AN ANALYSIS OF GOTHIC ELEMENTS IN EDGAR ALLAN POE’S THREE SHORT STORIES
A THESIS
BY JULITA REG. NO. 030705041
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT FACULTY OF LETTERS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to thank God the Almighty for His blessing for giving me ability and power to finish the writing of this thesis.
I fully realize that writing a thesis is not an easy task; it takes a lot of time and energy. While doing so, I encounter many problems owing to my limited knowledge; nevertheless, with the help and encouragements from so many people I know, I have finally been able to overcome the problems and to complete this thesis. Therefore, on this occasion, I wish to express my heartiest gratitude to the following people.
I would like to express my great gratitude to my supervisor, Drs.Syahri Saja, M.A and my co-supervisor, Drs. Parlindungan Purba, M.Hum for their advices, suggestions, helps and their valuable time to guide my during the process of writing this thesis.
My sincere gratitude also goes to the head of the English Department, Dra. Swesana Lubis, M.Hum and the secretary of the English Department, Drs. Yulianus Harefa, MED TESOL for their guidance and supports during the year of my study.
Next, I am grateful to all lectures of the English Department who have educated me and shared their valuable knowledge with me. I really realize that without them, I will not be able to succeed.
I am greatly indebted to my beloved family: my father, Tan Shee Jong; my mother, Lindawaty Hartono and my dearest sister, Ruella, S.H for their spiritual and material supports.
Finally, I would like to thank all my friends whose names cannot be mentioned one by one on this occasion. I want to thank from the deepest of my heart for their unceasing supports, priceless advice as well as their warm friendship.
Medan, June 2008
ABSTRAK
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..………i
ABSTRACT ………iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ………..iv
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ……….1
1.1 Background of Analysis…. ………1
1.2 Statement of Problem ……….3
1.3 Objective of Analysis ……….3
1.4 Scope of Analysis ………...3
1.5 Method of Analysis ………3
1.6 Significance of Analysis ……….4
1.7 Review of Related Literature ………..4
CHAPTER 2 A BRIEF DESCRIPTION IN GOTHIC LITERATURE ………...6
2.1 Historical Background of Gothic Literature ………...6
2.2 Characteristics of Gothic Literature ………9
2.2.1 Mystery ………...………..10
2.2.2 Horror ………10
2.2.3 Madness of the character ……….. 12
CHAPTER 3 AN ANALYSIS OF GOTHIC ELEMENTS IN EDGAR ALLAN POE’S THREE SHORT STORIES ………..13
3.1 Mystery ……….13
3.1.1 The Oval Portrait ………..14
3.1.3 Berenice ………20
3.2 Horror ………...………23
3.2.1 The Oval Portrat ………...23
3.2.2 The Black Cat………25
3.2.3 Berenice …...……….28
3.3 Madness of the character …...………...32
3.3.1 The Oval Portrait …...………...33
3.3.2 The Black Cat ……...………34
3.3.3 Berenice …………...……….37
CHAPTER 4 CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION ………..40
4.1 Conclusion ………40
4.2 Suggestion……….42 BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDICES
ABSTRAK
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background of Analysis
This thesis is based on three short stories entitled The Oval Portrait, The Black Cat, and Berenice which are considered into literature.
Literature is very complex to be defined. As cited in Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature:
Literature: [Latin: litterature, writing, elements of elementary education, literature, a derivative of litteratus versed in literature, cultured]. 1) Archaic knowledge of book; literary culture. 2) The production of literary work especially as an occupation. 3) Writings in prose/verse, especially writing having excellence of form or expressions, and presenting ideas of permanent or universal interest. 4) The body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age. 5) The body of writings on a particular subjects. 6) Printed matter (as leaflets, handbills, or circulars).
[Kuiper (ed.), 1995:686]
Nowadays, two most common modern forms of literary form are short story and novel, which have been in existence for little more than two centuries. Yet long before the invention of writing, for thousands of years ancient people developed complex oral traditions of literature, for example myths, legends, folk tales, beast fables, parables, etc.
Short story genre had an important influence from the Italian novella of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. One of the short story genre is fiction, which have the element of horror, science fiction and detective tales.
Gothic novel is novel which its imaginative impulse was drawn from the rough and primitive grandocer of medieval buildings and ruins, such novels were expected to be dark and tempestuous and full of ghosts, madness, outrage, superstition and revenge.
