LITR 5535: American
Romanticism
Sample Student Research Project, fall 2003
Holly J. D. Anderson
Dr. Craig White
American Romanticism
November 18, 2003
Allegory,
Symbolism, and Gothic Madness: Understanding Edgar Allan Poe’s Internal Demons
and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s External Demons
As contemporaries of each other, Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne endeavored to write about man’s dark side, the supernatural influence, and moral truths. Each writer saw man as the center-point in his stories; Poe sees man’s internal struggle as madness, while Hawthorne sees man as having a “secret sin.” Each had their reasons for writing in the Gothic format. Poe was not a religious man; he was well educated and favored reading the German Gothic literature, which would become the basis for his own writing. Hawthorne on the other hand, called on his Puritan-Calvinistic background to influence his writing style. Along with his formal education, and his self-imposed solitary time, that he spent reading and observing nature. Poe’s writing allows the reader to observe man’s thoughts and behaviors from within his mind and demonstrates how his behavior influences his surroundings. As opposed to Hawthorne’s writing, where a man’s behavior is affected from outside influences, as such, placing him in settings that will manipulate his emotional and mental behavior in an effort to deliver a moral theme. Each author would write their own version of a Gothic tale that would spin the reader’s imagination into places it might not otherwise go.
The mechanics of Gothic fiction contain two key aspects, the first is allegory, and the second is the use of symbol. Poe and Hawthorne each utilized these two distinct styles of Gothic writing. Poe would favor the use of symbols in his writing while Hawthorne depended strongly on the use of allegory to create his tales. James K. Folsom describes Hawthorne’s use of allegory as “not as a statement of artistic means, in some sense roughly equitable with ‘symbolism,’ but rather as a statement of artistic ends, in some moralistic sense. An allegory for Hawthorne is a moral tale […]” (77). Hawthorne saw his writing in allegorical terms to bring to the reader’s attention concrete realities by way of abstract ideas; he was able to imagine the natural world into an imaginary--supernatural one.
Hawthorne’s natural world influence on his imaginary world began within his home; Donald A. Ringe quotes a passage from Hawthorne’s introduction to The Scarlet Letter:
A coal fire diffuses a “scarcely visible” but “mild, heart-warm influence” throughout the room, while moonlight from the window “produces a very beautiful effect.” […] all the familiar objects of the room “are invested with something like strangeness and remoteness,” as if one were viewing them after the passage of years. […] “such a medium is created that the room seems just fit for the ghosts of persons very dear, who have lived in the room with us […] It would be like a matter of course, to look round, and find some familiar form in one of the chairs” (156).
Hawthorne is absorbed into the natural environment around him and in combination with his concerns for man’s moral behavior, he brings to his tales a picturesque quality suited to the allegorical motif.
His motifs would consist of demons, witches, and natural settings as symbols of man’s conflicts with evil and struggle to suppress the sins that plague all men. Hawthorne was comfortable writing about the demons that lurked in the woods, Ringe explains, “Hawthorne had made such extensive use of the demonic or drawn so heavily on Puritan sources. Though, in ‘The May-Pole of Merry Mount’ (1836), Hawthorne may dismiss as superstition the Puritan belief that the wilderness was filled with ‘devils and ruined souls’” (159). Through these Gothic devices moral truths are made more convincing to the reader, giving him a bigger picture of man’s struggle with good and evil. Hawthorne uses allegory to develop an intriguing concept of what is real and what is imagined.
His famous tale of “Young Goodman Brown” is replete with demonic behavior, witches, and the beguiling nature of the devil. Hawthorne has the protagonist, Brown, on a quest to meet the devil. Brown makes a deliberate choice to experience evil; however, once he comes face-to-face with man’s hidden evil it is more disturbing than he expected, as he learned that all people are capable of sin. In this allegorical tale, Hawthorne demonstrates that Brown should not look outside of himself for sin; it is within himself he should look first. Ringe views Hawthorne’s point as “[T]he source of evil lies within the human heart” (162). Hawthorne’s use of the imagination was to create allegorical tales; Poe had a different purpose for a reader’s imagination.
Poe, according to Ringe, saw the imagination as romantic […] he says, “[T]he imagination can discover a world of terror far more sinister than simple misperception might suggest; there are mental journeys that can utterly destroy the mind that makes them” (133). Poe would see allegory as an author’s obvious message to the reader; therefore, he would prefer symbolism as a tool for suggesting his truth. As such, the reader discovers what his own truth is; unlike Hawthorne, whose truth was always more evident. Poe symbolically used imagery to create the mental behavior of afflicted and tormented individuals.
