The Gothic Style: America’s First “Extreme” Entertainment

Americans enjoy adrenaline. We’ve been risk takers since our first founder boarded the boat headed for the colonies. The birth of our nation as an independent entity was a risky process of acquisition, loss, bitter battle, fulfillment and transcendence. The concept of Romance is elemental to the American experience. However, as part of the settlers’ noble adventure, surely, they were also scared. As they fulfilled their quest for independence, the ability to conquer fears and challenges became a trait that defined America. Therefore, as the Romantic Movement grew in the United States during the early 1800’s, readers, a generation removed from the Revolutionary War, enjoyed fear, and an inability to turn away from it, as comfortably disturbing (or disturbingly comfortable) reading material. By the time Washington Irving (1783-1859), Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1859), and Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) were writing, literary Americans were far enough removed from life-threatening fear to be able to enjoy fearful, suspense driven entertainment, such as the Gothic.

As an aspect of Romantic writing in America, the Gothic style became a popular genre. The gothic style is identified by the incorporation of the supernatural, the contrast of light and dark, the correspondence of the mind and the scene, and the tingling, sublime tension of suspense. Irving, Poe and Hawthorne achieved literary success through pieces that invoked nervous anticipation, terror, and bone chilling sublimity for the reader.

For example, Irving, in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820), employs the Gothic style to highlight the “fearful pleasure” (Irving, 914) of a fabled ghost story. The “galloping Hessian of the Hollow” is a regionally popular story, in a region where the

inhabitants are “given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs; have trances and visions, and see strange sights, hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions,” (Irving, 910). The existing presence of supernatural belief is a well-suited Gothic backdrop for Ichabod Crane’s encounter with the Headless Horseman. As the schoolmaster leaves an evening meeting with the old Dutch wives of Tarrytown, Ichabod is troubled by the images he imagined as he heard the tale of the Horseman. A correspondence exists between Ichabod Crane and his surroundings. “If there was a pleasure in all this,...it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and ghostly glare of a snowy night!” (Irving, 914) The palette of light and dark heightens his reaction to the story. He sees “phantoms of the mind, that walk in darkness,” realizing that “day-light put an end to all these evils,” (Irving, 914). Later in the evening, as Ichabod leaves a dance, he is still affected by the possibility of the Headless Horseman. He ponders also the tale of a “woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock,” (Irving, 923). Again, the striking contrast of white and raven-black heightens Ichabod’s, and the reader’s, Gothic senses. As Ichabod passes the church, he notes the “whitewashed walls (shining) modestly forth, like Christian purity, beaming through the shades of retirement,” (Irving, 923). Considering it was the “witching time of night”, “all the stories of ghosts and goblins that Ichabod had heard in the afternoon now came crowding upon his recollection,” (Irving 924-5). Encountering a tulip tree, his terrified disposition primes him for a fright. “Its limbs were vast, gnarled, and fantastic, twisting down almost to the earth. ...As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something white, hanging in the midst of the tree,…but perceived that it was a place where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid bare,” (Irving, 925). Ichabod’s correspondence with the gothic scene, as it is illuminated by white on black, leads to suspenseful anticipation for the reader. Though his fright seemed self-induced, the scene and the sudden presence of a mysterious character bring the reader to a point of terror. Ichabod’s “fellow traveler, in relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak” (Irving, 926) is perceived to be headless. The suspense builds as a pursuit ensues, the Horseman hurls his pumpkin-head at Ichabod, who falls, and “Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, (pass) by like a whirlwind,” (Irving, 927). The reader’s tension grows as Ichabod fails to appear at breakfast or dinner, and his body is not found in the brook. The town concludes that the galloping Hessian has carried off Ichabod Crane. With Crane assumed dead, the abandoned schoolhouse falls into decay, and is “reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue,” (Irving, 928). Though Irving provides an end to the suspense, it is terrifying, just as the reader would hope it to be. The Legend of Sleep Hollow’s “fearful pleasure” stands an example of the American Gothic style.