[Kuiper (ed.), 1995:613]
From this statement, it is clear that in a gothic short story there is an imagination and description which is drawn by the dark and mysterious setting of an old building and the oddity of characters’ manner. Gothic stories are dominated by fear and terror and explores the themes of death and decay. The Gothic crosses boundaries into the realm of the unknown, arousing extremes of emotion with settings evoking a gloomy, morbid atmosphere while focusing in doom, destiny and fate. It deals with the dark, the sinister and the supernatural, oftern has symbolic characters such as the helpless female and associates common images and themes. These elements are intended to create in the reader a feeling that the veil of ordinary life has been torn back to reveal the darker aspects of life.
According to Dictionary of Literary terms & Literary Theory, most Gothic novels are tales of mystery and horror, intended to chill the spine and curdle the blood. They contain a strong element of the supernatural and have all or most of the now familiar topography, sites, props, presences and happenings.
The elements that are clearly characterised in these three short stories are mystery, horror and madness of the character. Mystery is a work of fiction which have a mysterious event or unsolve problem at the beginning so that the reader has an opportunity to solve the problem. Horror is a story in which the focus is on creating a feeling of fear for the reader. While the madness of the character is a change of the character’s attitude from a normal person into an abnormal.
1.2. Statement of Problem
Reading a gothic story can make people feel the atmosphere of fear, mystery, thrilling and etc. As cited in An Introduction to Fiction:
The term of Gothic is sometimes applied to stories that are without either castles or haunted houses, but are heavy with sinister, brooding atmosphere or portrays violence and insanity to stress horror.
[X.J. Kennedy, 1976: 196]
I am analysing these three short stories, I focus on how the characteristics of mystery, horror and madness of the character potrayed as gothic elements in Edgar Allan Poe’s three short stories are.
1.3. Objective of Analysis
In accordance with the title of the thesis, I will analyse the gothic elements of Edgar Allan Poe’s three short stories entitled The Oval Portrait, The Black Cat, and Berenice and the main purpose is to find out the characteristics of mystery, horror and madness of the character as gothic elements in Edgar Allan Poe’s three short stories.
1.4. Scope of Analysis
I limit my analysis only to analyse three elements of gothic such as mystery, horror and madness of character. Mystery as gothic element will be analysed based on point of view of the narrator in the stories. Horror as gothic element will be analysed based on the setting of the stories. While madness of character will be analysed based on the characterization of the character himself.
1.5. Method of Analysis
In analysing the short stories, I am using intrinsic method, which I read the stories again and again to understand the stories. Then I continue with selecting data or taking some notes and quotations from statements of the short stories. After that, I analyse the data by interpretating. The interpretation is described in order to find out the truth offered by the data. I am also collecting data from books, journals, some information from the Internet,which relates to Edgar Allan Poe, and other written sources as the library research.
1.6. Significance of Analysis
This thesis is made to gain more knowledge about the Gothic elements that can be found in Poe’s three short stories. I also hope that this thesis will be useful for the readers who want to widen their knowledge and enrich their interpretation about Gothic elements shown in Poe’s three short stories.
1.7. Review of Related Literature
There are several books related to the title of the thesis that I use as reading materials and source of theories to support the analysis. The followings are the title and reviews of the books.
I get the explanation of Gothic and its elements from Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature, by Kathleen Kuiper (ed.) (1995). This book really helps me a lot in finding and deciding what Gothic elements that I can use to analyse these three short stories. Gothic is a style of fiction characterized by the use of medieval settings, a murky athmosphere of horror and gloom, macabre, mysterious and violent incidents. To make a work belongs to Gothic genre, it must at least contain the elements of Gothic, such as mystery, horror and madness of the character. The mixture of these elements can make the reader feels fear, curious, amazed and so on. Without these elements, there won’t be Gothic taste and lack of impression to the reader.
CHAPTER II
A BRIEF DESCRIPTION IN GOTHIC LITERATURE
2.1. Historical Background of Gothic Literature
The historical background of Gothic literature as been cited in http://cai.ucdavis.edu/waters-sites/gothicnovel/155breport.html, Gothic has come to mean quite a number of things by this day and age. It could mean a particular style of art, be it in the form of novels, paintings, or architecture; it could mean medieval or uncouth. It could even refer to a certain type of music and its fans. The original meaning is something that is relating to, or resembling the Goths, their civilization, or their language.
