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David White
November 18, 2011
ENGL 322.01
N. Shankle
The Use of Dark Romanticism (American Gothic)
In Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher and Irving’s Sleepy Hollow
During the dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when
clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on
horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found
myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy
House of Usher. (Baym 1553)
Edgar Allen Poe is one of the most well known authors of American Literature. He is
credited with perfecting the American short story, he wrote American classics that are read
even today and he had a very fashionable and trademark moustache. Along with these
accomplishments, Poe is often called the father of American Gothic. In this poem we will
study just what this term “American Gothic” means, how Poe created, perfected and used it
in his stories, how it affected other authors such as Washington Irving in his work The
Legend of Sleepy Hollow and its affect on the literature world today.
Before we can dissect Poe’s use of American Gothic in his work The Fall of the House
of Usher, we must first come to understand just what American Gothic is. Upon researching
this term, I found that American Gothic is actually a painting done by Grant Wood in 1980.
You are actually quite familiar with this painting even if you don’t recognize its name.
American Gothic features an elderly couple, a man and a woman, standing in front of an
elegant farmhouse. Both of the painting’s subjects look rather droll and sour, the old man is
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even holding a pitchfork. Remember now? I told you that you knew what it was! However,
this painting has little to do with American Gothic that we are talking about today, besides
the fact that the sweeping window of the farmhouse in the background of the picture is of
gothic architecture and that the subjects of the painting are American, Iowan to be precise.
Another word for American Gothic in literature is “dark romanticism”, so we’ll call it that so
that you don’t get confused with Grant Wood’s painting.
Dark romanticism presents people as inherently “prone to sin and self-destruction,
not as inherently possessing divinity and wisdom.” (Wikipedia) Dark romantics, those who
wrote dark romanticism, “adapted images of anthropomorphized evil in the form of Satan,
devils, ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and ghouls.” (Wikipedia) Dark Romantics view the
world as “dark, decaying, and mysterious; when it does reveal truth to man, its revelations
are evil and hellish.” (Wikipedia) G.R. Thompson says the following about dark
romanticism:
Fallen man's inability to fully comprehend haunting reminders of another,
supernatural realm that yet seemed not to exist, the constant perplexity of
inexplicable and vastly metaphysical phenomena, a propensity for seemingly
perverse or evil moral choices that had no firm or fixed measure or rule, and a sense
of nameless guilt combined with a suspicion the external world was a delusive
projection of the mind--these were major elements in the vision of man the Dark
Romantics [juxtaposed] to the mainstream of Romantic thought. (Wikipedia)
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As you can see from Thompson’s quote above, Dark Romanticism is juxtaposed to
Romanticism, a movement that developed in Europe during the second half of the 18th
Century. Romanticism was a movement against the Industrial Revolution and the Age of
Enlightenment, a time when science was taking over and nature was plundered for the
benefit of science and progression. Romantics sought to bring attention of the public back
to the beauty of nature. Romanticism focused on the heroic qualities of mankind and of
pure heroes. Dark Romanticism takes that idea and flips it on its head; it is something of a
dark parody of Romanticism. While the natural world is still beautiful and alluring, it is also
dark and haunted, much like the soul of men. In Dark Romanticism, the protagonist of the
story is not pure, but he is flawed, sometimes fatally; sometimes, the “hero” of a dark
romantic tale, may be viewed as an antagonist if presented in a story in another genre.
So, that is Dark Romanticism, or gothic literature, and when written in American, it
is dubbed American Gothic. Now that we have a firm grasp of what Dark Romanticism is,
we can discuss how Poe uses it in his writings, specifically in The Fall of the House of Usher.
The opening scene of Usher is dark and depressing. Take a moment and turn to the
first page of this essay and read the opening paragraph. Poe sets up the mood by using
words like “dull, dark and soundless” and he establishing the story’s setting in autumn, a
month of magical possibilities hidden within the swirling tornadoes of leaves and
whispering winds. The narrator of Poe’s story is plagued with a sense of dread as he is in
the house, which is comprised of gothic architecture, most notable, the large “vacant eyelike windows”. (Baym 1553) The narrator goes on to describe the house, or manor rather,
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as “bleak”, “desolate” as having “an iciness” about it. Right from the start, we receive, along
with the narrator, a very haunting feeling from this house.
