Kayla Logan
American Romanticism
Final Exam
July 5, 2002 

Essay 4 – The Gothic Tradition

            The Gothic tradition incorporates haunted physical and mental spaces, the shadow of death, and dark and light in both physical and moral terms.  Three forms of the gothic style, distinctly Romantic in nature, are evident 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 reveal the adaptation of the gothic in order to meet each author’s specific goal.

            The pre-Romantic writer, Jonathan Edwards, uses the gothic style to intimidate and achieve a more effective tone of didacticism in, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”  Edwards uses a Biblical or Apocalyptic form of 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 relay to his parishioners.  

The gothic style developed by Edgar Allan Poe, on the other hand, does not aim to preach or intimidate, but to reveal the dark, haunted mental aspects of the human psyche.  Also, Poe’s gothic style is not distinctly American.  The environments that Poe creates in his scary 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 likely 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).  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 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. 

The gothic form achieves much success due to humanity’s natural fascination with and undying curiosity about darkness, be it the darkness of sin, of the supernatural and occult, or of death.  The gothic style is extremely adaptable and can flourish in any environment where darkness can exist, a building, a forest, hell, or in the human mind.  With the introduction of African American voices in American literature, the symbolic meanings for dark and light/black and white, may change, but it is primarily a human trait, not a cultural one that causes people to be afraid of the dark. 

Essay 5: I had hoped to make this more similar to essay number two by incorporating Robert Hayden’s contemporary poem, but I ran out of time.

The theme of the common man is recurrent in Romantic literature.  Although, not a theme discussed in class directly, the romanticizing of a common, or lower class way of life is evident in the works of Post-Romantic American writers.  Beginning with British Romanticism, romanticizing, or focusing on the pleasant aspects of a country-life (as opposed to the grueling hardships) was a result of the harsh conditions of industrialism and urbanization.  America too, has a strong love for the common man that springs up as a reaction to the growing urban centers and industry that changed the face of the American frontier.  Indeed, life on the countryside (perhaps after retirement) is a dream of city-dwellers even today.  Romanticizing the common, or country way of life is most evident in literature written during the Romantic period proper, from the late 1700s into the mid-1800s, but is continued and revived in the post-Romantic work of Whitman, Jewett, and Twain. 

Walt Whitman, a writer of the American Renaissance, adopts and adapts the theme of romanticizing the common man. In traditional Whitman fashion, the poet points not only to the beauty and serenity of a natural way of life, but unites the city and country.  For Whitman, the world of the beautiful and of the ugly is united, and this unity reveals the duality of American values—the value for rural life and the value of capitalism and urban achievement.  In “There Was Child Went Forth,” Whitman traces the life of a boy, from his humble beginning, near the “noisy brood of the barnyard” to the experience of the crowded streets, shop windows, wharves and ferries (1055-56).  Whitman’s poem contains the constant use of natural images, the sunset, seabirds, the slapping of the waves, and the smell of mud to describe the city-experience.  Because Whitman focuses on the natural imagery of the city, he simultaneously romanticizes country-life and city-life, thus adapting the theme of the common man in a post-Romantic America.

Sarah Orne Jewett also uses the common man theme in her short story, “A White Heron.”  Unlike Whitman’s effort to unite country life and city life, Jewett relies on the more purely Romantic ideal of the common, country life as an escape, or refuge from the harsh realities of the city.  As the story opens, young Sylvia enjoys nature and wonders, “if everything went on in the noisy town just the same as when she was there.”  Sylvia associates the noisy city with the intimidating memory of a bully who bothered her when she lived with her parents.  The primary negative force in the story, an ornithologist who kills and taxidermies his specimens, causes a strict contrast between Sylvia, the common, lover of nature, and more advanced scientific and urban pursuits.  The scientist, unaware that country-life can be beautiful is “surprise[d] to find so clean and comfortable a little dwelling in this New England wilderness” (1598).  Jewett romanticizes a common, country way of life by revealing it as in pure communion with nature and therefore, more near the sublime or transcendent aspects of life.  Because Sylvia makes the decision to not tell the scientist where the white heron lives, the image of him tromping through the forest, shooting and cursing is a comic view of urban ideas.  Unlike Whitman, who attempts to unify the city and country, Jewett reveals a more purely Romantic theme in “A White Heron.”

Samuel Clemens, writing about twenty years prior to Jewett, completely adapts the idea of romanticizing the common man in a Post-Romantic world.  In “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” as well as in his longer works, like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Clemens uses dialect and comic country scenes to simultaneously

satirize country manners and the views and politics of the modern world.  In the process of imitating the speech and ignorance of country folk, Clemens reveals a certain simple, country wisdom in his characters.  In “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” the narrator, a well educated, city type, must hear the ridiculous story about Jim Smiley delivered by Simon Wheeler.  While Clemens’ use of dialect causes Simon Wheeler to appear ignorant, the use of names such as Andrew Jackson for a fighting dog and Daniel Webster for a jumping frog is comic and presents political commentary, furthering the satirical nature of the work.  The reader comes to realize that although a country character may be uneducated, he might contain a universal wisdom, or more direct understanding of the human predicament than an educated or urban-related character. 

The Romantic perception of the common man is adopted and adapted to fit the goals of post-Romantic, American writers.  While Whitman romanticizes the common man by drawing parallels between the beauty of the country and the city, Jewett adopts a more traditional view of Romantic ideals in favor of a simple country life over that of a city mentality.  Clemens, on the other hand somewhat revives and adapts the Romantic ideal by creating common, uneducated country characters who unknowingly reveal a satirical truth about the American way of life