The word ‘Goth’ derives originally from certain Germanic tribes who made attacks on the Roman Empire between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD. Since Rome and Greece were the seat of civilisation, the people of Northern Europe were considered barbarians. Indeed, the words ‘Goth’ and ‘Gothic’ have become synonymous with barbarism.
Centuries passed before the word ‘gothic’ meant anything else again. During the Renaissance, Europeans rediscovered Greco-Roman culture and began to regard a particular type of architecture, mainly those built during the Middle Ages, as Gothic, which is considered that these buildings were barbaric and definitely not in that Classical style they so admired. Centuries more passed before Gothic came to describe a certain type of novels, so named because all these novels seem to take place in Gothic-styled architecture, mainly castles, mansions, and abbeys.
Gothic was a literary form in the late eighteenth century. As a literary term, gothic can be defined as the subgenre of the novel with eerie, supernatural or horrifying events.
exploration and exploitation of the supernatural and dark, emotional plots that investigate closely to the unconscious human mind.
According to Elizabeth MacAndrew in her book, The Gothic Tradition in Fiction (1979 : 3), she said:
Gothic fiction is a literature of nightmare. Among its conventions are found dream landscapes and figures of the subconscious imagination. Its fictional form to amorphous fears and impulses common to all mankind, using an amalgam of materials, some torn from the author’s own subconscious mind and some the stuff of myth, folklore, fairy tale, and romance.
Gothic literature is generally believed to have begun in the year 1765 with the publication of The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole and the meaning of the word ‘Gothic’ sort of switched from “medieval” to “macabre”. It should be noted that this novel was published in the 18th century, after the philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment had attempted to bring reason to the world, and to banish superstition. The Castle of Otranto is a novel in which the ingredients are the haunted castle, a villain named Manfred, mysterious deaths, supernatural happenings, a moaning ancestral portrait, and as the Oxford Companion to English Literature (2001.2) puts it, “violent emotions of terror, anguish and love.” The work was tremendously popular and imitations are followed in such numbers that the gothic novel was probably the commonest type of fiction in England for the next half century.
The first purpose of Gothic fiction, like that of sentimental novel, to which it was closely allied to educate the reader’s feelings through his identification with the feelings of the character; to arise his “sympathy” as the aesthetic of sensibility demanded; and to explore the mind of man and the causes of evil in it, so that evil might be avoided and virtue fostered.
His most respectable follower was Ann Radcliffe, who’s Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and Italian (1797) are among the best examples of the genre. A more sensational type of Gothic romance exploiting horror and violence flourished in Germany and was introduced to England by Matthew Gregory Lewis with The Monk (1796). Other landmarks of Gothic fiction are William Beckford’s Oriental romance Vathek (1786), which blended cruelty, terror and eroticism introduced the grotesque into the genre; and Charles Robert Marutin’s story of an Irish Faust, Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). The classic horror stories Frankenstein (1818), by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and Dracula (1897), by Bram Stoker, are in the Gothic tradition but without the specifically Gothic trappings.
The following authors also added the new elements to the Gothic tradition and produced works whose further implications could again be picked up by them to add the new element to the developing of the genre. This process continued throughout the nineteenth century, as writers express the views of the later age in the same way.
The early Gothic romances died of their own extravagances of plot, but Gothic atmospheric machinery continued to haunt the fiction of such major writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and even Dickens.
The Gothic works of the nineteenth century seem to suggest that the era of nightmares were more terrible than in the eighteenth century. The development of Gothic elements continued throughout the nineteenth century, as writers expressed their views in the same way. Settings were changed from medieval to contemporary. A man’s house turned out to be still his Gothic castle and his soul, already reflected in paintings and statues, began to look back at him from mirrors and, worse, from his double, a living and breathing copy of himself.
The Gothic influenced persisted throughout the nineteenth century in such works as Sheridan Le Fanu’s The House by the Churchyard and Green Tea, Wilkie Collin’s The Moonstone and Bram Stoker’s vampire tale Dracula. The influence was revived in the twentieth century by science fiction and fantasy writers such as Mervyn Peake in his Gormenghast series.