Enclosed rooms, impenetrable tombs, and grotesque houses, worlds Poe creates where the individual must wade through his internalized fears of death and the unknown. Ringe sees Poe’s use of symbols as “a consistent pattern of imagery, which, detailed and explicit, contributes markedly to our understanding of his characters and the themes he attempts to express through their bizarre actions” (137). ”Ligeia” demonstrates Poe’s ability to describe articulately the process of a man going mad as he struggles to cope with the death of his first wife and his inability to accept the loss. “Ligeia has been able, at least for a moment […]” Ringe explains, “to triumph over death […] [with] emphasis on her eyes traditionally the path to the soul, her identity is rendered unmistakable” (135). Poe is implying that Ligeia’s soul could conquer death even for a split second; symbolically, anything is possible if man’s desire is strong enough. Poe leaves the question, however, whose desire is strongest? Is it Ligeia, wanting to live again, or is it the narrator’s struggle of living without her, “ambiguity opens the way for other interpretations […]” (135). Either way, it is through the narrator that the reader glimpses the deterioration of a man’s psyche.
Narration is a critical tool for both Poe and Hawthorne’s Gothic tales; its use is to create a new world for the reader, “[…] we are satisfied once the affective impression has been achieved. Difference is what we are looking for here, just enough details to establish the ‘defamiliarizing’ tone of the tale and to carry us into a world somehow different from our own” according to George E. Haggerty (95). By way of the narrator, the author challenge the reader’s sense of moral values, ideas of good and evil, or encourages a level of superstition, fear and terror. Poe uses the narrator to confront the reader to look into the recesses of his own conscience and look for what makes him afraid--his own source of madness. Hawthorne narrates his tales by giving the reader a picturesque setting for explaining man’s weaknesses, which equates to his sinful state. Therefore, forcing the reader to solve questions created by Hawthorne; whereas, Poe leaves his readers stunned with stories that are not necessarily solvable. Consequently, by using a narrator, the reader is able to confront the sometimes subtle and sometimes not so subtle questions posed by the authors. Haggerty clarifies the success of a tale as, “[…] a product of the narrator’s response to the eerie setting […] the natural becomes imbued with the supernatural […]. Within the mind of the narrator an objectively baffling experience becomes subjectively familiar” (94-95).
Poe’s narrative description of Roderick Usher’s diminished self in the “Fall of the House of Usher” is an example of the reader being pulled into the protagonist’s madness:
At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, as I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours […] as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified--that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, […] the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions. (Baym 721)
Poe uses the “I” narrator to stand-in for the reader, bringing the reader into the situation to have them also experience Usher’s madness. Readers are not passive as they are being lead through the story; as such, they are active in the story’s development. Haggerty clarifies that “Poe describes only that which, when depicted in detail will contribute to the total effect. We never sense ourselves being manipulated, […] with Poe there is no respite from manipulation” (97). There is not always a right answer to the Gothic tale; however, the narrator traps the reader in trying to resolve the unsolvable. Poe is not as concerned with the reader understanding the question as much as he wants the reader to experience the tale. Hawthorne instead has the narrative direct the reader to a point of questioning what is real, by having his tales take place in common (natural) locations.
Hawthorne’s tale “The Ministers Veil” represents a deeper, more profound purpose than might be assumed. The reader will initially believe, because of the narrator, this to be a simple story of one man’s agony over the “secret sin” that is hidden underneath a veil. The narrator effectively describes the veil’s affect:
Among all its influences, the black veil had the one desirable effect, of making its wearer a very efficient clergyman. By the aid of his mysterious emblem--for there was no other apparent cause--he became a man of awful power over souls that were in agony for sin. […] before he brought them to celestial light, they had been with him behind the black veil. Its gloom, indeed, enabled him to sympathize with all dark affections. (Baym 633)
Hawthorne’s narrative purpose is to illustrate to the reader, the effects one man with a purpose can have on those he encounters. He understands that people often resist change, and yet by acknowledging one’s own sins he will encourage the necessary change for other individuals to acknowledge their sins, and as a result, society will benefit. Hawthorne works his narration to become the conscience of the reader, in which the narration functions on multiple levels. In the end, the point of the tale is left to the reader to determine its meaning. Poe and Hawthorne would often leave the ends of their tales open-ended and undefined for the reader’s own interpretation. Endings would have to be evaluated by the imagery incorporated into the stories.
Supernatural entities of demons, witches, and nature are some of the imagery Hawthorne would incorporate into his tales, along with his judgmental narrators and religious ideology to create man’s ambiguous relationship to God and each other. “The May-Pole of Merry Mount” gives almost a poetic description of the gathering of “Gothic monsters”:
On the shoulders of a comely youth, uprose the head and branching antlers of stag; a second, human in all other points, had the grim visage of a wolf; a third, still with the trunk and limbs of a mortal man, showed the beard and horns of venerable he-goat. […]
Within the ring of monsters appeared the two airiest forms, that had ever trodden on any more solid footing than a purple and golden cloud. […]Behind this lightsome couple […] stood the figure of an English priest, canonically dressed, decked with flowers […] he seemed the wildest monster there, and the very Comus of the crew. (Baym 620-21)
This description is rich in imagery depicting the monsters, nature, and implied religious undertones. Hawthorne’s writing is refined and innovative in its abstract ideas. Hawthorne strongly ties his imagery to the rejection of his Puritanical and colonial past.
