LITR 5535: American Romanticism
 
Sample Student Research Project, fall 2003

Emily Islam

The Role of Doomed Love in Romantic Literature, Film Noir, and Neo Noir

Introduction

These are the following questions that will serve as a focus for my research journal:

1. “What are the main conventions of Romanticism, film noir, and neo-noir?”
2. “What conventions of Romanticism, film noir, and neo-noir are used to present doomed love?”
3. “Is there any relationship between the conventions of Romanticism and the conventions of film-noir?”
4. “How does the desire and loss cycle affect doomed love?”
5. “How does the intensity of the love affect the future of the lovers?”

The following are the primary examples which I will explore in order to answer the preceding questions:

Film noir examples:

-         The Maltese Falcon (1941)

-         Citizen Kane (1941)

Neo-noir examples:

-         The English Patient (1996)

-         The Godfather (1974)

Literature examples:

-         Hawthorne – The May-Pole of Merry Mount

-         Poe-Ligeia

Conventions of Romantic Literature

The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, pgs. 415-418, defines some of the conventions of romanticism. 

• “Romances… tend to have what we would describe as a psychological interest or component; the landscapes of romance are often outward manifestations of the hero’s or heroine’s inner state.” 
• “Romantic writers valued emotions and expressed their ideas in everyday language and in their own individual styles.” 
• “Authors (and critics) differed tremendously in their interests and emphases.”
• “Romantics believed that humans are essentially good and that civilization corrupts this essential goodness.” 
• “Romantics often regarded emotions as more reliable than reason.” 
• “The heroes and heroines of romantic literature often share their creators’ perceptions of alienation and difference from the society at large.” 
• “Many romantics also felt an affinity with the Gothic.  Gothic literature is typically characterized by a general mood of decay, action that is dramatic and generally violent, loves that are destructively passionate… and grandiose yet gloomy settings.” 
• “Romantic is associated with the emotional, the energetic, the changing, the improbable, the visionary, the supernatural, the infinite, even the chaotic.” 

Conventions of Film Noir

The following website defines characteristics and conventions of film noir, and explains the history behind film noir.  Http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

Primary Characteristics and Conventions

History

“Film noir is a distinct branch, sub-genre or off-shoot of the crime/gangster sagas of the 1930’s, but different in tone and characterization.  The criminal, violence or greed elements in film noir are a metaphoric symptom of society’s evils, with a strong undercurrent of moral conflict.  Classic film noir developed during and after World War II, taking advantage of the post-war ambience of anxiety, pessimism, and suspicion.”  Another article that discusses the origins of film noir can be found at the following website: http://www.no-sword.com/articles/noir.shtml.  This article states that film noir was “bred from the corruption and violence of World War Two”.  The article quotes Freud who stated, “there is an end to all suppression of the baser passions, and this will perpetuate deeds of cruelty, fraud, treachery, and barbarity”.  The returning soldiers from World War Two were negatively affected by the experiences that they had in the war.  The article states that, “Violence breeds violence, and it is perfectly natural that soldiers returning from the battlefield would gravitate to the cities, where the action of the day, legal and illegal, was centered… Organized crime, street violence, political corruption, and poverty are all augmented by the despair that came from battle… Film noir was born, reflecting the pessimism of the times.”

Overall View of Film Noir

In the previously cited article found at the following website: http://www.no-sword.com/articles/noir.shtml, the following characteristics of film noir are explained: “Film noir films (mostly shot in grays, blacks, and whites) show the dark and inhumane side of human nature with cynicism and doomed love, and they emphasize the brutal, unhealthy, seamy, shadowy, dark, and sadistic side of the human experience.”  As for the main characters, “The heroes are often unsavory or flawed, never perfect, they are given to lust, rage, and greed.”  Sex and money also play a large role in film noir: “Sex.  Noir films are full of it.  Strip clubs, prostitutes, femme fatales – women have a power over men.  Money.  The stuff…that men slave for, commit crimes for, die for”.  The aspect of crooked law enforcement is also a prevalent theme in film noir, “It’s not uncommon to see a movie in which the chief of police is drinking beside the mafia in a fancy restaurant.  They lie, steal, and abuse their power for personal gain”.  The article also further clarifies the question of the type of genre that film noir is most often associated with: “Noir is often associated with detective or gangster films, but the style is not exclusive.” 

