Dendy Farrar
Dr. Craig White
LITR 5535
14 June 2002

Evidence of the Gothic in Poe’s Works

            Edgar Allan Poe has the uncanny ability to create and sustain a particular mood and atmosphere in his writings.  Poe establishes as a frame of reference the ordinary, daylight world and yet carefully and progressively challenges that world by creating an opposition.  This opposition is developed as a sense of mystery and, in general, the unknown that will make the fantastic conclusion feasible.  According to the course syllabus, the gothic narrative is characterized by “haunted physical and mental spaces, the shadow of death, and dark and light in physical and moral terms”.  These gothic elements are most definitely apparent in Poe’s works.  Three of Poe’s works in particular explore the romantic idea of the gothic:  “Ligeia,” “Fall of the House of Usher,” and “Annabel Lee”.  The gothic elements present in these works are so familiar to modern day readers because they have become so much a part of popular culture.  A modern day reader has no trouble recognizing the gothic aspects of Poe’s works.

            The interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Ligeia” may vary widely among literary scholars; however, the presence of the gothic element of the shadow of death in this work cannot be disputed.  Despite the story’s overall allusiveness, it is evident that the story itself seriously confronts the meaning of death, and more accurately Ligeia’s triumph over death.  Ligeia holds the conviction that since death is a manifestation of a weak will, her passionate will to live will triumph over death.  To derive an even more specific theory of meaning, if death cannot be defeated by strength of will, then life is a horrible and absurd tragedy.  This is evidenced by the epigraph by Joseph Glanvill that precedes the selection (706).  Glanvill’s words also appear at three critical points within the story itself.  The first occurrence of Glanvill’s words within the story emerges when the narrator attempts to describe the expression of Ligeia’s eyes.  The narrator strives to understand the secret behind her eyes as he utters Glanvill’s words.

among innumerable other instances, I remember something in a volume of Joseph Glanvill, which perhaps merely from its quaintness … never failed to inspire me with the sentiment. – ‘And the will therein lieth, which dieth not.  Who knoweth the mysteries of the will, with its vigor?  For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of its intentness.  Man doth not yield him to the angels, nor unto death utterly, but only through the weakness of his feeble will’ (710).

Glanvill’s words are referenced the final two times by Ligeia herself as she dies (712).  The presence and reiteration of Glanvill’s words serve to emphasize Ligeia’s intense desire to avoid weakness and death by strength of will.  At the risk of oversimplifying, the reader comes to realize that Poe’s story centers around Ligeia’s avoidance and victory over death.

            In Poe’s short story “The Fall of the House of Usher” the shadow of death looms over Usher, Madeline, and the narrator.  As the narrator discovers the details of Usher’s illness, Usher utters the words, “I shall perish … I must perish in this deplorable folly … I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results … I feel that I must inevitably abandon life and reason together in my struggles with some fatal demon of fear” (721).  Usher has prepared himself, as well as the reader, for his untimely death.  Madeline’s illness, unexplained by doctors, was given a hopeless prognosis, and upon the narrator’s first night at the house he was told that she was his “last and only relative on earth” and that “her decease … would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers” (721).  Finally, when Madeline perishes, the reader is not alarmed, for the shadow of her death has loomed over her throughout the entire story.  After Madeline dies and is buried in the tombs below the house, Usher reveals that he has been hearing sounds for days that he believes are coming from his sister’s tomb.  Usher screams, “have I not heard her footsteps on the stair?  Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? … Madman!  I tell you that she now stands without the door!” (730).  The gothic element of Madeline’s death spirit haunted her when she was alive, and now her spirit haunts others after her death. 

The presence of the gothic is evident in the last section of “Ligeia” when the narrator describes the abbey in which he and his new wife occupy. 

The gloomy and dreary grandeur of the building, the almost savage aspect of the domain, the many melancholy and time-honored memories … with its verdant decay hanging about it suffered but little altercation … in the wild cornices and furniture of Arabesque, in the bedlam patterns of tufted gold! … The 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 (712-13). 

This detailed description of the gothic abbey and its medieval architecture and lush, ornate décor sustain the feeling of mystery and provide the appropriate atmosphere, or the “haunted physical space,” for the extraordinary to occur.  It is in this magnificent, horrific space that the narrator struggles to retain his grasp on the real, naturalistic world.  He hears the mysterious “low whisper of sounds” and unusual motions “rushing hurriedly behind the tapestries,” ” the “palpable object passing lightly by …”, the “gentle foot-fall upon the carpet,” and the mysterious “three or four large drops of brilliant and ruby colored fluid,” and, finally the violent death struggle of Rowena (715).  These haunting thoughts occur in the narrator’s “haunted mental space” and are exemplified by his surroundings, more specifically, the “haunted physical space” in which he occupies.

