Dendy Farrar
LITR 5535
Dr. Craig White
5 July 2002

Question # 5

Correspondence in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams,” and Emerson’s “Nature”

Correspondence has been defined in our class discussions as the convention in literary works in which a character creates an outside occurrence or atmosphere simply by his thoughts, perceptions, and feelings.  An individual who is angry or upset will not appreciate the beauty of a spring day or a blossoming flower.  Such an individual would probably complain to himself about the blinding brightness of the sun and the troublesome pollen that the flower creates.  Of course, if you were to catch this individual when he was having a good day, he might take the time to appreciate the spring day and beautiful flowers, and might even see beauty in a windy, stormy day.  This literary mode known as correspondence, occurs in several of the readings that we worked with this semester.  Correspondence occurs most frequently, perhaps, in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams,” and Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ”Nature”.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the correspondence mode of writing is excruciatingly evident.  The idea of a state of mind creating a particular atmosphere appears when the narrator is reading to Usher.  As the narrator is reading about Sir Lancelot he pauses, mid-sentence because

“it appeared … that, from some very remote portion of the mansion or of its vicinity, there came, indistinctly … what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo … of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described.  It was, beyond a doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention (728).

The narrator shakes off this eerie feeling and continues reading.  He is once again disturbed by the noises described in what he is reading, as he comes to the description of a dragon being killed and dying with “shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing,” he pauses because at that exact moment, he hears a “low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted and almost unusual screaming or grating sound – the exact counterpart of what [his] fancy had already conjured up as the sound of the dragon’s unnatural shriek as described by the romancer” (729).  Clearly, the words in the book that the narrator is reading could not conceivably create noises in the mansion in which he is sitting.  However, through the author’s use of the correspondence mode of writing, the reader is left with the harrowing tale of a man in a “haunted” house.

            In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” the correspondence mode of writing is enabled to produce a much more positive atmosphere than that of Poe’s work.  In this case, a happy atmosphere is created simply by the presence of one Miss Judy Jones.  Dexter describes Judy’s beauty and asserts that as she smiles at him a “breeze of warmth and light blew through the room” and he was “filled with a sudden excitement” (2136).  Obviously, Judy’s smile did not cause an actual breeze to occur throughout the room.  However, the idea that a smile could change the atmosphere in the room was achieved by the literary mode known as correspondence. 

            No analysis of literary correspondence would be complete without an examination of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Nature”.  Emerson’s passion for nature is revealed through his use of the literary mode, correspondence.  In many instances of the work, Emerson asserts that the atmosphere or environment is somehow compatible to his own feelings or desires.  In other words, his mood relates to his environment, and vice versa.  Emerson writes, “Not the sun or the summer alone, but every hour and season yields its tribute of delight; for every hour and change corresponds to and authorizes a different state of the mind, from breathless noon to grimmest midnight” (498).  Clearly Emerson is asserting that nature has a direct connection to a man’s mood or state of mind.  The influence of nature is so great that it can influence a man’s mood at any given time.  Emerson goes on to state that there exists an “occult relation between man and the vegetable” (499).  This relationship is one that he, himself, experiences evidenced by his statement, “they nod to me and I to them” (499).  It is as if Emerson is holding an in depth conversation with nature – one that every man can experience if he is in the right frame of mind.  Emerson continues the correspondence mode when he states

“Nature always wears the colors of the spirit.  To a man laboring under calamity, the heat of his own fire hath sadness in it.  Then, there is a kind of contempt of the landscape felt by him who has just lost by death a dear friend.  The sky is less grand as it shuts sown over less worth in the population” (499). 

Emerson is presenting the reader with the idea that nature is so powerful that it can influence a man’s state of mind, and that a man’s state of mind can influence his perceptions of nature.  This communication between the senses and the atmosphere is employed by the use of literary correspondence.

Emerson’s statement “nature always wears the colors of the spirit” seems to sum up the literary mode known as correspondence.  If a man is feeling sad or angered he will see ugliness in the landscape, and conversely, a happy, joyous man will see beauty in an otherwise regarded ugly day.  In Poe’s work, a man reading about spooky noises begins to actually hear spooky noises in his own environment.  There is a sort of communication going on between the narrator and his atmosphere.  In the case of Fitzgerald’s work, the sight of a particular person can change the physical environment for a man.  The man’s thoughts and perceptions, sparked by the sight of another individual influence his physical space.  In Emerson’s work the reader is presented with a sort of bizarre direct connection between man and his nature.  It is as if the man can create his surroundings simply by his thoughts and ideas and vice versa.  Each one of these works presents the idea that a man’s perceptions can influence the appearance of the environment, which seems to be a highly romantic ideal.  Clearly, the literary mode of correspondence is effective in creating the romantic tale.

