Poe’s Obsession with Death
A generally gloomy and avoided subject, Edgar Allan Poe embraces death with a fanatical attitude, incorporating the idea in many of his classic short stories. Poe plays on fear, and the human race’s various emotions. He also touches on people’s insane dedication to avoid death. By writing short stories that do not contain a lovable protagonist and a happy ending like most, Poe made his name famous. Poe used his knowledge of the truths of death and its effect on man to create skin chilling, sometimes horrific stories. By comparing many of Poe’s stories side by side, readers can see his obvious obsession with death. The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of Red Death, and The Fall of the House of Usher exhibit his fascination exceptionally. Poe employs bleak imagery and pungent diction to delve the reader into a world where everything embodies death.
In The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, Poe shows extreme empathy toward the human fear of death. M. Valdemar succumbs to the narrator’s wishes to experiment on him with hypnotism in the period closest to his decease. His enthusiasm in participating in an activity that may prolong his death can be directly related to his fear of death itself. Valdemar states himself in the story, when the narrator finally decides to initiate the experiment, “I fear you have deferred it too long” (Poe, “Facts in the Case” 3). This comment can be seen as Valdemar’s fear that he may not have as good a chance of living longer now as he had if the narrator had commenced the experiment sooner. Like all people, Valdemar wished to find an alternative besides death. Of course, there is no other option. Though many try to escape death, no one has or will ever succeed. As portrayed in The Masque of Red Death as well, all things answer to time. Even Death cannot conquer time and deceive it, in the end all things die. The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar contained large amounts of imagery, much like every Poe story. The most vivid description was when the narrator described what Valdemar did as a reaction to one of the repetitions to his question. “The eyes rolled themselves slowly open, the pupils disappearing upwardly; the skin generally assumed a cadaverous hue, resembling not so much parchment as white paper…the upper lip, at the same time, writhed itself away from the teeth…while the lower jaw fell with an audible jerk, leaving the mouth widely extended, and disclosing in full view the swollen and blackened tongue” (Poe, “Facts in the Case” 5). This narrative could strike chills into the hearts of the strongest men. Just the thought that Poe can describe something so vividly, that he was comfortable talking of death and how it looked, a topic typically avoided, in such a nonchalant manner. Like Poe, the narrator seems to have an intense fascination on death and the effects it may or may not have on mesmerism. Not many spend their days wondering whether or not hypnosis is possible in the time of death and even have a plan to execute how they will find out whether it is. This is just as odd and parallels with Poe’s fascination with death.
However, The Black Cat plays on superstition, ironically enough. Although the narrator states that he is not saying that he is certain the events of the story correlate, by the end it is evident that he was sure that the circumstances were due to the sin of killing his cat Pluto. The story definitely contains all gothic elements, especially the element of macabre and madness. (Not only does the man gouge the eye of his cat out and murder his wife with an axe to the head, he cares more about finding and executing the cat than worrying about the burden he should be carrying on his soul for the murder of his wife.) The passion Poe shows for writing about death and the coming of death is well shown through his immaculate description of how the narrator felt when the police looked in his cellar for the fourth time, saying that his “heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence” (“The Black Cat” 6). Poe also goes on in vivid description of the noise the cat made when they found it in the wall of the cellar. Only a man so attracted to death as Poe was could describe such scenarios as this.
The Pit and the Pendulum was easily the most grotesque. Not only did it play on fear, fear of turning into the victim, but it hinted at another fear seen most in young children. In the earlier portion of the story, Poe writes “My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me” (“The Pit and the Pendulum” 2). Although it is not directly stated, Poe is playing on the fear of the dark. It is not so much the fear of the dark itself, but the fact that no one knows what is in the black, dark room. There is no way that the narrator would have known the pit was in the room had he not valiantly chosen to explore the room. This directly connects with Poe’s use of the gothic element of “The New Frontier.” Poe’s use of imagery is also very clear in The Pit and the Pendulum. “(The rats) leaped in hundreds upon my person…They pressed – they swarmed upon me in ever accumulating heaps. They writhed upon my throat; their cold lips sought my own…” (Poe, “Pit and the Pendulum” 6). While reading, readers can practically visualize the rats swarming the man’s body and clambering up and down his arms, legs, chest, and even his neck and face.
Poe’s extreme use of symbolism is shown in The Masque of Red Death. When the partiers charge the figure shrouded in garments from the grave he “stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock” (Poe, “Red Death” 6) in the black compartment of the palace. Eventually the figure ends up actually being a personification of the Red Death and all the people Prince Prospero had brought in to protect end up dying. The symbolism shown here is one of the hierarchies of what rules over what. Though the partiers, humans, answer to Death, Death will always answer to time. Even when all the people on the planet are dead and Death no longer has a purpose, there will always be time to rule over the rest of the planet. Of course the story has a tang of sardonic humor considering Prince Prospero locked all of the nobility in his palace trying to save them, but by doing so he sealed them into their grave. The Red Death is known today as the plague, which led to the dissolution of approximately ¼ of the European population. Poe’s obsession with death allowed him to find pleasure in writing a story about the decease of hundreds of people and a disease that killed a large fraction of the European population.
The Fall of the House of Usher exemplifies Poe’s obsession at its finest. Not only is the story the epitome of gothic, but its imagery and diction are profound. When describing the emaciated figure of Lady Madeline of Usher after breaking free from her coffin, readers can practically see the Lady Madeline. Likewise, in the narrator’s statement, “There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame” (Poe, “House of Usher” 18), Poe incorporates the gothic element of the macabre. Poe also does a spectacular job of setting the scene. His first sentence saying it was a “…dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens…” (Poe, “House of Usher” 1). The setting Poe creates is the embodiment of what death would look like if it were to be a day. Only a man intensely passionate about death could set a scene so perfectly fit for death and destruction.
All of this considered it is difficult to argue that Poe did not have an obsession with death. Not only does he use bone-shaking imagery in every story, but he uses similar diction in all five stories. In three specifically he uses the word “gossamer.” The definition for gossamer is a word used to refer to something very light, thin, and insubstantial. The definition is also a fine, filmy substance consisting of cobwebs spun by small spiders, which is seen especially in autumn. Used in The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Black Cat, the word gossamer is used to help set the tone of the story. Word such as agony, melancholy, and insufferable gloom (all seen throughout the five stories) also help set the dreary tone of the story. Poe’s word choice is dictated by his obsession with death and all things dark and eerie.
Poe’s love for the death can be seen through his diction and imagery in his short stories. His obsession with the uncomfortable topic allows him to tap into human minds and touch on every emotion, but specifically fear. By playing on people’s fear of death and their want to prolong it, Poe is able to create depth to his short stories. Through his diction, Poe is able to set the tone of his story which is typically twisted or melancholy. With his imagery Poe is able to create vivid images that send chills up reader’s spines. No man that did not love death would possess the ability to write so passionately about death as Edgar Allan Poe does.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Poe, Edgar A. "The Black Cat." PoeStories.com. Ed. Roberto Giordano. N.p., 1845. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.
Poe, Edgar A. "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar." PoeStories.com. Ed. Roberto Giordano. N.p., 1845. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.
Poe, Edgar A. "The Fall of the Usher." PoeStories.com. Ed. Roberto Giordano. N.p., 1839. Web. 8 Mar. 2012.
Poe, Edgar A. "The Masque of Red Death." PoeStories.com. Ed. Roberto Giordano. N.p., 1850. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.
Poe, Edgar A. "The Pit and the Pendulum." PoeStories.com. Ed. Robert Giordano. N.p., 1850. Web. 10 Mar. 2012.
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