According to Eric Savoy, “Nathaniel Hawthorne, in particular, redirected the Gothic project and refined its strategies to address the shadows now cast by the past upon the present. He purged American gothic of its European trappings” (176). Hawthorne was able effectively to create the needed Gothic imagery in natural settings of America that was originally thought to be more appropriate for old haunted English castles. Hawthorne opened the door to imagery with his descriptions of haunted woods, however, Poe walked through the door and into the room with his psychological implications of man gone mad.
Poe used his imagery to reflect the state of an individual’s mind. It is obvious that he was fascinated with how a person looses his grip on reality. Therefore, he used enclosed rooms, morbid tombs, or oppressive houses to develop his tales. “Poe develops in his enclosures a consistent pattern of imagery,” Ringe explains, “[…] No clearer image could be drawn of a darkened mind” (137). When it comes to the use of imagery, Poe was more interested in character development, creating environments and story lines would focus on what a character might do next. Whereas, Hawthorne was more focused on story development, he would have the action of the individual be responsible for the action in the story.
By vividly developing the rooms that are dark and onerous and in which death is going to happen, Poe actually closes off the outside world, which in effect, could be a distraction to the action that is evolving inside. Poe has the narrator describe the room in which he meets Roderick Usher:
Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered […] the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or walls. […] I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all. (Baym 716)
The obvious imagery is oppressive and foreshadows what will be the inevitable doom of the inhabitants of the house. Ringe describes Poe’s imagery, “[T]he stories thus invite the reader to look behind the fantastic settings and bizarre events to their fundamental significance” (141). This is how a man becomes overwhelmed, controlled by his own fears, and incapable of seeing any other form of escape.
The bridal chamber in “Ligeia” is another example of an excessively ornate room where the protagonist will exhibit the degradation of his mind. He describes the chamber as “[T]he ceiling, of gloomy-looking oak, was excessively lofty, vaulted, and elaborately fretted with the wildest and most grotesque specimens of a semi-Gothic, semi-druidical device” (Baym 709). Poe continues describing all the elaborate details of this hideous room, “To one entering the room they bore the appearance of ideal monstrosities;[…]he saw himself surrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly forms which belong to the superstition of the Northman” (710). What Poe is describing is not necessarily a place, but rather a state of mind. Ringe’s understanding is that “The enclosures lead us back to the protagonists they symbolize […] [W]e must therefore turn to his protagonists if we are to perceive the thematic thread Poe developed in his Gothic fiction” (141). The overwhelming visual descriptions coincide with the ghastly mental state of the protagonist. Poe skillfully creates with imagery the setting, mood, and character development of his tales.
Consequently, a narrow intimate telling makes the story seem more real, he writes to affect a strong response in his readers. His effective use of dramatic devices creates an internal environment of terror. Haggerty describes this effect, “[E]very detail that Poe adds in order to make the perception convincing heightens its metaphorical significance” (88). Poe developed and perfected the technique of describing man’s internal terror and perversion in a literary format. Hawthorne was not as focused on his protagonist’s intellectual state of mind, as much as he was concerned with moral truth and the inner salvation of the individual and society.
As different as their writing style is, critics credit Poe and Hawthorne with taking the Gothic genre and making it distinctive to an American reader. According to Savoy, “Nathaniel Hawthorne, in particular, redirected the Gothic project and refined its strategies to address the shadows now cast by the past upon the present. He purged American Gothic of its European trappings […]” (176). There were writers before Poe and Hawthorne who wrote in the genre, however, Charles Brockden Brown is credited with “the first major novel to adapt the conventions of British Gothic to American circumstances [.]” (172). Poe and Hawthorne developed the genre to fit their own desires and needs; each trying to write about the world in such a way as to make their writing seem “real” in an “unreal” setting.
American Gothic writing is depicted as real people in real settings, but undergoing unusual and distorted circumstances. It is man’s perception of the events surrounding him that influences his reality. Hawthorne’s formula for writing Gothic tales is in his desire for the real, which stems from his own historical background, Savoy describes it as:
Hawthorne’s intervention in American history stems from a profound filial duty that he feels toward the dead, arising from his obsessions with his tyrannical forebears and their unquiet graves, which are the ultimate site of his writing as reader of the vestiges. […] Throughout his career Hawthorne experimented with many figurative shades of America’s historical corpse to augment the political relevance of the Gothic ghost story. (180)
He endeavored to take what appears to be real events and creates a dark and eerie tale where man is condemned because of sin. His characters fail to find goodness in the world and they often die miserable and disappointed.
