An Analysis Of Sexuality In Gothic Literature

The author gives a description of short story writer, poet and critic Edgar Allan Poe's place in the history of the U.S. is presented. As literary editor of "Graham's Lady's" and "Gentleman's Magazine," Poe became a major figure in American letters. Although his heavy drinking cost him his job, Poe continued to write in a cool style that was the polar opposite of his romantic poems and horror stories. Thomas Fleming gives details for his main idea that Poe’s works are widely known due to his technique of writing. Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Black Cat” is perfect examples of his suspenseful writing technique that grabs his audience, holds on to readers throughout the entire story and leaves the audience on the edge of their seats. Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are always thought of as being suspenseful and extremely dramatic. To achieve the suspense in Edgar Allen Poe’s, he uses gothic imagery to help add an unknown, eerie effect. The author, Thomas Fleming, gives an example with “…with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable

Upon first glance, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” may appear to simply trace the course of a woman as she impulsively engages in the passion of a one-night stand. Yet, from a psychoanalytic lens, elements in the sonnet function to inform a different interpretation, one that transcends the manifest content of the poem to suggest that the speaker’s distress stems from her repressed homosexuality.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder: there can be many different perspectives seen in a poem. One individual could read a poem as depressing and another can perceive it as a new beginning. One’s views rests on individual perspectives. For example, Edgar Allen Poe’s writing is dark and controversial. In my essay I will argue that Poe was not in his right mind and he was driven mad with evidence throughout his short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”.

Women have a profound role in not only the society, but in all facets of culture. Their impact can be seen/felt in music, fashion, and even literature. After reading the short stories from the last few weeks, it has become more apparent that women truly encompass a definite role as well in gothic fiction. As a result, this paper will seek to analyze and define the roles of women in two (2) prominent gothic fiction pieces: “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

This essay will discuss the themes in Poe’s writing that mirror his personal life and, in addition, the fear and supernatural motivators for his characters. First, I will discuss Poe’s background and explore how he became best known as a poet for his tales of mystery and macabre.

The Gothic genre often reproduces a conservative paranoid structure when it comes to homophobia and other moral panics over sex (Hanson, Pg. 176). Eve Sedgwick depicts this in her work, ‘Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosexual Desire’ as she discusses how these ideas (paranoia) are represented within the Gothic, in what she describes as the ‘homosocial’ in reference to male bonds (Sedgwick, Pg. 86). She also discusses how bonds between men exist as the backbone of social form and forms (Sedgwick, Pg. 86). Thus, a consequence of said structure is the ability to define, control, and manipulate male bonds, which in turn becomes an inexplicably powerful instrument of social control (Sedgwick, Pg. 86). Thus, homosexuality is represented as the ‘unspeakable’ within the Gothic, as it has been defined, controlled, and manipulated to be such though social control. Therefore, this paper will discuss how ‘homosocial’ bonds between men, are used as a tool in social control and used as a way to produce paranoia and moral panic, thus in reference to the Gothic, these forms epitomize homosexuality as the ‘unspeakable,’ especially through homosexual representations within the contexts of ghosts and haunted houses.

He argues that psychologists as early as Freud have determined the importance of a person’s sexual identity in defining a person’s psychological make-up and then points out that it is impossible for a reader to divorce their sexuality from a reading of any text, that a reader brings to a text the entirety of his experiences and identity and therefore, he brings his sexual identity to the reading of a text also. I use the male pronoun at this point in this paper because the author of the article examined the homosexual male reader, which is separate from either the heterosexual identity and also separate from a lesbian identity because "the homosexual male, in spite of his ‘difference’ is still a biological man, and very importantly, he is a socially constructed man, with all that this implies for phallocentrism and patriarchy" (73). Therefore, it can be seen, a reader can neither divorce their sexual identity nor their gender identity from a reading of a text; in fact, because these factors play a major role in a reader’s psychological make-up, they also play a major role in a

While reading “Young Goodman Brown” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, I couldn’t help but feel a constant overwhelming sense of dread. The root of this could have come from the story’s dark setting deep within an “haunted forest” or from Brown’s mysterious “Devil”-esque companion. While I read, another story came into my mind; the story of the “Fall of the House of Usher” by Edgar Allan Poe. In Poe’s tale the same heart pounding emotion can be felt as he describes the reunion of two friends within “the House of Usher.” With the manors “eye-like windows” and “sorrowful impression,” Poe wastes no time in setting the Gothic mood. Through their distinct writing styles Hawthorne and Poe establish a common Gothic theme within their stories.

