Authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William Faulkner have presented gothic literature throughout their writing during the 18th and 19th centuries. Gothic literature is defined as a “distinct modern development in which the characteristic theme is the stranglehold of the past upon the present”(294 Drabble and Stringer). Therefore, to deliver this theme to their readers they used gothic elements to create a “dark” sensation especially in the area of setting. All three authors in their literature portray accursed or decaying settings that are associated to violence, poverty, and human behavior.
It appears authors like Poe, Hawthorne, and Faulkner were drawn to this elements of Gothicism for what it revealed about human psychology and the dark, underlying motives that are being faced in society. As a result, giving their setting a “twist” apart from the physical settings gothic literature is already known for. Edgar Allan Poe was a great gothic literature author during the 18th century. Poe uses gothic elements to portray his stories giving very detailed description so readers can understand each gothic element he presents.
For example, Poe’s short story “TellTale-Heart “. Which was about a man that was so obsessed with his friend’s eye that he decided to kill him to get rid of the eye. Throughout the story he presents gothic elements like darkness, alienation (toward the eye), death (when he kills him), and gloominess. Most of this elements are presented through setting. “His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness (for the shutters were close fastened through fear of robbers), and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily. (Poe 383).
As the old man’s room is being described we can sense a feeling of darkness and gloominess in its setting. He even describes the man’s eye as being something out of this world like a “vulture eye”. He somehow separates the eye from the man which he mentions he loves. And sees it as a supernatural object that he needs to get rid of. In addition to this gothic elements, the author uses the setting of the narrator’s mind. By a way of illustration, the narrator starts the story by clarifying that he is not crazy. Repeatedly.
Giving us the impression that he is. In justifying his actions, the unreliable narrator says He tries to explain the reason behind of why he needs to kill the old man. “One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture- a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell on me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees- very gradually. I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus to rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 42). By telling us it’s because of how frightening his eye looks he thinks its excuse enough to kill him.
Therefore, as readers this gives us the information we need to know Poe is analyzing human psychology and its darkness throughout the narrators mind. Nathaniel Hawthorne was an American novelist who was known as a Dark Romantic short story writer that used Gothicism to convey light vs. darkness in his work. In “Young Goodman Brown” which is about a man named Goodman Brown that starts off by him saying goodbye to his wife saying he has to go somewhere for a day. Brown leaves with faith and full of hope that he then promises to himself that it will only be one night because his wife doesn’t deserve him to go dark.
Therefore, he gets to a forest that very out of the ordinary events happen that make him return as another man. We can say he return home as a hopeless man. Hawthorne uses gothic elements all throughout the setting of the story to describe his experience in the forest. To start off he uses darkness and gloominess to lets us know the sensation he gets when his walking through a forest. “He had taken a dreary road, darkened by all the gloomiest trees of the forest, which barely stood aside to let the narrow path creep through, and closed immediately behind it.
It was all as lonely as could be; and there is this peculiarity in such a solitude, that the traveler knows not who may be concealed by the innumerable trunks and thick boughs overhead” (Hawthorne 1). He also uses the staff which symbolizes something evil because a witch has it. In addition, there’s a gothic element of supernatural manifestation when he find out that this lady he knew to be a good woman was really the witch with the staff. Hawthorne also uses gothic elements in the setting to analyze the darkness human behavior can have.
For example, during the story Hawthorne describes the part where Young Goodman Brown stop’s resisting temptation as a psychological breakdown he is going through. “On he flew among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him. The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of man” (Hawthorne 6). This is the moment he realizes that everyone in his village were dark and his faith on them and his wife was all a lie.
In addition, as he sees everyone else being part of this devilish meeting he loses hope and his faith on people. He breaks down and to the point that his mind goes blank and he wakes up in the forest questioning if this was all a dream. But even if it was he never regains that faith again not even on his last days of life. William Faulkner was an American writer from the 19 century who was known for writing novels and fascinating short stories that inspired many people. One of the most talked about short stories he wrote is “A Rose for Emily”.
This story is full of gothic elements that make readers very intrigued about what the main characters real intentions are. To briefly explain the short story, it was about a woman named Emely who after her father’s dead starts to act like in a questionable way when it takes time for her to accept he father’s death. Also, in her attempt to everything around her (in her home) remain intact. By the end of the story we start to analyze her state of mind when it’s revealed she even killed her one and only love. And not only that but, shes been sleeping ext to the dead body for quite some time.
In this story the gothic elements used by Faulkner are grotesque, including a rather foreboding tone at the beginning when they let us know shes dead, as well as decay of herself and the setting of the story. Also, decomposition when both dead bodies presented in the story are kept from burial for some time. In the setting the author describes her house as if it was in a state of decay. Emely opposing to accept change maes the house look even older. In addition, even Emely herself is in a state of decav.
Faulkner describes this when he says “a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water, and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors stated their errand” (33).
This gives us the sensation that Miss Emely is like a living dead person. Faulkner presented great gothic elements to portray the darkness Miss Emely was living. Going deeper into the story, a setting discussed and analyzed here is Ms. Emely’s mind. It explores her psychological behavior when she copes with death. For instance, when she kills her only love. We see that to avoid being alone again she decides to poison him and lay his body on her bed for him to keep her company every night. Once the body of her love is found the author states “Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head.
One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair” (41 Faulkner). Therefore, we examine how dark her mind really is and we know that she’s not in her “right state of mind”. Authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and William Faulkner have used Gothic elements to convey fear and suspense to their readers. They’ve achieved this by using this elements in their Characters and their settings. In addition, this authors give it a “twist” in the setting by examining human psychology and its twisted actions
