In the Darkness of Gothic Stories
Vivian Wang
#1
Mr. de Groof
IEP Composition
1/3/2014
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Gothic stories, also known as Dark Romanticism, are fiction stories that featured
Gothic elements. The stories mostly take place in huge Renaissance-kind of medieval
architectures and are often followed with dark scenes, suspensions, horror conditions,
supernatural events or abnormal people who have abilities that normal people don’t
have. Edgar Allan Poe is one of the famous writers of Gothic stories. Successfully in
creating the feeling of horror and fear throughout his words and is also considered as
the inventor of detective stories. On the other hand, Nathaniel Hawthorne added morals
allegories, imageries and symbolism in his works; however, less fearful descriptions
were found in the settings and plots. Both Poe and Hawthorne used a variety of gothic
elements in their stories, such as setting, supernatural elements and imagery to create
suspense in their works.
In Poe’s story, ‘’The Fall of The House of Usher,’’ Poe started the suspension
right from the start with the setting of the story. First of all, the outside setting of the
mansion ‘’Dark, dull skies’’ ‘’cold winter, stormy days’’ ‘’the bleak walls’’ ‘’ the
vacant eye-like window’’ ‘’lifeless, decayed trees’’ ‘’spooky lake’’ and ‘’Tremendous,
castle-like house.’’ The surroundings created strong pessimistic feelings according to
the description of the narrator: ‘’ there was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the
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heart,’’ which foreshadowed something ominous because of the terrifying atmosphere
that spread clearly through Poe’s words. The setting of inside part of the mansion
creates even more mysterious and horror feelings, scary tapestries that hanged on the
wall, the pressure that disseminate from the objects in the house, the ebon blackness of
hallway floor, the carvings of the ceilings, the amounts of bedrooms. Most of all, the
family tomb under the house had created tremendous fear towards the audiences by
making the audiences to predict the ghostly and supernatural events that will happen
next. Similarly, in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ‘’Rappaccini’s Daughter,’’ the setting took
place in Padua, a major city in northern Italy, lies a castle-like, huge but old mansion
with a mysterious garden in it. ‘’Desolate and ill-furnished apartment’’ and the
question from the old lady - ‘’do you find this old mansion gloomy?’’ it is obvious that
the mansion creates a creepy dark feeling that even the inhabitants in the mansion has
the same thought of it. Despite the gloomy, spooky house, most of the story takes action
in the poisonous garden where Beatrice is used to living in and where Giovanni and
Beatrice meet each other. By the same token, the setting of the two stories were alike,
both happens in the castle-like ancient dark mansions which brings the ominous
thoughts of people, yet Poe focused in the mansion where Usher lives, the house that he
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barely leaves and the plots were all set in a closed space while Hawthorne’s story took
place in ‘’more-opened areas’’ like the garden.
Moreover, the characters and the supernatural events that took place in the stories
also provided more suspense to the plot. In ‘’The Fall of The House of Usher’’ The old
tradition of the family – ‘’the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had
always, with very trifling and very temporary variation,’’ which indicates the sickness
thoughts of the ancient Usher family, also created doubts on the Ushers’ way of living
since they only mate with the Ushers. Roderick is the descendants of the Usher family,
from the description of his pale colorless face and the mental illness which he, himself
wrote in the letter, we can tell that Roderick is somewhat mentally and physically sick;
however, it is obvious that he didn’t want to mention the cause of his malady, Madeline, Roderick’s sister. Her character creates fear and suspense because of the
uncertainty appears and doubts of her identity and her mysterious actions. Roderick’s
fear made him felt insecure about Madeline, Even though she is dead, but somehow
according to Roderick, Madeline returns after he pushed her down and even when she
is buried underground. The supernatural events occur when the ‘’dead’’ Madeline came
‘’alive’’ and return to find his brother. The trepidation and fear at last caused Roderick
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to death. His mental illness became worse, nightmares, creepy sounds that Roderick
hear during the stormy night, "Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the
door!’’ is one of the main reasons to Roderick’s death, frequent illusions of Madeline’s
appearance. Whether Madeline has return after her death or not, we can infer that his
guilt of killing her sister and the images that Roderick sees has great effect on his
death.
The supernatural event of Rapaccini’s daughter occurs on Beatrice, the daughter of
Doctor Rappacini. Beatrice’s immune to poisonous plants made her a forbidden
‘’object’’ but also a marketable ‘’target’’ for the men. Her father used her as an
experiment tries different poisons on her in order to gain his knowledge on medication.
Giovanni, a student who falls in love with Beatrice because of her flawless appearance;
however, his love towards Beatrice is somehow shallow. Another professor, Dr.
Baglioni used Beatrice as a weapon to criticize his rival, Dr. Rapaccini, he gave
Giovanni a bottle of silver liquid, telling him that it can cure any kinds of poison.
Unfortunately, the silver liquid at last killed Beatrice, - her death, is the result of the
ambition of the three men. The selfishness of the three at last caused the tragedy of
death. Throughout the whole story, the events takes place in the poisonous garden, the
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innocent Beatrice became a victim of these three men, the outside world is unknown to
her. Despite that she is poisonous outside, she actually has a naïve, innocent heart.
From these annotations of the supernatural events that both writers wrote in their stories,
Poe’s supernatural events are mostly related to ghosts, spirits which people become
when dead, Yet Hawthorne’s were more likely related to a more realistic, more
scientific incident that isn’t about ghosts.
From my point of view, both authors used great imagery and suspense in the plots
to edit their stories. Without doubt, in the story ‘’the Fall of the House of Usher,’’ Poe
is more successful in creating the atmosphere of horror. By using vivid languages and
extravagant words, the audiences could picture the scene of the whole gothic story and
feel the frightening atmosphere that the gothic elements had delivered.