For it is only within the context of this nightmare that one can explain why “Usher,” occupies such an important place in the 19th century development of the Gothic genre. With great attention to economy of expression and unity of effect, this pattern would be revisited by countless other Gothic stylists” (Dougherty 6). This means that Poe used the fantasy of impending doom in “The Fall of the House of Usher” to change it from being just an upper class dream, to a tale of horror which brought together some of the political situations in the nineteenth century such as those of race and class. Hawthorne and Poe successfully incorporated gothic elements in their writing which provides greater insight to the meaning and interpretation of their works.

“The Fall of the House of Usher (1939)”, arguably Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short story, is a tale centered around the mysterious House of Usher and its equally indiscernible inhabitants. These subjects are plagued with physical and mental degradation – the Usher siblings suffer from various abnormal ailments and unexplained fears, while the house itself seems to be tethering on the edge of collapse. The gothic elements in the story are distributed generously, and the plot is increasingly ridden with the supernatural as it progresses.

Edgar Allan Poe has a distinctive and dark way of writing (Poe & Kennedy, pp.22). His mysterious style of writing appeals to passion and sentimentality. Poe’s most prominent works of fiction are gothic. His stories tend to have similar recurring theme of either death, lost love or both. Poe’s psychologically thrilling stories examining the depths of the humanoid psyche earned him much fame throughout his lifetime and after his death. And this distinctive style of writing made him possess his own style of wiring (Arbor, pp.71). There is a psychological concentration which is an important characteristic of Poe’s literatures, particularly the tales of horror that encompass his best and well-known works, such as The Black Cat and The Raven which

In living his life and even in his manner of negotiating death, Poe was a captive of the imp of perversity. But with art as his shield, the realms of perversity became a haven for his troubled soul. . . Perversion is a complex strategy of mind, with its unique principles for regulating the negotiations between desire and authority. To achieve its aims, the perverse strategy employs mechanisms of mystification, concealment and illusion, devices characteristic of the tales of Edgar Allen Poe. The perverse strategy is, as

When looking at a piece of literature through a psychological approach it is easy to apply Sigmund Freud’s theories of the id, ego, and superego, which focus on conscious and unconscious behavior. When analyzing many of Poe’s works, critics tend to look through a psychological lens. Specifically in Poe’s The Black Cat. Some critics believe that Poe’s alcoholism is reflected in the piece, but many, such as James W. Gargano “advised the tales readers to avoid the biographical pitfall of seeing Poe and the first-person narrator of The Black Cat as ‘identical literary twins’” (Piacentino 1). It is due to his childhood that Poe’s narrator in The Black Cat subconsciously places animals before humans, thus leading to him to murder his wife.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, sets a tone that is dark, gloomy, and threatening. His inclusion of highly descriptive words and various forms of figurative language enhance the story’s evil nature, giving the house and its inhabitants eerie and “supernatural” qualities. Poe’s effective use of personification, symbolism, foreshadowing, and doubling create a morbid tale leading to, and ultimately causing, the fall of (the house of) Usher.

The psychology or mental state of the narrator of Edger Allan Poe’s short story “The Black Cat” is a broad area to analyze. The human mind is one of the most articulate system that is made in this world. It’s difficult to understand everybody’s actions and doings because everyone possesses their own unique patterns of thinking. Today, the world of psychology is hard at work to try to figure out the best answers to the questions we have about the mid. Even before the subject of psychology was produced, some writers loosely described the psychology and everything that goes into it. Edger Allan Poe was one of them who portrayed his characters in way that the reader could look further in to their actions and their behaviors to understand the mind better. Poe seemed to have an understanding and fascination for the human, and “The Black Cat” is one of them. The protagonist of the story and his psychology has brought into light in this short story. In this work, Edgar Allan Poe presents the main character, the protagonist, who becomes victim to many complex mind issues such as guilt, perversity, superstitions, revenge, and reverse psychology.