Assignment
Name : Virani Dhara
Course: M. A. English
Semester: 3
Batch: 2019-2021
Roll No: 4
Submitted to: Smt S. B. Gardi Department of English.
Paper no : 10
Subject: The American Literature
Topic: Gothic elements in Poe's Short stories
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (January 19,1809-October 7,1849) was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre. Credited to be the inventor of the detective fiction genre, Poe has been regarded as one of the earliest American practitioners of the genre of short story. He has also significantly contributed to then emerging genre of science fiction now known also as Sci-fi literature. The first well-known American writer who endeavored to earn bread and butter by writing alone, Poe had to live a financially difficult life and career. He was born as Edgar Poe in Boston, Massachusetts; he was orphaned young when his mother left for heaven shortly after his father abandoned the family. Poe was taken in by John and Frances Allan, of Richmond, Virginia, but he had never been formally adopted by them. He studied at the University of Virginia for one semester but had to leave due to financial scarcity. His publishing career commenced modestly, with an anonymous collection of poems, ‘Tamerlane and Other Poems' (1827), credited only to “ a Bostonian”
Poe channelized his attention to writing prose and spent the next numerous years working for literary journals and periodicals. Gradually he managed to earn repute for his own style of literary criticism. His work compelled him to be a wanderer by moving among several cities, including Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City. In Baltimore in 1835, he tied Wedlock with Virginia Clemm, his 13-year-old cousin. Later, in January 1845 Poe published his poem, ‘The Raven’ which became an immediate hit. His wife died of tuberculosis two years after it’s publication. He began planning to produce his own journal, The Penn through he died before the journal could 7, 1849, at age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unidentified and has been variously attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents. The mystery surrounding Poe's death has led to many myths and urban legends. The reality is that no one knows for sure what happened during the last few days of his life. From alcoholism to rabies, myriad possibilities have been checked for his death time and again. His life was finally an enigma. No wonder why Poe's stories pertain to mysteries of life and death.
Thematic concerns in his stories range from abnormalities of human behavior, untimely and enigmatic death of characters, physical and psychological abnormalities, guit-ridden conscience, incest, cryptic messages, horror caused by ghostly appearances, I explicable incidents like the collapse of a house, hallucinations, detection of crime and culprit, perversion, so on and so forth.
• The Tell-tale Heart
It is horrific tale of an old man with a ‘vulture eye’s who is murdered; yet his heart seems to keep on beating. To the reader's utter shock, he assassinates the old man to get rid of his evil eye. It can be interpreted as the voice of his tormenting conscience which doesn’t allow him a breath of relief. Ultimately, he fails to suppress the crescendo of his nagging soul and blurts out his crime inadvertently.
• The Black Cat
It is a story of guilty murderer who breaks down and reveals himself. It is the height of human perversion that the man who once loved animals so dearly gets infuriated by a tiny gesture of a cat and kills the poor innocent creature. Caught in the tentacles of his own devilish soul, he brings another cat and brutally murdered the cat as well as his own wife. The first person narrative gives it a touch of authenticity. Poe's signature style of gruesome acts and macabre atmosphere makes it one of his most memorable stories.
• The Fall of the House of Usher
The story has a narrator who is invited to see his old childhood friend at his isolated abode. What follows is a series of fantastic ideas- such as Usher believing everything in the house to have ‘sentenced', coupled with the impending death of his sister. Critics have focused on the possibilities of the theme of incest In this story.
• The Purloined Letter
It is an early forerunner of the modern detective story. It tells the tale of a woman of royalty who is blackmailed by a cabinet minister.
• The Cask of Amontillado
It is about Fortunato who has insulted the narrator and now he is out to avenge it. He cajoles Fortunato to come to his home as a connoisseur to his home as a connoisseur to check the veracity of a rare brand of Amontillado. It is a startling story of how much one can get offended by a friend’s taunting remarks and to which extent one can go to avenge his humiliations.
• The Gold Bug
It is a story of William Legrand who was stung by a gold-colored bug. His servant, Jupiter, doubts that Legrand is probably turning insane and seeks help of Legrand's friend, an unnamed narrator. He consents to come to his old friend's home. Legrand pulls the other two into a thrilling enterprise after decoding a secret message that will lead to a buried treasure. With the theme of cryptography, the story is a forerunner of the genre which is now known as detective fiction.
Edgar Allan Poe is considered a father figure for the genre of short story as he was one of the earliest writers of short fiction. Despite being a poet, editor and literary critic, his prime contribution of short story in America. Generations after generation of writers in the world have been inspired and influenced by his theory of short story and by his stories as well. His most recurrent themes deal with questions of death, including it’s physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead and mourning. Poe’s early detective fiction tales featuring C. Auguste Dupin laid the groundwork for future detective in literature.
