Gender Roles Edgar Allen Poe
Taylor Passantino
American Literature I
Dr. Gene Eller
10/01/2012
Gender Roles According to Edgar Allan Poe In the 1800s there was a widely accepted ideology of what characteristics made up a woman and a man. The man was supposed to be reasonable, rational, and unaffected by his emotions. Women, on the other hand, were the exact opposite: irrational and completely taken over by emotion. Poe did not necessarily reverse these roles in all of his works, but he definitely toyed with them, giving the majority of his characters the characteristics of both men and women of the time. In Poe’s “Annabel Lee” both the persona and his lover seem womanly, “But we loved with a love that was more than a love- I and my Annabel Lee” (lines 9-10). They are both overtaken by such an intense affection and love for one another that it is more than a love. This could mean that they worshipped or were even obsessed with each other. Such an immense passion was typically only seen in woman during this time. Also, the narrator blames the death of Annabel Lee on the angels, who were, “…not half so happy in Heaven” and “went envying her and me” (21-22). Angels do not get jealous. This statement shows the immaturity of the narrator who, as a man, should be sophisticated in all of his ways. Towards the end of the poem another womanly characteristic arises in him, irrationality. Even after the death of Annabel Lee their souls are inseparable. His inability to let go leads the narrator to venture out each night and sleep next to the woman he loves so dearly. In reality, no person of sound mind would ever choose to sleep next to a rotting corpse night after night. In “Ligeia” Poe did indeed flip the roles of men and women. Although Ligeia does have a “...placid cast of beauty” and a certain eloquence in her voice, these seem to be her only womanly characteristics (pg. 644). She is not very emotional; in fact she is even described in the first paragraph as having “adapted to deaden
American Literature I
Dr. Gene Eller
10/01/2012
Gender Roles According to Edgar Allan Poe In the 1800s there was a widely accepted ideology of what characteristics made up a woman and a man. The man was supposed to be reasonable, rational, and unaffected by his emotions. Women, on the other hand, were the exact opposite: irrational and completely taken over by emotion. Poe did not necessarily reverse these roles in all of his works, but he definitely toyed with them, giving the majority of his characters the characteristics of both men and women of the time. In Poe’s “Annabel Lee” both the persona and his lover seem womanly, “But we loved with a love that was more than a love- I and my Annabel Lee” (lines 9-10). They are both overtaken by such an intense affection and love for one another that it is more than a love. This could mean that they worshipped or were even obsessed with each other. Such an immense passion was typically only seen in woman during this time. Also, the narrator blames the death of Annabel Lee on the angels, who were, “…not half so happy in Heaven” and “went envying her and me” (21-22). Angels do not get jealous. This statement shows the immaturity of the narrator who, as a man, should be sophisticated in all of his ways. Towards the end of the poem another womanly characteristic arises in him, irrationality. Even after the death of Annabel Lee their souls are inseparable. His inability to let go leads the narrator to venture out each night and sleep next to the woman he loves so dearly. In reality, no person of sound mind would ever choose to sleep next to a rotting corpse night after night. In “Ligeia” Poe did indeed flip the roles of men and women. Although Ligeia does have a “...placid cast of beauty” and a certain eloquence in her voice, these seem to be her only womanly characteristics (pg. 644). She is not very emotional; in fact she is even described in the first paragraph as having “adapted to deaden
Cited: Poe, Edgar Allan. “Annabel Lee.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th edition. Nina Baym, Robert S. Levine, Julia Reidhead, Carly Frasier Doria. Crawfordsville, IL: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc, 2012. Print. Poe, Edgar Allan. “Ligeia.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th edition. Nina Baym, Robert S. Levine, Julia Reidhead, Carly Frasier Doria. Crawfordsville, IL: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc, 2012. Print.