As the story progresses we find that the narrator and Roderick Usher, the owner of
the house and namesake of the story, are childhood friends and that Roderick summoned
the narrator here to keep him company in his illness. While, Roderick is rather pale and
sickly looking, we soon find there is much more to Master Usher’s illness than what we can
physically see. He is plagued and haunted by supernatural visions, even to the point where
he seals his own sister away in a tomb while she is still alive! The story ends with the House
of Usher collapsing in on the Usher siblings as the narrator escapes from the madness of
the House of Usher.
Very dark, yes? There are no redeeming qualities in any of the characters. Even the
sanity of the narrator has been questioned many times by different readers. In this story,
Poe does not give the reader a very positive view of humanity, but rather one plagued by
the darkness in their own souls. In Dark Romanticism, as mentioned before, the evil in
man’s hearts are often manifested in supernatural ways, such as through werewolves or
vampires or, in the case of The Fall of the House of Usher, a tumultuous whirlwind that
dissembles the house and causes it to cave in on the last living members of the line of
Usher.
Maybe this tumultuous whirlwind of an ending doesn’t satisfy you. Maybe you still
doubt the supernatural elements of this story. I don’t doubt that you do. I have heard this
story explained logically as the brother and sister having different diseases, and that Lady
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Madeline’s disease caused her to go into a death-like trance in which Roderick assumed her
dead and interred her. However, in her essay Explanation in “The Fall of the House of Usher”,
Beverly R. Voloshin looks at what had formerly been explained to me logically with a more
supernatural twist. She quotes J.O. Bailey as having compared the “figures of Roderick and
Madeline, thin and pale,” as resembling the victims of vampirism. (Voloshin 421) While “no
blood sucking, no stake through the heart, no priestly exorcism” was shown to implicitly
imply the vampiric theme of the book, the idea of a vampiric presence in the story is still
present, if only vaguely. (422) The haste that Roderick interred his sister away could be
read as Roderick trying to save his own life. “In vampiric lore, the curse of vampirism on a
line entails its destruction, for vampires attack their nearest of kin, and certainly the Ushers
have been dying out, and there is some sort of struggle between Roderick and Madeline.”
(422) So, to save his own life, “Roderick tries to inter his still-living sister in a vault where,
it seems, no light will reach her; thus the sister will be killed and not return to suck out her
brother’s life. For moonlight, and especially the light of the full moon, will revive a vampire.
But the trick doesn’t work, and Roderick is overcome with terror as he anticipates
Madeline’s re-emergence.” (422) Voloshin goes on to explain that Baily believes even the
House itself could be a vampire and that it is “haunted and possessed and feeds on the
vitality of the psychically sensitive Roderick.” (422) This view of Poe’s story would also
explain the narrator’s own fear and “superstition” as he draws near the House as the House
begins to feed on his fear.
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However, what does it all mean? What point did Poe intend to make in this story of
gothic architecture, vampiric sisters and houses with eyes?
It is a widely known fact that Poe had a fancy for degeneration and in her essay, Poe
and Prophecy: Degeneration in the Holy Land and the House of Usher, Molly K. Robey
explores the connection between Poe’s “’aesthetic fascination with decadence and decay’
with the author’s representations of the arabesque and Arab culture”. (Robey 61) Robey
highlights the following statements in the narrator’s description of Roderick Usher, as can
be read on page 1555 of The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume B. “…lips
somewhat thin and very pallid but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate
Hebrew model… The silken hair, too… I could not, even with effort, connect its Arabesque
expression with any idea of simple humanity.” Robey goes on to state that Poe used the
words “Hebrew” and “Arabesque” to denote the passage of decay that Roderick Usher has
gone through; “Hebrew” being used to describe the aspect of his self that is still healthy and
“Arabesque” being used to describe his state of decay.