Question # 4

The Gothic in Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills,” Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily,” and Fuller’s “Unfinished Sketch of Youth” 

According to the course syllabus, the gothic narrative is characterized by “haunted physical and mental spaces, the shadow of death, and dark and light in physical and moral terms”. The Gothic becomes a sort of literary mode, in that the gothic is achieved when an author is able to create and sustain a particular mood and atmosphere by describing haunted or dark spaces.  When the writer invokes this haunted, eerie feeling in the reader, the gothic mode has been successfully utilized.  Throughout the duration of this course we have been exposed to several different categories and levels of the gothic.  For instance, in Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills” and Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” we witness the gothic in the form of a heavy, stifling, smelly air in which the characters, and in turn the readers, must experience.  The gothic mode operates much like a form of imagery, in that it must appeal to one or more of the five senses in order to be effective.  In the case of the previous examples, Davis and Faulkner are drawing upon the readers’ senses of smell.  The most prevalent form of the gothic appeals to the readers’ senses of sight, evidenced in Fuller’s “Unfinished Sketch of Youth”.

The first paragraph of Rebecca Harding Davis’ “Life in the Iron Mills” recounts a “cloudy day” with a sky that was “muddy, flat [and] immovable.”  The air is described as being “thick” and “clammy with the breath of crowded human beings” (1213-1214).  In fact, the air is so stifling that the narrator proceeds to open the window.  It is as if Davis piles the words on top of each other in layers making them very heavy.  The heaviness of the words and the many, thick layers make the reader intensely feel the heavy, gothic atmosphere of the small, industrial town.  This town’s name is never given.  Davis purposely refrains from providing a name for this town in order to enhance the mysteriousness of the atmosphere, in turn creating a gothic mode of writing.  Davis goes on to describe the gothic appearance of the iron mills, themselves.  The mills are described as possessing an air “saturated with fog and grease and soot, vileness for soul and body” (1214).  Certainly the keen reader will recognize the gothic mode in use in this description.  The air in the mill is extremely oppressive, reinforcing the gothic atmosphere that Davis is creating.

William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” draws upon the reader’s sense of smell to create the gothic mode much as Davis does.  Emily Grierson’s house is described as smelling of “dust and disuse – a close, dank smell” (2170).  The reader must call upon her sense of smell to understand the gothic mode enabled in this line.  The air is stale and distasteful and thus the atmosphere is eerie and mysterious.  Similarly, as the men representing the mayor enter Emily’s house and proceed to sit down, a “faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the single sun-ray” (2170).  Not only does the air smell of “dust and disuse,” but also the air is so heavy with dust mites and dirt, that what seems to be “clouds” of dust are physically seen by the naked eye.  Imagine, for a moment, how seemingly suffocating the air in Emily’s house must be.  Faulkner has successfully called upon his readers’ senses of smell to create the gothic mode of writing.

Margaret Fuller’s “Unfinished Sketch of Youth” presents a very gothic upbringing for one child.  Fuller achieves the gothic literary mode by appealing to readers’ senses of sight.  The narrator describes the consequence of her childhood as being

“a premature development of the brain that made [her] a ‘youthful prodigy’ by day, and by night a victim of spectral illusions, nightmare, and somnambulism, which at the time prevented the harmonious development of [her] bodily powers and checked [her] growth, while, later, they induced continual headache, weakness and nervous affections, of all kinds” (777).

The visual picture that Fuller is creating here is one of an eerie, horrific childhood that the narrator has been forced to endure.  Fuller goes on to write about the narrator’s father and his responsibility in the situation.

“Her father sharply bid her ‘leave off thinking of such nonsense, or she would be crazy,’ – never knowing that he was himself the cause of all these horrors of the night.  Often she dreamed of following to the grave the body of her mother, as she had done that of her sister, and woke to find the pillow drenched in tears” (777).

Evidenced by this statement, the narrator’s father created this “sense of doom” that she experiences.  She experiences horrible nightmares and “horrors of the night” at her father’s hand.  The narrator laments about her childhood writing, “I look back on these glooms and terrors, wherein I was enveloped, and perceive that I had no natural childhood” (777).  In this section of Fuller’s work, readers are presented with a horrific scene including a tyrannical father and a child tormented in the night.  Fuller has created the gothic in these passages by appealing to the sense of sight.

            The gothic mode of writing in literary works is easily spotted by readers.  It is characterized by a haunting and foreboding nature much like popular horror books and films today.  The gothic incorporates some sort of darkness or negativity.  In the case of Davis and Faulkner, this comes by way of a heaviness of air and a stench smell.  Fuller’s work is gothic by way of its visual images – the most prevalent form of the gothic found throughout the duration of this course.  The gothic mode of writing is most easily understood when thought of as an appeal to one or more of the five senses.  The gothic is achieved when this appeal to one of the senses creates the haunted feelings and images in the readers’ minds.  The technique of achieving the gothic may differ in Davis, Faulkner, and Fuller; however the end result is the same – each of these works contain the gothic mode of writing.