In the twentieth century, characters, settings, tone, plot are treated realistically. It is influenced by the widespread general knowlegde of psychology and is reflected in the melding of Gothic fantasy and realistic fiction that can already be seen in the late nineteenth century. The setting does not change much as in nineteenth century, but it develops into a Southern town, a city house, an army camp in peacetime, or Central Park.
2.2. Characteristics of Gothic Literature
According to the Dictionary of Literary Term & Literary Theory (1996 : 356), most Gothic novels are tales of mystery and horror, intended to chill the spine and curdle the blood. They contain a strong element of the supernatural and have all or most of the now familiar topography, sites, props, presences and happenings: wild and desolate landscapes, dark forests, ruined abbeys, feudal halls and medieval castles with dungeons, secret passages, winding stairways, oubliettes, sliding panels and torture chambers; monstrous apparitions and curses; a stupefying atmosphere of doom and gloom; heroes and heroines in the direst of imaginable straits, wicked tyrants, malevolent witches, demonic powers of unspeakably hideous aspect, and a proper complement of spooky effects and clanking spectres.
2.2.1. Mystery
According to Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature (1995 : 793), mystery is a work of fiction in which the evidence related to a crime or to a mysterious event. It so presented that the reader has an opportunity to solve the problem and the author’s solution being to final phase of the piece.
The mystery story is an age-old popular genre and is related to several other forms. Elements of mystery may be present in narratives of horror or terror, pseudoscientific fantasies, crime stories, accounts of diplomatic intrigue, affair of codes and ciphers and secret societies, or any situation involving an enigma. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Gold Bug is a classic example of one perennially popular type of mystery.
2.2.2. Horror
Horror is the usual but not necessarily the main ingredient of Gothic fiction. According to Merriam Webster’s Encyclopedia of Literature (1995 : 559), horror story focuses on creating a feeling of fear. It takes big part in forming the body of folk literature. They can have supernatural elements and features such as ghosts, witches or vampires or they can address more realistic psychological fears. According to the Dictionary of Literary terms & Literary Theory (1996: 388, 389,396) the word horror derives from Latin horrere ‘to make the hair stand on end, tremble, and shudder’. It is not clear when the term ‘horror story’ first came into use. Apart from being about murder, suicide, torture, fear and madness, horror stories are also concerned with ghosts, vampires, doppelgangers, succubi, incubi, poltergeists, demonic pacts, diabolic possession and exorcism, witchcraft, spiritualism, voodoo, lycanthropy and the macabre, plus such occult or quasi-occult practices as telekinesis and hylomancy. Some horror stories are serio-comic or comic-grotesque, but none the less alarming or frightening for that.
multitude of fiction associated with tales of mystery, suspense, terror and the supernatural, with the ghost story and the thriller and with numerous stories in the 19th and 10th century in which crime is a central theme.
In the hands of a serious and genuinely imaginative writer the horror story explores the limits of what people are capable of doing and experiencing. Such a writer ventures into the realms of psychological chaos, emotional waste-lands, psychic trauma, abysses opened up by the imagination. He or she explores the capacity for experiencing fear, hysteria and madness, all that lies on the dark side of the mind and the near side of barbarism; what lurks on and beyond the shifting frontiers of consciousness and where, perhaps, there dwell ultimate horrors or concepts of horror and terror.
The horror story which through the Gothic novel becomes so popular, is part of a long process by which people have tried to come to terms with and find adequate descriptions and symbols for deeply rooted, primitive and powerful forces, energies and fears which are related to death, afterlife, punishment, darkness, evil, violence and destruction.
2.2.3. Madness of character
CHAPTER III
AN ANALYSIS OF GOTHIC ELEMENTS IN EDGAR ALLAN
POE’S THREE SHORT STORIES
In this chapter, I will describe all of the aspects of Gothic in the three short stories. I analyse Gothic elements such as mystery, horror and madness of the character from point of view, setting and characterization. There is a close connection between these fiction elements that reflect aspect of Gothic through Edgar Allan Poe’s three short stories.
3.1. Mystery
As it is written in the previous chapter that mystery is a work of fiction in which the evidence related to a crime on to a mysterious event that gives the readers opportunity to solve the problem. Some events which have no answer or explanation are also belonging to mystery. In order to find out what makes the story become a mystery story, in this thesis, I will analyse it by focusing on the point of view of the narrator in the stories.
