Gina Pendola

March 1, 2005

Black vs. White in Gothic Romance: The Gray Area

            The dominant presence of sublime, opposing forces, such as good vs. bad, dark vs. light, black vs. white can be seen throughout early American literature as a consistent, significant characterization of the Gothic Romance genre. We will herein use the symbolic terms “Black” and “White” as according to Webster’s New World College Dictionary, to present how the infusions of these polarities are creating a new hue of “Gray”. “Black” is defined among many other definitions as 1.opposite to white 2.totally without light; in complete darkness 3.evil 4.secret; several definitions of “White” include 1.opposite to black 2.morally or spiritually pure; innocent 3.free from evil intent 4.honest. While the dualistic polarities remain a prevailing, necessary feature, I believe there is an inevitable progression towards the sublime melding of the oppositions, into one co-existing balance. These blendings, or “gray areas” can be seen particularly by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, Jonathon Edwards, and James Fennimore Cooper.

            One of the most significant pioneers for early Gothic Romance was Edgar Allan Poe.  Several aspects of  “Annabelle Lee,” indicates either Poe’s desire to pair two opposites, or his inability to differentiate between the two, resulting in a “blurred” duality of realms. For instance, he makes no distinction between angels and demons, perceiving their motives to be one in the same.

            “And neither the angels in Heaven above

                        Nor the demons down under the sea

            Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

                         of the beautiful Annabel Lee”

Furthermore, Poe fails to see the separation of life from death, as he still “sleeps” beside his dead bride.

            In Poe’s, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” we see the family’s very Blood line contradicting, fighting itself. The Usher family lineage is one of doomed Royalty, for their positive, “blue” blood is poisoned with glom and insanity.  The house symbolizes this grandiose futility.

            “For several says ensuing, her name was unmentioned by either Usher or myself;             and, during this period, I was busied in the earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together--or I listened, as If in a             dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and             closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive 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.” In this last sentence Poe clearly fuses the “black” and “white” into a gray---“radiation (or light) of gloom”. He also demonstrates the gothic aspect of “correspondence,” meaning a reflection of the inner mind and outer world, which, the term in itself represents an intermingling, reflective relationship of opposites.  “I know not how it was--but a with the first glimpse of this building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit”. We don’t know if it is truly the house that is the “black” or dark side of the story, or if the darkness exists in our minds. The two feed off of each other to create something new.

            In Faulkner’s, “A Rose for Emily”, we see the same polarities of life and death collide. We finally discover at the end of the story, decades later, Miss Emily had still been sharing a bed with her dead husband. Whom she most likely murdered, nonetheless. We also see a blending of the hero vs. antagonist. Who is the hero in this story and who is the antagonist? Miss Emily was “a sort of hereditary obligation upon the town.” Homer was a “big, dark, ready man” and “not a marrying man.” The complex psyche of the main character gives the reader mixed emotions. After she had been sick for a while the town saw her again, “with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows.” Should we hate her for being so high and mighty? Pity her? Cheer her for finally saving herself through suicide?

            One of the most fascinating characters of this time is Jonathon Edwards, a southern minister who brought about his own downfall by turning his once admiring town against him through his heated public sermons of a feared, hated God. His essays precisely personify the dualistic nature of God-- an angry god, and a loving god. In his public sermons, he vows to cast all sinners down into a hell of blackness and shadow, devoid of light. He paints an image of a fearful, wrathful god holding humans over the pit of Hell, just waiting for a reason to drop them to the awaiting devil. But in his private writings we find that as opposed to a dark God, full of wrath, he has indeed found the light of a kind, loving God. Meanwhile, in his “Personal Narrative” while walking through the woods in a meditative state one day, he describes his enlightenment by discovering God through all of the good things in nature.  “God’s excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon and stars.” What is more significant is that these dual perceptions of God seem to be existing in his mind at the same point in time—one publicly, the other personally.

            In James Fennimore Cooper’s “The Last of the Mohicans”, the White vs. Black conflict is actually White vs. Indian. The successful convergence of Black and White is personified in Cora, who is a mixed race of Black and White and superior to her sister Alice, who is of pure White blood.

“The white-versus-Indian opposition of Cooper’s fiction is the symbolic representation of a deeper and more complex pattern of social and ideological conflict, which Cooper saw as the central theme of American political life.             . . . .held that the differences between white and Indian culture were fixed in the race or ‘blood,’ and held further that war between differing races was inherent in racial character, inevitable, and central to the process of American national development.”

“The curiously negative suggestions about Cora’s coloring (“not brown”) prepare us for the revelation that she inherited through her West Indian Creole mother a fraction of the Negro “blood.” This racial “taint” is imagistically linked to her superabundant vitality and sexuality, her voluptuousness and her susceptibility to sensuous appeals.  She is spontaneously fascinated by Magua and later by Uncas, and the novel is enlivened by the persistent erotic tension generated among these three: a darkened beauty, a potential rapist, and a potential lover. But her affections are checked by her reason and conscience; and if we follow the suggestive association of her darkness with her passion, we racialize these two             elements of her character, linking her sensuality with her blackness and her reserve with her whiteness.”

            Whereas Cora blends both spiritually and racially, the elements of black and white, Alice is of pure white blood. In the end, we see it is Cora, who is the superior of the two, and the one who is treated as a queen. If the progression of racial and cultural mixture were to continue to blend, perhaps we would see an even more dominant evolution of society.

            Cooper was the son of a judge, and I believe through his fiction was trying to work out a resolution the present societal conflict. I believe he favored a blending of, over the defeat of cultures, as a necessary means to human evolution. In the end of the book, however, all the characters of mixed blood were obsolete. Only the pure-whites, such as Heywood and Alice still existed. But on a deeper level, as illustrated by Cora and Unca’s funeral, we can see that while we on Earth may not yet be ready for this progression, as Munroe declares:

“the Being we all worship, under different names. . ..shall not be distant when we assemble around his throne without distinction of sex, or rank, or color.”

 . . .representing the final blending of the separate races, religions and culture as the two will be united happily in Heaven.

Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allan. “Annabel Lee” and “The Fall of the House of Usher.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: Norton & Company, 1999. 703-704; 714-727.

William Faulkner “A Rose for Emily.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: Norton & Company, 1999. 2160-2166

Jonathon Edwards. “Personal Narrative,” “A Divine and Supernatural Light,” and “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  The Norton Anthology of American

Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: Norton & Company, 1999. 183-219

Cooper, James Fennimore. The Last of the Mohicans. New York: Viking Penguin Inc, 1986.

Webster’s New World College Dictionary, Third Edition. New York: Simon & Shuster, Inc,1997

Marion Carpenter, Sample Student Midterm, LITR 5535: American Romanticism, Professor Craig White