According to Arthur Voss “The Minister’s Black Veil” was taken from an actual event, “[…] the story was suggested by an account of an eccentric New England clergyman named Moody, who, after accidentally killing a friend, […]kept his face covered with a handkerchief”(25). The similarities are obvious; Hawthorne saw value in creating a tale from an actual event as an opportunity to present man’s inner depravity. Hawthorne shows that writing what is real can be as powerful as what is imagined. Hawthorne’s writing has a homespun quality with convincing characters that lends a level of credibility. “The effect of Hawthorne’s story […] depends upon one of his favorite devices, the mixing of two modes of perception, the deceptively real and the metaphorically apparent” (Folsom 89). The success of Hawthorne’s writing depends on the reader speculating whether this tale is based on reality, questioning the motives behind the character’s behavior and whether his actions are possible. He is able to express what appears to be a natural occurrence as deceptively unnatural. This is a formula that he uses in over a dozen tales, according to Voss, “that deal more or less explicitly with early New England history or legend” (18). American historical themes were not the foundation for Poe’s Gothic writing, his formula for a successful story found across the ocean in the “old-world.”
Haggerty describes Poe’s writing as “the first American to write truly sophisticated Gothic fiction […] to formulate a thorough and convincing theory of the gothic and to create a complementary collection of tales both to support and develop his critical theory” (81). Poe is able to use techniques that did not work for other writers. He understood how to manipulate his audience:
Poe is the first Gothicist to recognize the degree to which the focus of setting or character could be limited without rendering a work superficial or unconvincing. […] Poe’s technique begins to suggest the manner in which the momentary flashes of real power in the gothic novel could come to inform and sustain entire works. (Haggerty 85)
In addition, Poe believed that people are more interested in reading about man’s willingness to step over the edge into madness then they are with the fall of mankind. From the opening line of his stories, Poe leads the reader to anticipate that someone is going to be terrorized, which encourages the reader to feel the same. “I cannot, for my soul, remember how, when, or even precisely where I first became acquainted with the lady Ligeia” (Baym 704). Poe directs the reader to know that a man’s soul is now at risk, there is something mysterious yet to be explained. “During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, […]” (Baym 714). In this example, the reader is warned to expect, with trepidation, and to anticipate a chilling adventure in which man counters reason with a perverse desire he cannot control.
Poe formulates his tale to contend with man’s struggle to do right; as such, he has reoccurring themes, “terror-stricken” characters, strange events, and perversity. Ringe describes Poe’s process, “[H]e examines the propensity of human beings to do precisely what they should not, a trait he calls perversity, […] Perversity is the mad desire to plunge into the unknown, where, from the point of view of the living, psychic survival remains an open question” (144). Poe filled his tales with complex people, with complicated lives, trying to exist in an unnatural existence.
Unlike Hawthorne’s engrained American settings, characters and themes, Poe formulated tales with a very different context. Poe’s formula is described by Allan Lloyd-Smith as “turn[ing] his back on specifically American settings and used, rather, a quasi-European setting for his Gothic tales. His stories of morbid introversion employed stylized Gothic items, […] divorced them from social or historical resonance […]” (114). Once more Poe’s formula is distinctively different from Hawthorne. The intriguing aspect about Poe’s style is that his tales lend themselves to not only the mid-nineteenth century; but contemporary readers can also enjoy them.
Hawthorne and Poe each came to writing from different backgrounds, choosing to write in a style uniquely their own. They both wrote on the same ideas of man and his reality; however, the dynamics of each is dramatically different. Hawthorne focused on mankind and Poe on the individual. Together they have created a historical legacy for their chosen genre of Gothic literature that is evident in today’s literature and will be evident in future literature. In the years ahead, people will continue to wonder if Young Goodman Brown was dreaming or not and if Ligeia really did come back to life. As readers of Gothic fiction, they will still be tantalized by the descriptive language of haunted woods, and ornately morbid houses. Readers of this style of fiction will always be intrigued by Poe’s internal demons and Hawthorne’s external demons.
Works Cited
Baym, Nina, general ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 6th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.
Folsom, James K. Man’s Accidents and god’s Purposes: Multiplicity in Hawthorne’s Fiction. CT: College and UP, 1963.
Haggerty, George E. Gothic Fiction/Gothic Form. PA:
Penn State UP, 1988.
Lloyd-Smith, Allan. “Nineteenth-Century American Gothic.” A Companion to the Gothic. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999.
Ringe, Donald A. American Gothic. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1982.
Savoy, Eric. “The rise of American Gothic.” Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction. 2002.
Voss, Arthur. The American Short Story. OK: U of Oklahoma P, 1973.