Characteristics of Neo-Noir

The previously cited article gives the following explanation of Neo-noir films: “So-called post-noirs (modern, tech-noirs or neo-noirs) appeared after the classic period with a revival of the themes of classic noir.”  An article entitled “An Introduction to Neo-Noir” found at the website: http://www.crimeculture.com/Contents/NeoNoir.html, gives further explanation regarding Neo-Noir films.  “There was for some time a tendency on the part of film critics to argue that the label ‘noir’ could legitimately be applied only to a specific cycle of post-World War Two Hollywood films.  In recent years, however, there has been increasing acceptance of a much more flexible use of the term – in particular, of a chronological broadening of the term”.  It further states that, “There have been over three hundred noir-influenced films released since 1971, and, whatever its generic status, the word ‘noir’ has become widespread both in academic discourse and as ‘a major signifier of sleekly commercial artistic ambition’.”  As for the look of neo-noir films, they will typically have a “retro” look, which exemplifies the style and fashion of the period in which they are set.  The article states that the significance of the retro look can be seen “as a consumer society indulgence” and that “retro noir… often engages seriously not only with the historical period it represents but with detailed observation of consumption, style, and décor can be part of the critical thrust of the film”.  The costumes of the main characters and their surrounding help the viewer to draw critical conclusions regarding the character of the protaganist.  Overall, neo-noir films are reminiscent of classic noir films in style and subject matter.  They play on cynicism and pessimism and confront society’s ills through characterization and style.

Film Noir Examples

The Maltese Falcon (1941)

This detective tale starring Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, the cynical, brooding, yet cool private eye, and Mary Astor as the gorgeous, manipulative, double crossing femme fatale, Brigid O'Shaughnessy/Miss Wonderly/Miss LaBlanc was often cited in my research as the first definitive film noir.  “It was famous for Humphrey Bogart’s cool, laconic private eye hero Sam Spade in pursuit of crooks greedy for a (golden) statue, and Mary Astor as the femme fatale”.  (“Film Noir”, pg. 2)  This movie indeed has most of the elements of its followers, excluding voice-overs and flashbacks.  The most distinctive characteristic is the lighting, which is manipulated to cast shadows when necessary (especially the half shadows across someone’s face during serious scenes or scenes of treachery), is sometimes used to create interesting patterns, and is typically kept dim and dreary.  Pessimism, anxiety, and entrapment are the prevailing moods in the film.  The setting and atmosphere are textbook noir: with the circling cigarette smoke, dark and gloomy lighting, wet/rain slicked streets, dimly lit apartments and hotel rooms, Spade’s sparsely furnished office, venetian-blinded windows, etc.

The element of doomed love is explored in this movie, but is treated differently than movies where the love is the entire focus.  The real focuses of this story are the mystery, deception, and manipulation that are taking place.  Spade and O'Shaughnessy do fall in love, but their love is tarnished by her manipulation and incessant lying.  Because the love between them is only really discussed at the end of the movie when she is begging Spade not to turn her over to the police for murder, we are left wondering whether she really loved him, or was attempting to manipulate him once more.  Spade recognizes this and will not let himself fall prey to her again, though he is tempted to submit to her because of his feelings for her.  When Spade confesses his feelings for O'Shaughnessy, we instinctively believe him because it is easy to identify when someone is baring their soul. 

O'Shaughnessy: You know whether you love me or not.
Spade: Maybe I do. Well, I'll have some rotten nights after I've sent you over, but that will pass. If all I've said doesn't mean anything to you, then forget it and we'll make it just this: I won't because all of me wants to, regardless of consequences, and because you counted on that with me the same as you counted on that with all the others.

