Elements Of American Gothic Literature: Intense Emotion In Moby Dick

Gothic Literature is characterized by elements of fear, horror, death, and gloom, as well as romantic elements, such as nature, individuality, and high

Would you read a book that was completely literal, no other meaning, totally boring? NO of course you would not! In this essay I will be examining ®The Raven®, ® The Tell Tale Heart®, and ®Annabel Lee®. Edgar Allan Poe uses literary elements to establish mood in his works.

Gothic literature contains many thematic elements such as horror, death, and even at times romanticism. This type of literature incorporates various different elements, in order to evoke the emotions of terror. There are many authors who are extremely talented and are still remembered and read in classrooms today. These are authors like Edgar Allan Poe, best known for his mysterious poems and short stories, Richard Matheson and Horacio Quiroga, who have all incorporated psychological problems and violence themes in their short stories in order to fascinate the readers and add suspense to the story. These three gothic authors correlate the themes of violence and the psychological/ mental issues in order to depict anticipation and terror

Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher is a good example of Gothic Literature because of the characters in psychological and physical torment. For example, in Poe’s story, “The writer spoke of acute bodily illness-of a mental disorder which oppressed him-and of an earnest desire to see me,” (Poe 2). Roderick, being the writer, wrote to the narrator to come visit him because he is

Gothic Literature is characterized by elements such as fear, horror, death, and gloom. Most in which is portrayed in “The Picture of Dorian Gray.” How do we know gothic is ‘gothic’ though? Sometimes it is characterized by the setting other times by the supernatural manifestations. There are many ways to discover wether it gothic literature or not, taking “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” for example.

Due to his experiences a sailor, Melville commonly wrote his stories based on life at sea. His common theme of the sea attracted many literate people of the Renaissance. However, Melville´s common theme of life at sea is not the only factor which contributed to his style of writing. Herman Melville used many different rhetorical strategies to emphasize significance in many of his pieces. The use of similes, metaphors, and imagery supply Melville´s stories with various ways to describe certain characters or things. Alliteration, repetition, and onomatopoeia all come together to create specific effects on words and phrases in Melville´s works. The way Melville used parallel structure, malapropisms, and long, drawn out sentences reveals the variety of ways he has structured certain stories throughout his career. The rhetorical strategies used by Herman Melville are what made him the great Renaissance writer he was.

The American Gothic Genre typically shows guilt, puritanism, supernatural beings and/ or events, fear of the unknown, unheimlich, anxieties, and rationality vs irrationality. Mysteries, intense emotion, romance, heroes, evil curses, and gloomy, decaying isolated settings such as castles and mansions are also characteristics of this genre. There is an evil tone throughout the work. Freud

Aboard the Pequod, as the ship is bustling with activity, Melville describes the scene as the crew performs the grueling task of processing a whale. Large, bubbling try-pots of oil blubber fill the deck of the ship and a heavy smoke blankets the air as harpooners and sailors work regardless of the conditions. Through this familiar scene, Melville layers the setting and characters to build up a distinct mood for this passage. Specifically, he pulls dark romanticism into his writing by paralleling Ahab’s monomania and the deterioration of the crew. To establish an ominous atmosphere and describe the impending doom of the voyage, Herman Melville combines many forms of figurative language like sinister similes and the eerie personification of the Pequod with suspenseful imagery.

What is fear? Fear is the instinct used to survive dangerous events. Mankind adopted three sources of fear: sources of poison, germs and diseases and physical threats. The amygdala is a gland in the brain that detects the human fear response. When the amygdala senses danger, it sends a signal to the brain which makes a person more alert and on edge.This helps prepare one to protect themselves from their surroundings. This is what scientists refer to as the “Fight or Flight” mechanism, which means either fight or run away. This is what was used as a survival strategy for early mankind. In gothic novels there are elements that are used to scare readers and turn on our fear response. In Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, there are many Gothic

Throughout history, various works of literature compelled the readers to feel a specific way. The authors used different techniques to illustrate emotions toward their audience. Specifically, Edgar Allan Poe, author of The Fall of the House of Usher, uses literary elements, such as imagery, characterization and word choice, to portray the build up the sense of horror.

The grotesque in literature focuses on the human body and all the ways it can exaggerated or distorted. For example, in Baudelaire’s “A Carrion” he talks about the dead prostitute’s vulva being eaten away by maggots. By doing this he is giving a picture of a dead person, but exaggerates it through the talk of the maggots eating away at a normally private part of the human body. In William Burroughs excerpt he talks about the abundance of drug use, and ease of obtaining it. Burroughs does this in a grotesque way. It is not that society has too much time on their hands, but that they have too much drugs instead. Burroughs also tells how through the use of drugs it affects society, and causes a decline of the human being as a major factor.

The classic short story of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, written by one of the all time masters of horror, Edgar Allen Poe, has always been used as an excellent example of Gothic fiction. Edgar Allen Poe specialized in the art of gothic writing and wrote many stories that portrayed disturbing events and delved deeply into the minds of its characters. In "The Tell-Tale Heart," Poe revolves the plot around a raving individual who, insisting that he is sane, murders an old man because of his` “vulture eye”. The three main gothic elements that are evident in this story are the unique setting, the theme of death and decay, and the presence of madness.

Gothic Literature is a style of literature popularized during the late 18th century and the early 19th century with the publication of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This style usually portrays fantastic tales dealing with the horror, despair, the grotesque and other “dark” subjects. Characteristics of gothic literature includes the presence of victims and their victimizers who usually hold immense powers along with their evil purpose. The setting of this kind of literature generally takes place within impenetrable walls, whether physical or mental. This setting creates a sense of hopeless isolation within the victim. The summarization of the characters and situation creates an atmosphere pervaded by a sense of mystery, darkness, oppressiveness, fear, and doom.

In literature, the truly memorable characters are those special individuals that arouse powerful emotions in the reader. Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick presents a man who is undoubtedly among the unforgettable characters of literature: Ahab, sea-captain of the whaling ship the Pequod. At first, Ahab is a mysterious figure to Ishmael, the narrator of the tale. Despite the captain’s initial reclusiveness, Ishmael gradually comes to understand the kind of man that Ahab is and, most importantly, the singular obsession he possesses: finding the white whale, Moby Dick. The hunt for Moby Dick (and, correspondingly, the idea that Moby Dick represents) is the critical component of Ahab’s personality, and Melville makes that all-important idea known to

Gothic literature rose to fame in the late Victorian era, causing a global widespread of dark, horrific elements in writing. Gothic literature creates imagination of supernatural events and feelings of mystery and fear. In Charlotte Brontë’s Gothic novel, Jane Eyre, Jane’s character develops and perseveres past her difficult setbacks, finding her true love, Mr. Rochester, along her journey. Descriptions of Jane’s surroundings and character’s features highlight the dark, fearful feeling prominent in the novel. The Gothic elements in Jane Eyre are depicted through her experience in the red room, the setting of Thornfield Hall, and the atmosphere of ghostly mystery, thanks to the character of Bertha Mason.