The Gothic style is represented fully in Poe’s creative works, specifically in The Fall of the House of Usher (1839). The supernatural, the elements of light and dark, correspondence, and suspense all intertwine in this phantasmagoric piece. The House of Usher possesses a supernatural quality in that it seems to live. The narrator approaches the house in response to a summons from Usher, and is immediately stricken by the presence of the house. Correspondence and the interplay of light and dark mingle with his first impression: “With the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit…I looked upon…the bleak walls – upon the vacant eye-like windows – upon a few rank sedges – and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees…I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down – but with a shudder even more thrilling than before,” (Poe 718). The building, in this reflection, gazes back at the narrator, breathing a ghastly life into the house itself. The narrator admits being unable to discern the source of his unnerving response, citing the “shadowy fancies that crowded upon (him) as (he) pondered,” (Poe, 718). The narrator recognizes the resulting correspondence. “I had so worked up my imagination as really to believe that around about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere…which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray walls, and the silent tarn, in the form of an inelastic vapor gas – dull, sluggish, faintly discernable, and leaden hued,” (Poe, 719). Once inside the mansion, the narrator passes through Gothic archways and encrimsoned beams of light, elements foreshadowing the ghostly countenance of Roderick Usher. Usher’s cadaverous complexion, luminous eyes, pallid lips, and web-like hair conjure an image of walking death. The dark scene and the stark image of Usher combine with a sense of the supernatural. Throughout this piece, the line between life and death is blurred. Usher’s death is eminent, and the narrator comments upon the correspondence between Usher and his mansion. Usher was “enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted…an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale of his existence,” (Poe, 721). Usher’s mental state is worsened by the death of his sister, alluding to his own fall. Lady Madeline is temporarily entombed in a chamber directly under the narrator’s sleeping apartment. The torch-lit vault is described as “half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere,” “utterly without means for admission for light,” and having a door “of massive iron, (causing) an unusually sharp grating sound as it moved upon its hinges,” (Poe, 726). The image of the body is equally disturbing, mocking life with a faint blush and offering a suspicious smile. The contrast of red on white is seen again in the amazingly supernatural appearance of Lady Madeline outside of her tomb. “Madman, I tell you that she now stands without the door! As if in the superhuman energy of (Usher’s) utterance there had been found the potency of a spell…there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes,” (Poe, 730). For a moment she stood, then fell dead in her brother’s arms. Madeline is lost, regained, and lost again. In the light of a blood red moon, the narrator flees in time to see the deep, dank tarn close “sullenly and silently over the fragments of the ‘House of Usher,’” (Poe, 730). Through the interaction of contrasting colors, the “power” of the house, and the blur between life and death, Poe creates a particularly suspenseful example of the Gothic style.

Additionally, Hawthorne works within the parameters of the Gothic in The Minister’s Black Veil (1836). Judgment, as a supernatural concept, is at the center of the piece. Minister Hooper’s judgment of himself, his judgment of his parishioners, and their overt judgment of him are related to the piece of black crape he has chosen to wear over his face. “Swathed about his forehead, and hanging down over his face, so low as to be shaken by his breath, Mr. Hooper had on a black veil,” (Hawthorne, 631). The congregation judges their minister because of his faithful commitment to his veil. Members comment, “Our parson has gone mad!” “Something must surely be amiss with Mr. Hooper’s intellects,” (Hawthorne, 631-2). Even on his deathbed, a fellow clergyman commands him to remove the crape veil. “Before the veil of eternity be lifted, let me cast aside this black veil from your face! …Dark old man!…With what horrible crime upon your soul are you now passing to the judgment?” (Hawthorne, 638). Hooper, in return, judges his public due to their reaction. “Why do you tremble at me alone?…Tremble also at each other! Have men avoided me, and women shown no pity, and children screamed and fled, only for my black veil?…I look around me, and lo! on every visage a black veil!” (Hawthorne, 638-9). In this piece, light and dark are addressed both in weight and color. Black crape is whisper light, and ominously dark, creating the enigma that is Hooper’s veil. By touch, it would seem too light to render such heavy speculation. However, his eerie mystery causes parishioners to extend their supernatural thoughts. They think the veil makes him look ghost-like, and a funeral observer perceives an “interview” between Hooper and a corpse. “As he stooped, the veil hung straight down from his forehead, so that, if her eye-lids had not been closed forever, the dead maiden might have seen his face…At the instant when the clergyman’s features were disclosed, the corpse had slightly shuddered, rustling the shroud and muslin cap,” (Hawthorne, 633). As the funeral procession leaves the church, a woman looks suddenly back, commenting to her partner that she had a fancy in which “the minister and the maiden’s spirit were walking hand in hand,” (Hawthorne, 633). At a wedding that night, the guests whisper that the bride’s death-like paleness proved she was “the maiden who had been buried a few hours before, come from her grave to be married,” (Hawthorne, 634). The correspondence of the audience is clear in these cases. Correspondence can also been seen on the minister’s part. For example, “Such was the effect of this simple piece of crape, that more than one woman of delicate nerves was forced to leave the meeting-house. Yet perhaps the pale-faced congregation was almost as fearful a sight to the minister as his black veil to them,” (Hawthorne, 631). Also, “Catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shuddered – his lips grew white…and (he) rushed forth into the darkness. For the Earth, too, had on her Black Veil,” (Hawthorne, 634). Finally, correspondence is seen in a mimicking child. “One imitative little imp covered his face with and old black handkerchief, thereby so affrighting his playmates, that the panic seized himself, and he well nigh lost his wits by his own waggery,” (Hawthorne, 634). Suspense is spurred by the minister’s flickering grin, which seems sinister at times, and melancholy at others. The reader speculates about Mr. Hooper’s motivation and stubborn sufferance. The anticipation of the minister’s removal of the veil, however, is never realized. In fact, Hawthorne presents the image of the veil’s presence after Hooper’s death. “The burial-stone is moss grown, and good Mr. Hooper’s face is dust; but awful is still the thought, that it mouldered beneath the black veil!” (Hawthorne, 639). The reader’s secrets are indulged by the secret sin of Hooper, and his peculiar choice is both jarring and intriguing to the reader. The Minister’s Black Veil is perplexing, distressing, and captivating for the Gothic audience.

Irving, Poe, and Hawthorne contribute to the portrait of our new nation. As participants in the American Romantic Movement, they allow modern audiences to appreciate the place of “safe horror” in post-Revolutionary popular culture. It is thrilling to imagine the sublime relationship between the idealistic notion of democracy and the fear instilled by its pursuit.

Who thinks that the “X Games” is an original concept?