As written in An Introduction to Fiction, by X. J. Kennedy (1976 : 13, 14), point of view of the narrator means the attitude of the narrator toward the story. Every story has a narrator, a voice or character that provides the reader with information about and insight into characters and incidents; but in some cases the identity of this voice of authority is not immediately apparent.
writer may utilize multiple perspectives to illustrate how the “truth” of any incident is always relative to the way in which it is witnessed.
3.1.1. The oval portrait
The oval portrait is short story by Edgar Allan Poe involving the disturbing circumstances surrounding a portrait in a château. It is one of his shortest stories, filling only two pages in its initial publication in 1842.
The narrator in this story represents as the first person and the third person. At the beginning of the story, the narrator as the first person describes the situation of mansion and his own condition.
The story begins with an injured narrator seeking refuge in an abandoned mansion with no explanation for his wound. There is no clue about how he got hurt, what he did before he found the mansion, and why he could be in the middle of the forest or mountain – called Apennines. Moreover, the mansion itself has got a huge mystery because it is built in the middle of the forest just like the castle of the antagonist character in the folk stories or fairy tales, for example the house of witches or the castle of vampire and so on. There must be something in this mansion that makes the owner decides to abandon it. This is the first mystery that I found in this story. We can see from the quotation below:
“THE CHATEAU into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe. ...” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 481)
portrait of a young maiden which is only a sketch but can take all of his attention toward the portrait. He describes the portrait as if it is a real girl in the frame. When he sees, describes and talks about the portrait, the reader can feel the mystery of this portrait. I can start thinking about why the portrait is so attractive, how the painter can make it looks so alive, whether the artist of this portrait is a very high quality painter or there is some magic in the portrait.
“The portrait, I have already said, was that of a young girl. It was a mere head and shoulders, done in what is technically termed a vignette manner; much in the style of the favorite heads of Sully. The arms, the bosom, and even the ends of the radiant hair melted imperceptibly into the vague yet deep shadow which formed the back-ground of the whole. The frame was oval, richly gilded and filigreed in Moresque. As a thing of art nothing could be more admirable than the painting itself. But it could have been neither the execution of the work, nor the immortal beauty of the countenance, which had so suddenly and so vehemently moved me. Least of all, could it have been that my fancy, shaken from its half slumber, had mistaken the head for that of a living person....”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 412)
The point of view of the narrator changes to the third person narration. As the third person narrator, he tells the story about the history of the portrait. At the beginning of the explanation, it has already had a mystery. The statement at the beginning of the story is telling that it was a big mistake of the young maiden who married the painter. From this statement, we can feel confuse. Because usually, a marriage is a dream for a young maiden like that and it is supposed to be a big happiness, not a big mistake. But we can still find the answer why the writer of the book said so. As we can see from the quotation below:
"She was a maiden of rarest beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter....”
The biggest mystery of this short story is the portrait of the maiden itself, which makes the narrator, feels so interested in it and how the portrait can become so vividly drawn. However, we still can find the answer at the end of the story, such as the ambition and love of the painter towards art and the love of the maiden towards the painter.
3.1.2. The Black Cat
The Black Cat was first published in the August 19, 1843. The story opens in a typical style of Poe's works. An unnamed narrator claims to be perfectly sane and logical, yet the manner of his writing and the story he goes on to relate both seem to prove otherwise. As in many of his stories presented as a first person narrative.
In the beginning of the story, the narrator explains about himself that make me feel curious and mysterious. He keeps on saying that he is crazy; about what he has done to something but not saying what the thing is until it reaches the third paragraph.
“For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not --and very surely do I not dream. But morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified have tortured --have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror --to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place --some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.”
When he explains about his wife and the pets that he has got, Edgar Allan Poe uses usual font of letters but when it comes to the word “cat”, he changes it into italic (cat). It means there is a mystery about the cat and it starts to draw readers' attention to that creature. As we can see from the quotation below:
“I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 597)
Actually, there is an obvious mystery from the title itself, The Black Cat. Usually black cat is a symbol of bad thing or in the superstitious belief; people believe that something will happen if there is black cat around us. Moreover, there is an idea voiced by the narrator's wife that the black cats are all witches in disguise.