He ultimately resists his feelings for her and her pleadings, and she is escorted to jail.  Therefore, while it was inevitable that they should fall in love (they are both very good-looking and are thrust into a dangerous situation together where they must rely on each other) their love was doomed from the start because of the very circumstances which caused them to fall in love.  Also, because their affair is short-lived and was not placed upon the same pedestal as in other movies, the fall was not as great.  The end of the affair was disappointing, and the viewer feels sad for them both, but the doomed love is not tragic or heartbreaking, as it is when the love is more passionate or pure.

Citizen Kane

            The movie “Citizen Kane” (1941), directed by Orson Welles, and starring Orson Welles as Charles Foster Kane, Joseph Cotton as Jedediah Leland, Dorothy Comingore as Susan Alexander Kane, and Ruth Warrick as Emily Monroe Kane, is regarded by some as the best movie ever made, and is a definitive example of film noir.  Using the conventions of film noir, the movie depicts a man who, because of his upbringing and surroundings, cannot love, and therefore is doomed to destroy every relationship he has for the rest of his life. 

            The film begins at the end, as is characteristic of noir style.  Charles Foster Kane dies in the opening scene, right after uttering the word “Rosebud”.  For the rest of the movie, flashbacks serve to fill us in on the extraordinary events of Kane’s life.  The premise for the movie centers on a group of producers who are making a newsreel about Kane’s life and death and wish to include the meaning of “Rosebud” in the reel.  Therefore, an associate goes on a trip to visit those who were close to Kane in order to find out who or what Rosebud was.  In this way, the flashbacks are worked into the story as each person is visited and gives their account of Kane’s life as they knew it. 

            Kane is portrayed as a typical film noir protagonist: He is cynical, obsessive about making his second wife an opera star, brooding, menacing when talking about a political opponent, disillusioned because his parents sent him away as a child, frightened and insecure about people not loving him, and struggling to survive and to be loved.  When his parents sent him away as a child, he misunderstood the reason (his mother was trying to save him from his abusive father), and he interpreted it to mean that his parents did not love him. Because of this, he was permanently damaged and doomed to spend the rest of his life trying to make everyone he met love him, and ultimately failing.  According to Wikipedia (an online encyclopedia), “The film deals with the inability of Charles Foster Kane (played by Mr. Welles) to love. Instead Kane has only "Love on my own terms." As a result, Kane eventually alienates every loved one around him and dies a lonely recluse in an opulent, but crumbling estate.”

            All of the conventions of film noir are used in order to portray the aching emptiness of Kane’s life, the emotional wreckage that he left in his wake, and his desperation to be loved.  The emptiness of his life was shown spectacularly in Xanadu, the mansion that he created for himself.  The mansion consisted of huge, larger than life rooms and structures that created a sense of emptiness.  At one point during the film, Kane’s second wife, Emily, is putting together a jigsaw puzzle underneath an enormous mantle, by a fireplace that is large enough for a man to walk around in.  This scene conveys the fact that Kane has shattered her life and her heart, and that she will spend the rest of her life trying to put it back together.  When Emily is shown in the “present day”, she is always preceded by a flashing neon sign that announces her stage show.  She is typically drunk and obviously emotionally ruined.

            His first wife, Susan, started out being someone that he was really in love with.  There is a scene that is uncharacteristically well-lit in which they are eating breakfast together, in which Susan convinces him to cancel work in order to be with her.  In successive scenes when they are pictured at the same table, the atmosphere grows darker, and they move farther away from each other around the table.  The final scene from this montage shows The Kanes again eating breakfast at the table.  They are sitting at opposite ends of the table, and are not speaking to each other.  The camera pulls slowly away from them in order to emphasize their position at the table, which symbolizes years of gradual separation and alienation.  Ultimately, Susan is confronted with the fact that Kane has been having an affair, and when he picks Emily over her, she joins the ranks of those ruined by him. 

