4. Citing at least three authors, review and evaluate some varieties of the Gothic encountered this semester. Why does the Gothic recur so frequently in American literature or beyond? Why is it so adaptable to different environments, and what different purposes may it serve? What are some possible theological, intellectual, and cultural sources, limitations, and biases?

            Default organization: Identify or define the Gothic as a literary genre or mode. Review in detail the backgrounds and sub-categories of the Gothic encountered across the semester with examples from selected authors and texts. Evaluate the appeal and limits of the Gothic.

Sample Answer

The Gothic literary tradition utilizes familiar tropes such as haunted physical and mental spaces, the threatening shadow of death, and images of dark and light in physical, psychological and moral manifestations. Three variations of the gothic style, distinctly Romantic in nature, are depicted in Jonathan Edwards’ "Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God," Edgar Allan Poe’s "Fall of the House of Usher," and William Faulkner’s "A Rose for Emily." These three works represent pre-Romantic, Romantic and post-Romantic time periods and demonstrate the adaptation of the gothic in order to meet each author’s specific goal.

Jonathan Edwards, a pre-Romantic writer, utilizes elements of the gothic style to intimidate and achieve a highly effective didactic tone in "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Edwards uses a Biblical or Apocalyptic form of the gothic to literally scare his parishioners into repentance. Passages like, "There are black clouds of God’s wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm, and big with thunder…(205)" and "God…sees how your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down, as it were, into an infinite gloom (207)" reveal the dark, foreboding tone of Edward’s sermon. In addition, Edward’s gothic style pulls from the stark images of hell and damnation. The fiery pits, the dancing demons, are all part of the intimidating message that Edwards hopes to convey to his parishioners.

In contrast, the gothic style employed by Edgar Allan Poe in "The Fall of the House of Usher"does not aim to preach or intimidate, but to reveal the dark, haunted mental aspects of the human psyche. Poe’s gothic style is not distinctly American in the sense that he freely borrows from several European traditions. The environments that Poe creates in his nightmarish tales are geographically ambiguous. That is, there is nothing about Poe’s settings that conjure images of the American landscape. In fact, Poe’s settings seem more obviously European in location and ambiance. The European-style Gothic relies on imposing exterior facades, such as the "mansion of gloom" (718) or claustrophobic interior spaces such as the tomb of Madeline Usher to create a setting conducive to exploring the dark qualities of the human mind. The character, Roderick Usher, is a prime example of the darkness of mind Poe creates. The narrator-visitor is overcome by "the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom" (722).

The most striking aspect of Poe’s gothic is his attention to setting, usually depicted as dark, threatening, and uncertain. He effectively terrorizes us with the suspense that evil is looming in the darkness that surrounds and envelopes his stories, thereby presenting haunted physical and mental spaces in a new light. As Kayla Logan wrote in her exam from summer of 2002, Poe aims "to reveal the dark, haunted mental aspects of the human psyche." Poe’s choice of descriptive language is, in itself, Gothic. Words like, "dull," "dark," and "decayed" are used to characterize not only the house, but also Roderick Usher himself. Poe emphasizes the lack of color to create a bleak world. It is through this convention that we begin to uncover how disturbed Roderick actually is. "The Haunted Palace," a poem symbolizing the fall from glory, is full of connections to questionable mental states. Poe constructs a story dealing with death, insanity, and inevitably the fall of a family by utilizing abnormal descriptions of the characters and setting. Unlike Edwards, Poe does not seek to convert, but to intrigue his audience with the very existence of the dark nature of man.

The adaptation of the gothic style in post-Romantic writing is particularly evident in William Faulkner’s "A Rose for Emily." Unlike Poe, Faulkner gives the gothic a specific environment in which to operate: the American South. The Southern gothic created by Faulkner in "A Rose for Emily" investigates the inner workings of a disturbed mind, but also addresses the morbid curiosity of the townspeople and the race issues left over from years of slavery. Miss Emily is a character equal to Roderick Usher in questionable motives and mental instability, but Faulkner manages to create cultural and psychological scapegoats for Miss Emily.

In this story Faulkner uses the specific technique of evoking the reader’s sense of smell to create a gothic mood of decay. Emily Grierson’s house is described as smelling of "dust and disuse…a close, dank smell" (2170). The air is stale and distasteful, thus creating and atmosphere that is both 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. By painting a vivid picture of how suffocating the air in Emily’s house must have been, Faulkner has successfully called upon his readers’ senses of smell to create a specific gothic mood .

All three of these stories from distinctly different eras of American literature utilize elements of the gothic tradition to varying degrees, and although these works are vastly different from each other, it is these common threads of gothic techniques and devices which unites them. The gothic narrative form achieves much success due to humanity’s natural fascination with and unabated curiosity about darkness, be it the darkness of sin, of the supernatural, or of death. As these three very different tales demonstrate, the gothic style is extremely adaptable and can flourish in any environment where darkness can exist, be it a building, nature, hell, or in the human mind. [DC]