When Poe published The Fall of the House of Usher in 1839, “a ‘Holy Land mania’ was
taking hold in the United States” as fascination with the Middle East grew and travel
narratives, biblical geographies and magazine articles were published concerning
Palestine. (Robey 62) Poe’s audience would have been very familiar with the words Poe
chose as descriptors, but Poe had a much deeper meaning with the words he chose. In the
monotheistic faiths of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, the Middle East is considered as the
Holy Land, the center of God’s kingdom on Earth. However, the ancient kingdom of Israel
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fell short of God’s glory and God did indeed curse them. In the 1830s, the Holy Land was
languishing under the Islamic reign of the Ottomon Empire. The word “Hebrew” refers to
the old kingdom of Israel as when it was a nation of Jews, the word “Arabesque” refers to
the Holy Land of the 1830s, a languishing ruin of a place. Poe uses these two words in the
description of Roderick Usher to convey the decay of the Holy Land from what it once was
under Hebrew rule to what it had become by 1839.
Veiled deep beneath the mysticism and strangeness of Usher, we find deeper
meanings that pertain to humanity. Even the Holy Land is not kept sacred from the ravages
of this twisted world! Poe uses the themes of dark romanticism to masterfully paint a
picture of a world in decay. However, Poe is not the only author of his time to use dark
romanticism, in fact, he is one of many. Washington Irving used dark romanticism in his
short story The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
In Irving’s Sleepy Hollow, we are introduced to the story’s main character and
protagonist, Ichabod Crane. Ichabod serves as the schoolmaster of the small town of Sleepy
Hollow and he has less than reputable qualities about him. For one, he is a very spindly
man, very juxtaposed to the ideal man of that time, who was supposed to be broad
shouldered and strong, a man of the land, not of the book. Secondly, he was a glutton. On
page 971 on The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume B, Ichabod’s mouth
watered as he looked over Van Tassel’s farm “he pictured to himself every roasting pig
running about with a pudding in its belly, and an apple in its mouth; the pigeons were
snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust…” While this
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scene does indeed seem decadent, the scrawny pedagogue’s thoughts toward a farm that is
not yet his are a little excessive.
As stated above, Ichabod Crane is not the pinnacle vision of man expected during
these times. Ichabod represents a new form of masculinity emerging in America around the
time of the financial Panic of 1819. In his essay Gone Distracted: “Sleepy Hollow”, Gothic
Masculinity and the Panic of 1819, David Anthony explores the connection between
Ichabod, the financial panic and the new masculinity emerging during this time. “The result,
[Tony Ditz] argues, is a precarious’ form of male selfhood, one centered less and less
around an interior form of self-possession and ‘inner being’, and increasingly contingent
upon a commodified and frequently ‘elusive’ form of reputation.” (Anthony 115) Irving
wrote this story and knowing portrayed Ichabod as this new form of masculinity in a town
that was still very much Old America. From how Ichabod is chased away from Sleepy
Hollow, we can assume that Irving either hoped or believed that “Old America” would resist
this new masculinity and the change that people like Ichabod Crane presented.
It would seem that dark romanticism is much deeper than just its creeping mists or
vampiric siblings. Dark romanticism can be used as a critic of social matters and even
matters on the human consciousness in general. The next time you read through an
American Gothic tale, whether it be written by Edgar Allen Poe, Washington Irving or some
other author, look past the gaping windows and the pale protagonists and find the deeper
meaning in the text.
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David White
November 18, 2011
ENGL 322.01
N. Shankle
Works Cited
Anthony, David. “Gone Distracted”: “Sleepy Hollow”, Gothic Masculinity and the Panic of
1819.” Early American Literature 40.1 (2005): 111-144. Academic Search Complete.
Web 13 Nov. 2011
Baym, Nina, Robert S. Levine and Arnold Krupat, ed. The Norton Anthology of American
Literature. 7th ed. New York: Norton and Company, 2007. 965-985,1553-1565. Print.
“Dark Romanticism.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
10 November 2011. Web 13 November 2011.
Robey, Molly K. “Poe and Prophecy: Degeneration In The Holy Land And the House Of
Usher.” Gothic Studies 12.2 (2010):61-69. Academic Search Premiere. Web 13 Nov.
2011
Voloshin, Beverly R. “Explanation In The Fall Of The House Of Usher’.” Studies in Short
Fiction 23.4 (1986): 419. Academic Search Complete. Web 13 Nov. 2011