            At the end of the movie the meaning of “Rosebud” is finally revealed.  Rosebud is the brand-name of the sleigh that he was playing with the day his parents sent him away.  Because Kane says this word at moments of painful loss (he says this when Emily leaves him and when he dies), this means that he never escapes that painful moment in his life.  It follows him for the rest of his life, dooming every relationship he has and ruining not only his life, but all those who were unfortunate enough to love him.

Neo-Noir Films

The English Patient

The movie “The English Patient” (1996), directed by Anthony Minghella and starring Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas is an excellent example of the neo-noir style.  The stark sets of film noir are replaced with an equally bleak desert, with the added element of dry, burning heat.  Film notes from the New York State Writers Institute give added explanations and opinions regarding the film.  Mary Brennan, from www.film.com, mentions the “tiny plane silhouetted against the vast, empty, burnished desert below” that is seen at the beginning of the movie.  That tiny plane crashes in the desert, which is a metaphor for the cycle of desire and loss that is so powerful in the movie.  Brennan states, “The movie is about a flight too close to the sun, and the long, burning, inevitable fall back to earth”.  This scene sets up the emptiness that will haunt the main characters for the rest of the movie, which they are endlessly trying to fill.              Brennan also states that, “The story begins, like a good film noir, almost at the end”.  Indeed, the movie is a complex mix of flashbacks and entertwined stories that eventually fit together.  Count Laszlo Almasy, the male leading character in the film, is seen at the beginning of the movie in bed, his body covered with severe burns.  He exemplifies the image of the protagonist in film noir.  He is cynical, tarnished, brooding, disillusioned, frightened, and struggling to survive. 

As he recounts his story, a beautiful and tragic love story unfolds.  His relationship with Katharine Clifton is doomed from the beginning.  She is unavailable, and consequently more attractive to Almasy.  The desire that they share for each other spirals into a dizzying, intensely passionate, dangerous love that is so powerful and consuming, that it cannot possibly last.  Roger Ebert, of The Chicago Sun Times, states, “Backward into memory, forward into loss and desire, The English Patient searches for answers that will answer nothing.  This poetic, evocative film version of the famous novel by Micheal Ondaatje circles down through layers of mystery until all of the puzzles in the story have been solved, and only the great wound of a doomed love remains”.  The fact that their love is doomed from the beginning is unmistakable, given that he is dying alone at the beginning of the movie.  This fact, combined with the vast emptiness of the desert, and the desolation of the war during which the movie is set, combine to make an extremely passionate love affair even more tragic at its end, and the inevitable loss infinitely more devastating.

The Godfather II

“The Godfather Part II” (1974), is another excellent example of the neo-noir style.  This movie is clearly reminiscent of the classic crime/gangster themes of film noir.  The typical bleakness of film noir, instead of surrounding the main character, surrounds his father in the characteristic film noir flashback sequences.  These sequences serve to give history and to justify the Corleone family’s way of life.  The bleakness, emptiness, and sparsity of his father’s (Vito Corleone’s) early life are shown in his hometown of Corleone, in his arrival in America as an eight-year-old boy, and in his young life as an immigrant.  In these flashback scenes, the typical black and white of noir is replaced with dull grays and browns that simultaneously show the absence of joy, excess, and light, and the time period.  The town of Corleone, Italy is pictured as a primitive place, with a funeral procession in which Vito’s family, on their way to bury Vito’s father, is slowly advancing through a dusty, rocky field.  Vito Corleone’s arrival in America symbolically places him in a sparse, solitary room that echoes the fact that he is absolutely helpless and alone in the world.  Later, when Vito is married, his apartment has very little furniture, and his neighborhood is pictured as a grimy, harsh place where people live a hard and unforgiving life. 

The film also makes good use of shadow.  Many times characters’ faces are half hidden in shadow: When Michael is accusing people of ordering the hit on him and his family, when it is revealed that Freddo was a part of the conspiracy against Michael, etc.  During a scene where someone will attempt to murder Frank Pentangali, there is extensive use of shadow and slanted light from blinds on the window.