            Poe creates the atmosphere of dreariness and doom in “The Fall of the House of Usher” by describing the architecture in much the same way as he does in “Ligeia”.  As the narrator approaches the house of Usher the day is described as being “dull, dark, and soundless” and the location is described as a “dreary tract of country” (717).  The actual house is described as “melancholy” with “bleak walls” and “vacant eye-like windows” with the “hideous dropping off of the veil” (718).  The description of this house and the surrounding area is so overly gothic in nature that it is almost trite.  The interior of the house is just as spooky as the outside.  The narrator describes his experience of entering the “Gothic archway of the hall” and the “somber tapestries of the walls,” the “ebon blackness of the floors,” the “vaulted and fretted ceiling,” and the “comfortless, antique, and tattered” furniture.”  The narrator notes that he “breathed an atmosphere of sorrow” and felt an “air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom [that] hung over and pervaded all” (719-20).  This “haunted physical space” sets the stage for Usher’s and Madeline’s “haunted mental space”.  Usher is described as suffering from a “morbid acuteness of the senses” and “enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted” (721).  The disease of Madeline had “long baffled the skill of her physicians” and her condition was described as “a gradual wasting away of the person” (722).  Poe has given the reader an interesting parallel between the haunting, decaying physicality of the house and the haunting, decaying health of Usher and Madeline.  The reader is left questioning, if the house is a metaphor for the mind, are the ghosts outside, in external reality (physical space), or are they merely inside, in internal reality (mental space)?   And, for that matter, from where did the reality originate – the external, or the internal? 

            Poe incorporates gothic elements in his poem “Annabel Lee” in much the same way as he does in his short stories.  The final three stanzas of the poem detail a “haunted physical space” in which wind’s “chill” and “kill” and there are “demons down under the sea” (707).  The third stanza recounts the luminous death spirit that takes the speaker’s beloved from him.

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling / My beautiful ANNABEL LEE; / So that her highborn kinsmen came / And bore her away from me, / To shut her up in a sepulchre / In this kingdom by the sea (707).

The words “chilling” and “sepulchre” in this stanza provide an especially dark atmosphere.  The speaker offers an explanation for the ripping away of his loved one in the fourth stanza.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven, / Went envying her and me -- / Yes – that was the reason (as all men know, / In this kingdom by the sea) / That the wind came out of the cloud by night, / Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee (707).

The idea of “envying” angels unhappy in heaven, as well as a wind that “chilled” and “killed” Annabel Lee are especially crude thoughts.  The speaker goes on to detail the power of he and Annabel Lee’s love.

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:

Although the speaker’s loving feelings toward Annabel Lee are present in the poem, so are the somber, daunting feelings that create a “haunted mental space” so characteristic of the gothic poem.  Once again, Poe has given the reader the parallel function of the haunted physical and mental space and the interplay between the two ideas.

            Poe’s use of color imagery in “Ligeia” helps to develop the gothic ideal of “dark and light in physical and moral terms.”  The narrator persistently refers to Ligeia’s “dark eyes” and “black hair” and to Rowena’s “blue eyes” and “fair hair”.  Ligeia is described as having dark eyes of “the most brilliant of black” and  “the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant and naturally-curling tresses” of hair (709).  However, the description of Rowena gives way to a much fairer, lady who is “fair-haired and blue-eyed” (713).  Obviously, these physical descriptions of appearance serve to illustrate the element of dark and light in physical terms.  However, upon careful consideration, the reader recognizes the dark and light motif at hand.  While Poe is drawing upon the conventional symbolism that associates light with moral clarity and good, and darkness, or blackness, with mystery, moral complexity, and evil, he modifies it to fit his own purpose.  The dark quality of Ligeia presents her as the dark-haired heroine and seductress in search of forbidden knowledge.  Without her dark quality, she would not be the character she is, and therefore, would not triumph over the everyday and ordinary world of transparent light.

            If the definition of the gothic includes haunting physical and mental spaces, presence of the shadow of death, and dark and light in physical and moral terms, then Edgar Allan Poe’s works “Ligeia,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “Annabel Lee” should be characterized as none other than gothic.  Poe’s short stories and poems are so suspenseful and haunting in nature that it is difficult to regard them in any other manner.  For many readers, the mere mention of the romantic idea of the gothic signals thoughts of Poe and his daunting works.  Perhaps his most successful literary tool is his ability to create haunted physical and mental spaces in which the reader is forced to examine the interplay between the two.  His lavish descriptions of horrific settings and ghastly thoughts leave the reader in a state of terror and awe.  The anthology notes that Poe wanted nothing more than to horrify his readers, and in this respect he has been unequivocally successful (700).