“... In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point --and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered...” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 598)
The narrator loves the cat very much as it can be seen from how he takes care of the cat and how the cat replies his treatment to him. As we can see from the quotation below:
difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets...” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 598)
There is also a mystery in his point of view about his attitude toward the cat that he hung. He loves the cat very much and he still has the awareness about killing is a big sin, but he still kill the one he loves. The mysterious part of this is that we don’t know exactly why he wants to do so. Is it because of his short-tempered that he has because of the alcohol’s effect or because of the evil part of him or because he is crazy? As we can see from the quotation below:
“One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; --hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; --hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; --hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin --a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it if such a thing were possible --even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God. ...”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 599, 600)
“... I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal's neck. ... When I first beheld this apparition --for I could scarcely regard it as less --my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd --by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, had then with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, accomplished the portraiture as I saw it. ...”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 600)
On his most remorse moment, there come another black cat which is exactly the same as Pluto. The only thing that is different from Pluto is the white fur on its chest. But he doesn’t know where this black cat comes from. Even the owner of the place that he found it also doesn’t know anything about this cat. Form here, we can consider about what old man said about cat. There is a superstitious believe which tells about cat is a creature that has nine souls. So that it can reincarnate and continue its life again after it dies. Moreover, this cat really likes the narrator as if it has already known him before and so willingly follow the narrator home. And the next day, the narrator just realize that this cat is also has got only one eye! Once again, it emphasizes the superstitious believe about cat’s nine souls.
The white fur on its chest changes each and every day and becomes the shape of gallows which the narrator used to hang Pluto before. It is one of the unsolved mysteries of this story.
something has happened in the narrator’s house. It is still unsolved until the end of the story.
At the end of the story, the cat which suddenly disappears after the narrator kills his wife, appears again on the last day of the policemen’s investigation and it is in the narrator’s wife’s tomb and is sitting on his wife’s head! It is a big mystery about how it can be inside the “tomb”! Because when the narrator built the wall up again after putting his wife’s body, he must be very concentrate on the things in front of him, such as bricks, wall and the hole where his wife is lying. He must have noticed if there was something go into the wall. So there must be no chance for the cat to sneak into it.
From these explainations, there are enough evidents to prove that the black cat itself is the biggest mystery of this story. As a conclusion, the fire incident which happens after the murder of Pluto, the relief fo a big cat with ropes around its neck, the unknown place of the second black cat from, the similarity with the previous cat, the white fur on its chest that changes every day and its appearance in the wall are unsolve and unexplainable of this story and is considered as mystery element of the story.
3.1.3. Berenice
Berenice is one of the few Poe stories whose narrator is named. It is written in old English word and is very hard to understand. In this story, he is described as a quite old and double personality’s person. Usually, a double personality’s person is a very mysterious person because we can not understand him very well. It can be said that it is very hard to know and communicate to this kind of person. So, the mystery of this story is the narrator himself. The double personality of him can be seen from the quotation below:
world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn, not the material of my every-day existence, but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself. ...”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 226)
The mystery of this story is found from the way he thinks about the health condition of himself and Berenice, his future wife. The diseases that he and Berenice have are very strangely formed. He does not know how the disease comes. He himself looks Berenice as a mystery as well. He wonders how she can get the disease and the disease changes her very much; changes her into another person. As we can see from the quotation below:
“...Oh, gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh, sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim! Oh, Naiad among its fountains! And then - then all is mystery and terror, and a tale which should not be told. Disease - a fatal disease, fell like the simoon upon her frame; and, even while I gazed upon her, the spirit of change swept over her, pervading her mind, her habits, and her character, and, in a manner the most subtle and terrible, disturbing even the identity of her person! Alas! the destroyer came and went! - and the victim -where is she? I knew her not - or knew her no longer as Berenice...”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 226)
He is so addicted to Berenice’s teeth since he pays attention to all parts of her face. The point that makes it becomes a mystery is why he is addicted to the teeth. Berenice is a beautiful girl, so there must be many parts of her body that he can be abbsessed of.