All of these stylistic characteristics contribute to the overall moods of corruption, evil, alienation, and disillusionment.  Michael Corleone is a classic film noir protagonist; cynical, tarnished, brooding, menacing, sinister, disillusioned, and struggling to survive numerous attempts on his life.  The absence of a femme fatale in this film sends a strong message as to Michael’s character.  It shows that he is not so weak as to be deceived by a woman.  It also shows his complete and obsessive devotion to his family, which sets the stage for a fall.  The cycles of desire and loss are shown by the death or loss of everyone Michael loves in the entire trilogy.  The most important losses are the loss of his wives, his daughter, and his brother Freddo.  The fact that he has a special love for his older brother Freddo and is put in a position to be his caregiver, makes it tragic and chilling when Michael orders his death.  That decision plagues him for the rest of his life.  His wife Kay is the traditional type of film noir woman that is dutiful, reliable, trustworthy, and loving.  He has great love for her and is devastated and disillusioned when she leaves him.  His first wife, a young and beautiful girl that he marries in Italy, is tragically killed with a car bomb meant for Micheal.  This incident is brought up again as foreshadowing to his daughter’s death in episode III. 

The biggest heartbreak, the most doomed love in his life is his daughter, Mary.  It is no accident that she is named after the purest woman known to man, because she is presented as pure of heart and pure in her love for her father.  Michael vows to God on the life of his children that he will never sin again, and then orders a hit on some of his enemies.  The film uses these religious references to heighten the sacrificial essence of her death.  The fact that Mary has just been forever separated from her love, Vincent, with his succession to the role of Don Corleone, adds to the tragic scene.  Michael loves her more than anything he has ever loved, which means inevitably, she will have to die.  She was pure and was killed with a bullet meant for Michael.  The absolute pain and horror on the face of her father when she dies gives us a glimpse at the agony that he feels at her death, which is unequalled and unbearable.

Literature Examples

Ligeia – Poe

            In Edgar Allen Poe’s work, “Ligeia”, Poe creates a stunning portrayal of doomed love.  Ligeia is an idealized woman who Poe loves completely.  She is presented as the epitome of beauty and grace, and is presented as so perfect and lovely, that one can only guess that she is doomed from the beginning.  Poe uses gothic elements that mirror the techniques of film noir to describe the after-effects of losing her.

            The language that Poe uses to describe Ligeia creates the effect of putting her on a pedestal.  She is described in such a way that she can never be equaled.  Poe describes her in the following way: “I would in vain attempt to portray the majesty, the quiet ease of her demeanor, or the incomprehensible lightness and elasticity of her footfall.”  This creates an overall aura of perfection, but Poe also goes into detail about each of the characteristics of her appearance: “The skin rivaling the purest ivory… the raven black, the glossy, the luxuriant and naturally-curling tresses…I regarded the sweet mouth… the magnificent turn of the short upper lip – the soft, voluptuous repose of the under”.  In Bloom’s Major Short Story Writers, Daniel Hoffman describes the significance of Poe’s description of Ligeia’s eyes: “…it is the lady’s eyes which represent, to her husband, the total knowledge embodied in her person.  By synecdoche, the eyes become that which he worships”.  Poe does focus on her intelligence and education as one of the factors that contribute to her perfection.  What is also mentioned is the way that she loved him so absolutely, “For long hours, detaining my hand, would she pour out before me the overflowings of a heart whose more than passionate devotion amounted to idolatry”.  All of these characteristics add to the image of perfection that Poe crafts.

            Because of her perfection, Poe loved her accordingly.  With his depth of emotion came the fear that she would be taken away, “How poignant, then, must have been the grief with which, after some years, I beheld my well-grounded expectations take wings to themselves and flee away”.  He uses these words to describe how he felt when he realized that an illness would indeed kill her.  When she died, he was of course plunged into complete and utter despair and was, “crushed into the very dust with sorrow”.  Because of the height of their love for each other, the fall after her death was ultimately more devastating.

