind
his congregation that all individuals, even the most pious wear masks before the
world, concealing their true selves, especially those aspects which are
sinful” (Pennell 43).
Though
Hooper never had the reputation of being an energetic preacher, his sermons
after the donning of the veil make the “hearers quake” (Hawthorne 2269).
What has changed the minister? Perhaps “with this gloomy shade before him,”
he can now see “all living and inanimate things” with a dark light
(Hawthorne 2268). He can now see the darkness inside other souls and see hanging
before their faces similar “mysterious emblems” (Hawthorne 2268). As Brown
was able to see the sins of even the most pious, so is Hooper able to see the
sins of his congregation. However, instead of detaching himself from society, he
continues to live within it. In fact, he sympathizes with their dark sinful
natures and becomes “a man of awful power over souls that [are] in agony for
sin” (Hawthorne 2273). Though he accepts society, sadly, the society does not
accept him and detaches him from its social fabric. Perhaps a look upon the veil
reminds them of their own secret sins.
Did
the veil clear Hooper of his guilty conscience and bring him closer to the
abstract ideal of a perfect life? Conversely, the veil caused men to avoid him,
women to show no pity and caused children to scream and flee (Hawthorne 2275).
It made him “a man apart from men, shunned in their health and joy, but ever
summoned to aid in mortal anguish” (Hawthorne 2274). Veiled in life and veiled
in death, and a “veiled corpse they bore him to the grave…awful is the
thought that he moldered beneath the Black Veil” (Hawthorne 2275). Like Brown
and Usher, Hooper, too, ended up unfortunate and miserable.
An
echo of the allegory can be heard in the poem by Hawthorne’s contemporary,
Christopher Pearse Cranch:
We are spirits clad in veils:
Man by man was never seen:
All our deep communing fails
To remove the shadowy screen.
Heart to heart was never known:
Mind with mind did never meet:
We are columns left alone,
Of a temple once complete.
Minister’s
Black Veil in this way shows the struggles
of the human soul, and its yearning to remove the “shadowy screen” of sins
and desires from our hearts (qtd. Doubleday 123).
All the prime characters in the aforementioned
tales end up alone and wretched at the end of their journeys. Each story shows
the struggles against desire and the attempts to submerge the guilty conscience;
but, in each tale, this struggle is too great to overcome. In The Fall of the
House of Usher, Usher deteriorates under the weight of his desires. The
minister in The Minister’s Black Veil lives a lonesome life and dies a
pitiable death, buried under the emblem of his secret sins. And, Brown in Young
Goodman Brown, though not physically alone, is secluded from society and his
hour, too, is gloom. All try to overcome their passions to achieve the ideal
life, the absolute essence, but all remain unsuccessful.
Like a devil with a serpent, we are all so
often led into the forest of our desires and the dark of our conscious minds.
The result of these journeys is often the same – ceaseless, infinite,
ever-growing guilt. Guilt because we know we have tarried from the right path
and have sinned by succumbing to carnal desires. Does this longing for
perfection kill us in the end? Should we just let go of these unattainable
ideals, end our quest for the visionary and accept the mundane?
Then again, do no ideals mean the end of
struggles? Where would no ideals lead us? Should we remove our veils and
shamelessly show our faces to the world? Will this help us to lead a happy life?
We have journeyed full-circle and come back to questions raised at the opening.
Again, we have raised many questions, but not provided many answers. Have we
even progressed or merely been numbed like a torpedo-fish? (Plato 80a-b)
I think otherwise. I think examining
humanity’s struggles in classic literary works have brought us closer by
recognizing that problems exist. Problems need recognition before they can
attempt to be solved. Similarly, questions need to be raised before they can
begin to be answered. “What is an
answer worth if it does not come through our own understanding?” (Magee 17).
“Humans
have a duty to pursue the good, but no one can hope to do this successfully
without philosophical reasoning” – a chance which literature precisely
provides (The Form of the Good).
What is social company
But a babbling summer stream?
What our wise philosophy
But the glancing of a dream?
Only when the Sun of Love
Melts the scattered stars of thought;
Only when we live above
What the dim-eyed world hath taught,
Only when our souls are fed
By the Fount which gave them birth,
And by inspiration led,
Which they never drew from earth,
We, like parted drops of rain,
Swelling till they meet and run,
Shall be all absorbed again,
Melting, flowing into one
-- excerpt
from Enosis by Christopher Cranch
Works Cited
Bromwich,
David. “The American Psychosis.” Bloom’s Modern Critical
Interpretations: Nathaniel
Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown. PA:
Chelsea House Publishers, 2005. 135-160.
Cranch,
Christopher. “Enosis by Christopher Cranch (1813-1892).” Poetry Archive.
9 April 2006. http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/enosis.html
Doubleday,
Neal. “Three Masterpieces in Twice-Told Tales.” Literary Companion to
American Authors:
Readings on Nathaniel Hawthorne. CA:
Greenhaven Press, 1998. 118-125.
Hardt,
John. “Doubts in the American Garden: Three Cases of Paradisal Skepticism.” Bloom’s
Modern
Critical Interpretations: Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown.
PA: Chelsea House
Publishers, 2005. 33-44.
Hoffman,
Daniel. “The Fall of the House of Usher”: An Allegory of the Artist.” Literary
Companion to
American Authors: Readings on Edgar Allan Poe.
CA: Greenhaven Press, 1998.
169-179.
Lauter,
Paul, ed. The Heath Anthology of American Literature. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Company, 2006.
Magee,
Bryan. The Great Philosophers. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Moral
Perfection. Wikipedia: The Free Encycolpedia. 1 April 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfection
Plato.
Plato’s Meno. NY: Focus Publishing, 2003.
The
Form of the Good. Wikipedia: The Free Encycolpedia. 1 April 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Form_of_the_Good
Themes.
Poe Decoder. 5 April 2006. http://www.poedecoder.com/
Zayed,
Georges. “Symbolism in Poe’s Tales.” Literary Companion to American
Authors: Readings
on Edgar Allan Poe. CA: Greenhaven Press,
1998. 82-91.
