Collected Stories, Edgar Allan Poe

Although Poe writes in the Romantic Gothic tradition, it is quite difficult to discuss American Gothic literature without acknowledging Poe. Thus, I payed close attention to his short fiction in an effort to derive certain quintessential Gothic elements that manifest throughout his works. For the sake of the blog, I will only focus on two: "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Tell-Tale Heart." 

Throughout Poe's writing, the fundamental themes of madness, moral degradation, violence, and decay evolve in a pronounced fashion. The plots of his short stories are not, by any means, chimerical; instead, Poe's fiction focuses on marginal scenarios that are well within the realm of hypothetical probability. 

Poe's attention to the psychological torment of his characters represents a nexus between each of the aforementioned short stories. In "The Tell-Tale Heart", the narrator suffers the repercussions of his actions psychologically through the unavoidable braying of his victim's beating heart, which continually grows in magnitude. Likewise, in "The Fall of the House of Usher" Roderick's hypochondria, hyersynthesia, and existence inside the Usher estate have contributed to his mental regression. Additionally, as evident in the title of the work, his mental illness is also hereditary. Even with the emergence of the narrator--Roderick's young boyhood friend--Roderick's anxious demeanor cannot be quelled. The narrator's tenure at the Usher estate also causes the narrator to become frighteningly agitated, and unreliable in his narration, illustrating the fact that both both the Usher estate and Roderick's blood-line have detrimental psychological effects on Roderick. 

Throughout the short stories, violence also represents another Gothic theme that is well-represented in Poe's fiction. In "The Tell-Tale Heart", the narrator chops up his victim's body and hides it under the boards of the floor. In "The Fall of the House of Usher" Madeline reappears, post-burial, in a trace-like state, and kills Roderick by falling upon him. The theme of death appears many times throughout Poe's Gothic works in varying forms: premeditated, crimes of passion, and purely random.  

The oppression of women also occurs quite often in Poe's works. As subordinates, who were bound to Victorian societal ideals, the desires and necessities of women were virtually ignored. Poe reinforces this point throughout his short stories through his inclusion of helpless young women who face various forms of strife. Madeline Usher is a prime example of such. Madeline suffers not only from mental illness, but also from catalepsy. When Roderick finds her in a catatonic state, he immediately makes arrangements for her to be buried in the family vault; he believes that she is dead. A basic medical examination would confirm that Madeline is in a catatonic state; however, his actions deem her as a disposable accessory. She appears dead; therefore, she must be dead. This attitude, typically, illustrates the attention that women received as a whole, especially during this time. 

Although most Gothic elements in Southern Gothic fiction are veiled in comparison with the Gothic tradition of Poe, many interesting parallels can be made between the two different Gothic styles.