            After she dies, Poe buys a house, and marries again a bit later.  His second wife is the polar opposite of Ligeia, and he does not love her.  The house in which he lives her is full of Gothic gloom.  The description of the house that Poe gives closely relates to the stylized sets of film noir.  The characteristic play on shadow and light is present in Poe’s work.  When describing the house, he mentions “the sole window” through which the “rays of either the sun or moon… fell with a ghastly luster upon the objects within”.  This is reminiscent of the shadowy dwellings of film noir, but especially the noir technique of slanting light through Venetian blinds so that the contents of the room are partially illuminated with sparse patterns of light.  Poe also describes the furnishings of his house as being mostly comprised of black, with some infusions of white and gold.  His description includes, “The bridal couch… sculptured of solid ebony”, and “In each of the angles of the chamber, stood on end a gigantic sarcophagus of black granite”.  The black draperies contain figures which become almost lifelike when someone walks past: “To one entering the room they bore the appearance of ideal monstrosities; but, upon a further advance, this appearance suddenly departed; and, step by step, as the visitor moved his station in the chamber, he saw himself surrounded by an endless succession of the ghastly forms”.  These depictions of his house and its furnishings serve the same purpose that similar techniques serve in film noir: To create a desolate, empty, and sometimes sinister environment in which to show the supreme bleakness, emptiness, and complexity of the main characters’ lives.

The May-Pole of Merry Mount - Hawthorne

            “The May Pole of Merry Mount” by Nathaniel Hawthorne also uses Gothic themes and images to add to the irony of doomed love.  In this story, the metaphors of light and dark are portrayed by people and their surroundings.  Merry Mount is a bizarre, yet joyful place at the beginning of the story.  The residents at Merry Mount are participating in a festival.  The residents are the first glimpse of the Gothic that the reader comes in contact with.  Hawthorne himself even calls the residents “Gothic monsters”.  The following are some depictions of the residents: “On the shoulders of a comely youth, uprose the head and branching antlers of a stag; a second, human in all other points, had the grim visage of a wolf; a third, still with the trunk and limbs of mortal man, showed the beard and horns of a venerable he-goat.”  The description of the odd town continues until Hawthorne begins to describe the bride and groom at the celebration.  They are described as being a paradigm of love and loveliness: “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.  One was a youth, in glistening apparel, with a scarf of the rainbow pattern crosswise on his breast… his left (hand) grasped the slender fingers of a fair maiden, not less gaily decorated than himself”.  These two young people are a sharp contrast to the monstrous (though friendly) forms with which they are surrounded.  They are young, sublime, and in love, and are rising above their surroundings and the cares of a normal existence.  They are the embodiment of the romantic conventions of the emotional, the energetic, the changing, the improbable, the supernatural, the infinite, even the chaotic.  However, right before they are married the inevitable fall begins.  They immediately begin to sense that something is wrong: “No sooner had their hearts glowed with real passion, than they were sensible of something vague and unsubstantial in their former pleasures, and felt a dreary presentiment of inevitable change”.  This feeling will turn out to be not only the couple’s realization that such love cannot last forever, but will also serve as foreshadowing to the disastrous entrance of the Puritans.  Hawthorne discusses their inevitable fall in this way: “From the moment that they truly loved, they had subjected themselves to earth’s doom of care, and sorrow, and troubled joy”.  In Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Study of the Short Fiction, Nancy Bunge states, “When they feel love, they begin to take life seriously, garunteeing pain.  Caring about another human being makes laughing at funerals difficult.  Edith and Edgar have allowed their minds and their emotions to grow with their lives.”

