Poe as a Gothic Writer

Early horror literature came out of a mix of the upcoming of romanticism, the decline of the enlightenment, and most of all from early gothic traditions themselves. Neo-gothic interests greatly sparked the minds of many 18th century writers, Edgar Allen Poe being one of them. Poe is classified as an American Horror author of the romanticism era who wrote many short stories and poems of weird, gloomy, and haunting concepts. The ideas behind many of his stories relate to the minds of many people who have felt like Poe’s stories imitate. In Poe’s famous, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Tell-Tale Heart”, and “The Black Cat” there are many ways in which this crazy, seemingly insane writer uses the settings, mood, architecture, irrationalities, psychotic ideas, and supernatural characteristics to be described as a Gothic writer. Poe uses many Gothic elements in his story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” that show how he used Gothicism in his writing. The first sentence of the story reveals a setting of a “dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens” (Poe 689). Already the narrator is describing a dismal, gloomy surrounding which has the potential to send a feeling of discomfort to the reader. Poe follows this with an equally dreary description of the House of Usher by saying that the house has “bleak walls,” “vacant eye-like windows,” and “rank sedges” (Poe 689). These descriptions show the ruin and decay that has taken effect to this mansion of the Usher. The house is not the only thing described in this way, he also speaks of how the trees around the place have decayed. As the narrator enters into the House of Usher he finds the inside of the house just as spooky as the outside as he is walking to the room where his old friend is waiting and even as he talks with Usher he finds out that Usher is frightened of the house himself. The sickness of Roderick’s sister illustrates a mysteriously gothic illness as she has been diagnosed as a “partially cataleptical character” and is described as “a gradual wasting away of the person” (Poe 693). The image obtainable by these characteristics shows an example of the wasting away of bodies which is part of early Gothicism. The ending of this story is the most exciting part as after they have buried Madeline, Usher and the narrator are hearing noises as if Madeline has escaped from her grave, “the rending of the coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault” (Poe 701). As the two men wait suddenly Roderick shrieked, ‘“Madman! I tell you that she now stands at the door!”’(Poe 701). Sure enough Madeline stands at the door as “the huge antique panels……threw back”.(Poe 701). At this point Poe is showing the Gothic effect of ghosts/spirits. “The Fall of the House of Usher” features many things needed to make a Gothic tale such as, a haunted house, a dreary landscape, mysterious sickness, and a gloomy day. “The Tell-Tale Heart” is another spooky Gothic Horror story written in the 19th century by Edgar Allen Poe. It is a story of a corrupted young man who is driven insane by an old man’s eye. The matter of this concept should show well enough alone the gothic nature of this story. The unnamed narrator is convinced it is the eye of this old man with which he lives. The eye is described as “the eye of a vulture- a pale blue eye, with a film over it” (Poe 702). The narrator shows a fear of this old man’s eye saying, “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold” and tells us he has made up his mind to “take the life of the old man” (Poe 702). The narrator shows his seriousness of this issue as the story continues and he peeks through the door at the old man for several nights. Finally on the eighth night the narrator finally decides to take the old man’s life. The narrator wakes the old man as he mistakenly slips his thumb on the lantern as entering the room and the old man groans what is described as a “groan of mortal terror” (Poe 703). After waiting a long time the narrator unveils the lantern to see the eye of the old man and again shows his terror of the eye as it “chilled the very marrow” in his bones (Poe 703). Poe demonstrates the horror and suspense very well with his use of bodily and emotional imagery. After finally taking action and killing the old man to rid of this unbearable eye Poe demonstrates the real idea of Gothic horror as the narrator disassembles the body of the old man. After this the narrator feels as if he has taken care of his crazy fear of this man’s eye but ends up driving himself crazy with the thoughts of what he has done. The illustration of chaos portrayed in the mind of the narrator in this story creates a story of chaotic suspense once again showing the Gothic nature of Poe’s writing. “The Black Cat” is a story of a man with uncontrollable fury and rage. The title itself is a symbol that often shows evil and death, and to add to that the cat’s name is Pluto which originates from a god of the underworld. Poe shows the narrators first act of rage one night walking home “much intoxicated” (Poe 706). The narrator felt as if the cat was avoiding him and attempting to grasp the cat gets bitten. The narrator describes the feeling coming over him saying, “I knew myself no longer” and grabs the cat and “deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket” (Poe 706). This action demonstrates a solid act of gruesome violence. The cat is an example of the fear and terror being portrayed at this point in the story. Later on in the story the narrator hangs the cat, afterwards the narrator’s house burns down all except for one wall which has “the figure of a gigantic cat” with a rope around its neck (Poe 707). Later on another black cat “fully as large as Pluto” came to the narrator and reminded him of Pluto. Both the first and second cat can be used as examples of supernatural events with the second cat also serving as a punishment to the narrator because it reminds him of what he had done to Pluto. Lastly, the narrator becomes angered at the second black cat and begins to swing an axe at the cat but his wife catches him and in his anger he “buried the axe in her brain” (Poe 710). Through using all these symbolic events Poe has given the world another Gothic story portraying the effects of alcoholism, perverseness, murder, and anger. One thing that makes Poe such an effective writer is the imagery he chooses to express the feelings and actions meant to me taken in by the reader. It seems as if every story Poe has takes the reader into a world of gruesome, chaotic, and supernatural events. From the examples shown in this text it is very clear why Poe is known as an American Gothic writer.