Telishia Mickens (undergraduate)

October 12, 2008

The Gothic: American Authors in Romanticism

In American Romanticism there are many brilliant authors of great works. Two authors who are well known for their gothic elements in their works, Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne are two extremely interesting individuals. While both of these men have very unique and fascinating lifestyles they were both able to make their mark in Literature with their creative works. The biographical histories of these two play into their becoming the writers that they were. While Poe was said to be a drunk and drug addict he was still able to write very productive pieces of work. Hawthorne on the other hand, as raised in a very prominent household with many significant influences and yet both of these men’s work hold a lot of literary value.

 The texts of focus are Ligeia, Fall of the House of Usher and Young Goodman Brown. All of these texts can easily fall under objectives 1a. Romantic Spirit or Ideology and 1c. Romantic Period. These texts can easily fall under other objectives in the course but these two are of primary focus for the texts listed above. Edgar Allan Poe’s Ligeia, can be viewed in various ways from the casual critic but the existences of gothic elements are evident throughout Ligeia and some of his other gothic works. These works contain both gothic and romantic elements which really make them works of creativity because it can be hard to combine the two in a manner that flows.

In class there was the discussion on whether or not the narrator had a love for or obsession for Ligeia was something to look at. It seems that he had both a love and obsession for her in a gothic manner and death is certainly an element. Throughout this story the narrator expresses signs of all three of these aspects. In Ligeia, the narrator shows in the following lines of the Norton Anthology, sign of love between him and Ligeia, …That Ligeia loved me, I should not have doubted; and I might have been easily aware that, in bosom such as hers, love would have reigned no ordinary passion (683). Elements of the gothic appear not far after that in the following lines… although the external abbey, with its verdant decay hanging about it suffered but little alteration… (684). Using the word decay to describe the abbey clearly brings out the gothic. The bridal chamber is said to be haunted which makes it a gothic element in the story, this links directly to objective 1c. The gothic novel or style (haunted physical and mental spaces, the shadow of death or decay (abbey); dark and light in physical and moral terms’ film noir).  The narrator’s detailed description about Ligeia’s physical appearance and her in general  can lead to him having an obsession with her, he goes on an on about her and her beauty and especially her eyes. He talks for an extended amount of time about her eyes…Those eyes! Those large, those shining, those divine orbs… (681). In a previous midterm with title Evidence of the Gothic in Poe’s Works, the student talks more about the death, the student writes, despite the story’s overall allusiveness, it is evident that the story itself seriously confronts the meaning of death…Ligeia holds the conviction that since death is a manifestation of weak will, her passionate will to live will triumph over death… (Evidence of the Gothic…). Ligeia fits the Southern Gothic profile perfectly, it is filled with love, obsession, desire, wanting, dark gloomy and haunted places and most of all, death.

In The Fall of the House of Usher, the setting is an ultimate gothic element. It is dark and gloomy, it is in a haunted house, and stinks of decay and rot. In the very beginning of the story on page 689 the other sets the mood by describing the building…a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded by spirit…bleak walls…decayed trees…with an utter depression of soul… Death is the main objective of this story; the narrator hits this from the beginning, but the descriptions given are what put the gothic in this story. If there is so much anguish from the outside what is to be of the interior and the people inside the walls of such a depressing place? The  narrator does such an excellent job of description in this story, from the inside out he gives you a daunting description which brings the reader right into the story and allows the reader to paint a mind portrait of what one may see, he puts you in the story. Even though the story itself is full of gothic elements, the descriptions are what did it for me. Gothic archway, the ebony blackness of the floors, phantasmagoric armorial trophies, black oaken floor, dark draperies…(691) Here Poe does an excellent job of not only giving a visual of the gothic scenes but also giving tangible color along with is descriptions. The color Black is mentioned all throughout and is used in describing certain parts such as floor, black floors? The situation of death that takes place inside the house brings on another gothic aspect in this story. Usher and Madeline are filled with disease and suffering. The student who the midterm titled Evidence of the Gothic… states that Poe gas given the reader an interesting  parallel between the haunting, decaying physicality of the house and the haunting, decaying health of Usher and Madeline which is evident.

Changing authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne also does a superior job at incorporating gothic elements in his works.  Hawthorne did not appeal as gruesome as Poe in his story, Young Goodman Brown, but his incorporation of the gothic and was just as evident. Hawthorne is able to place you in his story in describing the woods and taking you along on his journey. From the beginning Young Goodman Brown, a young good puritan man, is sought out to be a weak, gullible character that seems to be inexperienced and not completely aware of his surroundings. From the start he shows his love for his wife and reluctance, Faith because he says on page 606, … What a wretch am I, to leave her on such an errand! Hawthorne quickly brings in the gothic upon entering the forest and the arrival of the staff, he describes them as having the likeness of a great black snake (607). On the journey and as the narrator shows, the character can not get over seeing the good in every one, even when he is told of his own relatives to have done work with the devil he rejects it. The following lines show the evil forces taking over and the gothic elements become more apparent, there is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! For this world given…(611). The road grew wilder and drearier, and more faintly traced…living him in the heart of the dark wilderness…with instinct that guides mortal to evil…(611)… Hawthorne uses the following to express the gothic even more deeply. The whole forest was peopled with frightful sounds; the creaking of the trees, the howling of wild beast… (611). These descriptions could go on but this does show how Hawthorne uses such references to actual events that did take place in history, The Salem Witch Trials, to make this gothic element apparent in this particular story. While Young Good man Brown is so distraught over the happenings in the woods, losing the love of his life, and finding out that there is not good in every soul on earth, he becomes entwined with the work of the Devil. Even during death at the end of this story, the last line says…for his dying hour was gloom (614). In such a short story you get an immense amount of Gothic elements, elements that very easily relate to the text objectives that are required to be looked at for these readings.

It is clear that Poe and Hawthorne have different styles of writing but both of these gentlemen were very prominent writers in American Literature. They are both able to establish gothic elements of imagery into there work to show us not only the gothic, but elements of romanticism as well. Romanticism is not always bright and beautiful, just as there is a bright side; there is a dark, desolate side to life.