• Gothic elements in Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories:
What is gothic?
The gothic novel was invented almost single-handedly by Horace Walpole, whose The Castle of Otranto(1764) contains essentially all the elements that constitute the genre. Walpole's novel was imitated not only in the eighteenth century and not only in the novel form, but it has influenced writing, poetry, and even film making up to the present day. It introduced the term "gothic romance" to the literary world. Due to its inherently supernatural, surreal and sublime elements, it has maintained a dark and mysterious appeal.
Gothic literature is devoted primarily to stories of horror, the fantastic, and the “darker” supernatural forces. These forces often represent the “dark side” of human nature—irrational or destructive desires.
Generally speaking, gothic literature delves into the macabre nature of humanity in its quest to satisfy mankind's intrinsic desire to plumb the depths of terror.
The key features of gothic texts are:
1)the appearance of the supernatural,
2)the psychology of horror and/or terror,
3)the poetics of the sublime,
4) a sense of mysteryland dread
5) the appealing hero/villain,
6) the distressed heroine, and
7) strong moral closure (usually at least)
GOTHIC ELEMENTS IN ADGER ALLAN POE'S SHORT STORIES
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the famous Gothic poet, critic and writers. Poe’s writing is always characterized by the elements of Gothic such as brooding atmosphere, thrilling exploration of characters in various states of extremity, sinister, violence and insanity. In this thesis, I will describe the three main characteristics of Gothic. They are mystery, horror and madness of the character.
Horror
Horror is the usual but not necessarily the main ingredient of Gothic fiction. Horror story focuses on creating a feeling of fear. It takes big part in forming the body of folk literature. They can have supernatural elements and features such as ghosts, witches or vampires or they can address more realistic psychological fears.
Edgar Allan Poe raised the horror story to a level far above mere entertainment through their skilful intermingling of reason and madness, eerie atmosphere and everyday reality.
His tales are short, intense, and sensational and have the power to inspire horror and terror. He depicts extremes of fear, suffering and insanity and, through the operations of evil, gives us glimpses of hell. Among his most notable horror stories are The Fall of the House of Usher (1839), The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841), A Descent into the Maelstrom(1841), The Masque of the Red Death (1842), The Pit and the Pendulum, The Black Cat and The Tell-tale Heart(all 1843), The Case of M. Valdemar (1845) and The Cask of Amontillado (1846).
• Madness of character:
Madness of character is one of the Gothic elements, which is almost always appears in Gothic fiction. It is a change of the character’s attitude, which is influenced by evil thought, crime, superstitious belief, and obsession and so on. According to a website about elements of the Gothic Novel, usually the characters that get mad are male characters while the women are in distress. As an appeal to the pathos and sympathy of the reader, the female characters often face events that leave them fainting, terrified, screaming, suffering and destroyed by the madness that consumes the male character. It is also a characteristic of Gothic element.
Mystery
The mystery story is an age-old popular genre and is related to several other forms. Elements of mystery may be present in narratives of horror or terror, pseudoscientific fantasies, crime stories, accounts of diplomatic intrigue, affair of codes and ciphers and secret societies, or any situation involving an enigma. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Gold Bugs a classic example of one perennially popular type of mystery.
The Weather
The Weather is used in a number of ways and forms, some of these being:
Mist-This convention in Gothic Literature is often used to obscure objects by reducing visibility or to prelude the insertion of a terrifying person or thing;
Storms-These frequently accompany important events. Flashes of lightning accompany revelation; thunder and downpours prefigure the appearance of a character or the beginning of a significant event e.g thunder precedes the entrance of the witches in ‘Macbeth‛;
Sunlight-represents goodness and pleasure; it also has the power to bestow these upon characters.
Setting in a castle
The action takes place in and around an old castle, sometimes seemingly abandoned, sometimes occupied. The castle often contains secret passages, trap doors, secret rooms,trick panels with hidden levers, dark or hidden staircases, and possibly ruined sections.
An atmosphere
Poe is also known for creating compelling atmosphere in all of his stories. As a literary element, atmosphere is the combination of a specific setting and tone. Poe often creates an eerie or spooky atmosphere through setting stories in remote places (and old houses or cabins) and adding to the already spooky place bad weather and illness. Combined, these elements are common to many of his stories and make the stories uniformly dark and mysterious. "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "the black cat" are two easy examples of atmosphere as a predominant literary element.
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