LITR 4232: American Renaissance

Sample Student Research Project, spring 2006

Miriam P. Rodríguez

21 April 2006

Correspondence in Literature

            In an effort to understand the enormity and perplexity of nature, mankind has sought many explanations.  In literature, writers have explored the unique and complex relationship between mankind and the environment by attributing life to the lifeless.  For many authors, nature has evolved into a physical manifestation of a character’s emotional and mental state.  This idea of sympathetic nature is many times the cornerstone to the development of a writer’s story.  After all, by making nature correspond with a character’s emotions the story is transformed from the ordinary into the extraordinary.  Writers that effectively use correspondence within their stories often create an alternate reality between what is perceived and what actually occurs.  However, the concept of correspondence is not a new or remarkable idea.  Indeed, the term correspondence “was coined by the 18th century theologian Emanuel Swedenborg in his Arcana Celestia” (Wikipedia).  According to Swedenborg, there is a “correspondence between spiritual and natural things [that] extends to all objects in the physical world” (Wikipedia).  In literature, authors exploit and mold the concept of correspondence to enable nature or the natural world to reflect the inner turmoil in a character’s soul.  However, nature is not without power and sometimes the chaotic, dark, and tortured appearance of nature invades the soul of a character and transforms it into a reflection of itself.  Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne are two writes that exemplify and develop the concept of correspondence within the characters of their stories.

            In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the characters are victims of correspondence.  Poe utilizes correspondence to create an alternate reality where the narrator falls victim to the temperament and physical characteristics of the house he inhabits.  Poe’s opening is indicative of the route the story will take.  From the moment the narrator is introduced, the reader realizes that the narrator is simply a sentient being at the mercy of his surrounding.  After all, from the moment he arrives at the “melancholy House of Usher” he feels “a sense of insufferable gloom pervade [his] spirit” (Poe 2473).  The narrator lacks the ability to express why his soul feels oppressed by the physical representation of the house.  Ironically, the narrator lacks the “mental processing” that is required to realize he is falling victim to the environment of the house (Timmerman 228).  Instead, the narrator feels he must “[shake] off from [his] spirit what must have been a dream” and dismisses the gloom that has invaded his soul (Poe 2474).  It is the narrator’s inability to realize what is occurring to him that enables his surrounding to warp his perception and slowly untangle the weave that is his sanity.

            The interaction Poe creates between the narrator and his environment is so elusive that the casual reader might not understand the significance of the environment on the narrator’s degrading mental capacity.  After all, it is the environment that slowly and perversely breaks down the narrator’s mental abilities and makes him a puppet of “the atmosphere of sorrow” that pervades the House (Poe 2475).  Every breath taken by the narrator infuses him with the “stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom” that comprises his environment and slowly shifts him from a reasoning being to a  puppet “led through the story’s events by Roderick’s imaginative creations … [and] ‘his fantastic yet impressive superstitions’” (Poe 2475; Bieganowski 182). 

            In using correspondence to create a corollary between the narrator and the environment, Poe enables the narrator to become a fixture of the house that is at the mercy of the whims of the Lord and Lady of the home.  Slowly and inexorably, the narrator begins to loose his identity and becomes a reflection of what Roderick needs. 

            But what exactly does Roderick Usher need from his boyhood friend and companion?  The answer lays in the relationship that develops throughout the story.  Usher does not need an individual to accompany him.  Instead, he desires for the narrator to become an extension of himself so that he will not be alone in his lunacy.  After all, the narrator is not the only victim of the House of Usher.  Its inhabitants, the Lady Madeline and Roderick Usher, are a reflection of the decayed wrongness that pervades the atmosphere of their home.  Roderick Usher is perhaps the most visual representation of the wrongness within the House of Usher.

            It is incredibly interesting that Roderick admits that he is afflicted by “the dwelling [in] which he is tenanted” (Poe 2476).  Roderick is perhaps the only character within the story that is perfectly attuned to the minute fluctuations that his environment has within his soul.  Unlike the narrator, who is in denial about the effects the environment has on him, Roderick is perfectly willing to admit that his mental state is in jeopardy because of his place of residence.  However, the narrator dismisses Roderick’s fears and explains his affliction as a byproduct of Madeline’s illness.  Perversely, it is this dismissal of Roderick’s affliction that enables the narrator to fall completely under the spell of the House of Usher because “the decayed House [mirrors] Usher’s mind” and Usher is simply a physical manifestation of his home (Timmerman 229).  By using Roderick to physically represent his home, Poe uses correspondence in an extremely brilliant manner. 

            After all, the goal of correspondence is to create a corollary between the character and his environment.  In Roderick Usher, Poe has created the ultimate corollary because Roderick, the man, has ceased to exist and all that is left is the manifestation of his home in human flesh.  In many ways, Roderick has become his home and the outward appearance of the House of Usher is simply a reflection of the decayed wrongness within Roderick’s soul.  Unfortunately, the narrator is unable to fathom the irreversible forces that have destroyed his friend’s soul.  Perhaps, most important is the end of the story because it provides a break in the established environment that allows the narrator to regain his mental faculties and flee the insanity of the House of Usher. 

            It is near the conclusion of the tale that Madeline’s undead body rises from the bowels of the home to seek out her brother, who prematurely buried her.  It is important to note that during this final scene there is a terrible storm battering the House of Usher.  Poe uses correspondence to evoke a feeling of finality in this scene.  After all, the storm brewing outside of the home is the final manifestation of the storm brewing within the home.  The storm destroys the house but only after Madeline and Roderick Usher have died in each others arms.  The narrator is finally free of the spell the home wove on him and flees the House of Usher before it dramatically sinks into “the deep and dank tarn” at the narrator’s feet (Poe 2485).  Fortunately for the narrator, the spell his environment wove on him finally releases him and he is able to flee.  However, the same can not be said for Goodman Brown in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown.”