The celebration with which the story begins is one of light, joy, and color.  It is an example of the romantic convention of believing that all people are inherently good, and that it is civilization that corrupts us.  The entrance of the Puritans marks the introduction of gloom and austerity and the corruption of joy and the lovers.  The gloom enters with an example of correspondence: “As we glanced again at the May-Pole, a solitary sun-beam is fading from the summit, and leaves only a faint golden tinge, blended with the hues of the rainbow banner.  Even that dim light is now withdrawn”.  Not only were the Puritans dark in appearance, “their darksome figures”, but they were grim and devoid of joy: “So stern was the energy of his aspect, that the whole man, visage, frame, and soul, seemed wrought of iron, gifted with life and thought, yet all of one substance with his head-piece and breast-plate”.  The Puritans effectively end the celebration and at the end of the story, abscond with the young lovers, intent on teaching them how to live a dreary and humorless existence.  “As the moral gloom of the world overpowers all systematic gaiety, even so was their home of wild mirth made desolate amid the sad forest.  They returned to it no more”.  Once again, a pure and passionate love sets the lovers up for nothing but disappointment and despair.

Conclusion

            In both literature and movies, a certain amount of care is taken to properly prepare the audience or the reader for the cycle of desire and loss.  Loves which are depicted as the most pure or passionate are ultimately the loves which are spectacularly devastating in their demise.  Loves that are not as elevated in feeling do not have as far to fall, and are less tragic in the end.  Film noir metaphorically uses light and dark to symbolize the cycle of desire and loss and to portray characters’ emotions, using shadows to show despair or treachery and light to symbolize happiness and joy.  Filtered, patterned, or uneven light shows a character’s sense of being lost, confused, or betrayed.  For as Paul Schrader said in his influential "Notes on Film Noir" essay, "No character can speak authoritatively from a space which is continually being cut into ribbons of light."

            The fact that Romantic authors prized individualism, and favored emotion over reason is evident in their depiction of doomed love.  The most exquisite lovers are depicted as being one-of-a-kind in appearance and character and are therefore more lovable and unforgettable.  Lovers who rely on their passion are doomed to lose their love or die.  The Gothic elements of Romantic writing serve the same purpose that the dark elements of film noir do, to emphasize the emptiness and bleakness that can accompany, cause, or follow the fall of a doomed love.

            With regard to my teaching of these subjects, I feel that I can now more confidently show a corresponding thread among different examples of literature and film noir that seem to all share the same conventions and exploration of the same subject matter.  Because I have interpreted the similarities and differences between these varied examples, I feel that it would be much easier to present the subject matter to a class in an organized format that would be conducive to understanding the development of the themes.

Overall, I have learned that the most exquisite, pure, and passionate examples of love are the ones that will inevitably end in ruin.  What I would like to study next revolves around what causes people to pursue love that is inevitably doomed.  There is a certain lure associated with the forbidden, or the dangerous, or the intensely passionate that is of course related.  However, I would like to study whether this is always viewed as more tempting than the avoidance of unbearable pain or death.  Given the drastic outcomes of doomed love, what encourages people to pursue it?  This is a theme that I would enjoy pursuing in my future studies.

Works Cited

1.      “An Introduction to Neo-Noir.”  http://www.no-sword.com/articles/noir.shtml

2.      Baym, Nina, ed.  The Norton Anthology of American Literature.  New York:  W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 2003.

3.      Bloom, Harold, ed.  Bloom’s Major Short Story Writers.  Broomall, PA: Chelsea House Publishers, 1999.

4.      Bunge, Nancy.  Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Study of the Short Fiction.  New York:  Simon and Schuster Macmillan, 1993.

5.      “Film Noir.”  Http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

6.      “Film Noir.”  Http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir2.html

7.      “Film Noir.”  Http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir3.html

8.      “Film Notes: The English Patient.”  New York State Writer’s Institute.  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/fns00n5.html

9.      Hawthorne, Nathaniel.  “The May-Pole of Merry Mount.”  The Norton Anthology of American Literature.  New York:  W. W. Norton & Co., Inc.  2003.  619-626.

10. “Home Fiction Articles.”  http://www.no-sword.com/articles/noir.shtml

11. Murfin, Ross and Supryia M. Ray, eds.  The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms.  Boston:  Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2003.

12. Poe, Edgar A.  “Ligeia.”  The Norton Anthology of American Literature.  New York:  W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. 2003.  704-714.