            Nathaniel Hawthorne was also a writer that delved into the concept of correspondence.  Unlike Poe in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Hawthorne did not see nature as the molding force in his characters.  Instead, his characters emotions are reflected by nature and it is Goodman Brown’s feelings that determine what the environment will be shaped into.  This is evident in Goodman Brown’s journey through the forest.  After determining, that he must “[make] more haste on his present evil purpose” Goodman Brown takes a “dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest” (Hawthorne 2259).  Hawthorne is making a direct corollary between Goodman Brown’s questionable errand and the path he is walking.  It is a conscious choice made by Hawthorne to highlight the wrongness of Goodman Brown’s choice.  After all, if Goodman Brown were on an honest errand he would walk a righteous path illuminated by his inner light, but since there is only darkness and doubt in his soul the path he takes mirrors his inner turmoil. 

            Brown’s errand is unknown and the stranger that appears seems “to be invoked by the fears of [Goodman Brown]” (Zanger 347).  It is as if nature is willingly adapting to the “subconscious” desires held within Brown to encounter a temptation to test his faith (Tritt 114).  Once the temptation manifests itself strange things begin to occur.  Goodman Brown learns that he is one of the few that has resisted evil and that most of the community has sold their soul in exchange for material enrichment. 

            Hawthorne’s use of correspondence within the story is evident because nature is constantly adapting itself to Goodman Brown’s unconscious desire.  After all, honest and honorable men do not wait until night time to take care of errands, unless their errands require the cloaking darkness to conceal their true intention.  Goodman Brown’s turmoil only increases as respected members of his community appear to support the enterprises of evil. 

            As the story progresses and the turmoil with Goodman Brown increases, the setting becomes darker and more sinister to reflect his inner turmoil.  For example, Goodman Brown sees Goody Cloyse traveling alone in the woods towards a dark errand of her own.  When he leaves the Devil on the path he assumes Goody Cloyse will help guide him away from evil.  However, he is deeply surprised when he realizes that she is a member of the Devil’s congregation and that no help is coming from without.  Goodman Brown must look within himself to find salvation. 

            The fact that Goody Cloyse appears when she does is another example of correspondence.  After all, Goodman Brown is wavering in his decision to stay on the good path; by introducing Goody Cloyse it is hoped that Brown will resist temptation and renounce evil, but since Brown’s environment is a reflection of his own tortured soul he does not find salvation in the appearance of Goody Cloyse.  Instead, Brown realizes that Goody Cloyse has sold her soul to evil and that she is merely a soulless shell.  Once again the appearance of a character into the environment correspondence with Brown’s desire to have an outside agent safe him.  When he realizes that salvation is not coming from outside, the environment becomes darker and more sinister to reflect his rapidly dwindling faith.

            It is at the end that Goodman Brown realizes that salvation must come from himself and not from those around him.  Throughout the story, Goodman Brown clings to the image of Faith, his wife, to give him faith to resist temptation.  When his “Faith” is taken from him he realizes that there is no hope for outside salvation.  After all, Brown has provided no escapes from himself.  Instead, nature has molded itself to every one of his subconscious fears.  Cruelly and dispassionately, nature has mirrored Goodman Brown’s soul and by mirroring his darkest fears, nature allows him to make a choice about the salvation of his own soul.  However, the price Brown pays for his own salvation is heavy because he can never trust anyone again: including himself.

            This is dramatically made evident at the end of the story when Goodman Brown confronts the “congregation, with whom he [feels] a loathful brotherhood, by the sympathy of all that [is] wicked in his heart” (Hawthorne 2265).  Brown repudiates the evil within himself hoping he will save his soul and the soul of Faith.  Then he looses consciousness and does not awake until the next morning.  At this point, some of the correspondence becomes more obvious to the reader because it is assumed that Goodman Brown dreamed the entire encounter and nothing of the previous night actually occurred.  By creating doubt within Brown as to whether the events actually occurred, Hawthorne creates a distinctive story that is full of correspondence without seeming unreal.  After all, how many people have awakened from a nightmare that was a reflection of some inner turmoil?

            Although their employment of correspondence varies greatly, both Poe and Hawthorne use the concept of correspondence to deliver highly imaginative and powerful stories that create fantastic situations out of everyday life.  For both writers, this is accomplished by making nature a creative or destructive force that has the power to be manipulated by the characters or manipulate the characters.          

Works Cited

Bieganowski, Ronald.  “The Self-Consuming Narrator in Poe’s “Ligeia” and “Usher.”             American Literature.  60.2 (May1988): 175-187.

"Correspondence (theology)."  Wikipedia.  2006.  Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.  15 Mar         2006             <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_%28theology%29 >.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel.  “Young Goodman Brown.”  The Heath Anthology of American            Literature: Early Nineteenth Century 1800-1865.  Ed. Paul Lauter.  5th ed.  B vols.          Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.  2258-2267.

Poe, Edgar Allan.  “The Fall of the House of Usher.”  The Heath Anthology of American        Literature: Early Nineteenth Century 1800-1865.  Ed. Paul Lauter.  5th ed.  B vols.          Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006.  2472-2485.

Timmerman, John H.  “House of Mirrors: Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of            Usher.’”  Papers on Language and Literature.  39.3 (Summer 2003): 227-244.

Tritt, Michael. “‘Young Goodman Brown’ and the Psychology of Projection.”  Studies in         Short Fiction.  23.1 (Winter 1986): 113-117.

Zanger, Jules.  “‘Young Goodman Brown’ and ‘A White Heron’: Correspondences and         Illuminations.”  Papers on Languages and Literature.  26.3 (Summer 1990): 346-        357.