tells Egaues that there is a disfigured body that is alive and it should be Berenice. If she is really alive, then it is a big mystery of how she can be considered as dead before, or it could be like the story of mummy or vampire which also could be alive again after death. We can see his point of view from the quotation below:
“God of heaven! — is it possible? Is it my brain that reels — or was it indeed the finger of the enshrouded dead that stirred in the white cerement that bound it? Frozen with unutterable awe I slowly raised my eyes to the countenance of the corpse. There had been a band around the jaws, but, I know not how, it was broken asunder. The livid lips were wreathed into a species of smile, and, through the enveloping gloom, once again there glared upon me in too palpable reality, the white and glistening, and ghastly teeth of Berenice. ...”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 232)
There always a book with a good statement in French which well described about Egaues situation or thought. We do not know if the book is opened by Egaues himself or supernaturally opened by someone else. We can not know about it because there is no explaination about it. He always forgets about what has happened before and when he realizes about that book then he will agree with the statement on the book. For example when he has lifted her teeth out and forgets what he has done, he sees the opened pages of a book and what he does is just the same as what the book tells. As we can see from the quotation below:
“…The words were the singular but simple words of the poet Ebn Zaiat: — "Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas."* Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my head erect themselves on end, and the blood of my body become congeal [congealed] within my veins? …”
Overall, the most mysterious thing in this short story is the way Egaues thinks about something. He thinks like a double personality person which is very confusing, strange and hard to understand.
3.2.Horror
We always can find horror in Gothic fictions. It is a usual ingredient of Gothic fiction. The readers can have a feeling of fear, macabre and haunted from this element. In order to find out how the writer builds the atmosphere of horror and makes the readers feel fear, I will analyse it by focusing on the setting of the stories.
As been cited in An Introduction to Fiction, by X. J. Kennedy (1976 : 16, 17), setting is simply the time and place of a story, and in most cases the details of description are given to the reader directly by the narrator. In novels, the novelist can waste pages of prose on detail of setting just as they can describe characters down to such minutiae as the contents of their pockets. But short story writers, hemmed in by limitations of space, rarely have such luxury and most ordinarily limit themselves to very selective descriptions of time and place.
The setting is greatly influential in Gothic stories. When a writer like Edgar Allan Poe goes into great detail in his descriptions, it is likely that atmosphere, the emotional aura surrounding a certain setting, is more important to him than the actual physical locale. Setting is an important Gothic conversation. It plays an important role to create a dark, highly Gothic fiction that makes people feel horror and terror. On the other hand, it is not only evokes the atmosphere of horror and dread, but also portrays the deterioration of its world. The decaying, ruined scenery implies that at one time there was a thriving world. At one time the abbey, castle, or landscape was something treasured and appreciated. Now, all that lasts is the decaying shell of once thriving dwelling.
3.2.1. The Oval Portrait
place has given a feeling of horror to the reader. Because usually it is very dangerous and eerie to be in a place especially place which likes a jungle and without any lights. Moreover, usually an abandoned mansion has a long history and secret reasons why the owner left it. If it is abandoned in a very long time, it must be filled by ghosts or some other spirits. So the mansion also emphasizes the horror feeling to this story.
“THE CHATEAU into which my valet had ventured to make forcible entrance, rather than permit me, in my desperately wounded condition, to pass a night in the open air, was one of those piles of commingled gloom and grandeur which have so long frowned among the Appennines, not less in fact than in the fancy of Mrs. Radcliffe. To all appearance it had been temporarily and very lately abandoned”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 481)
Next, the narrator chooses an isolated part of the mansion to spend the night. It is in a turret. Usually, turret in fairy tales is a place where the princess is being kept by the bad stepmother or witches. It is the same as the turret in this mansion. Although it is very decorated but it has the same situation as the common fairy tale, such as the event of keeping someone in the top of the turret. This is told in the end of the story when the narrator reads the explaination about the picture of a young maiden. The description of the turret setting is:
“... It lay in a remote turret of the building. Its decorations were rich, yet tattered and antique. Its walls were hung with tapestry and bedecked with manifold and multiform armorial trophies, together with an unusually great number of very spirited modern paintings in frames of rich golden arabesque ...”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 481)
look at his wife and this builds the element of horror. As we can see from the quotation below:
“... But at length, as the labor drew nearer to its conclusion, there were admitted none into the turret; for the painter had grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his eyes from canvas merely, even to regard the countenance of his wife. And he would not see that the tints which he spread upon the canvas were drawn from the cheeks of her who sat beside him ...” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 483)
When the story comes nearly to the end, the taste of horror is also becomes thickening. Poe uses well constructed words to show how the painter paints that causes as if the spirit of his wife is being transferred into the painting. In every brush that he puts, the spirit of his wife is also being put into the canvas. The description of how his wife dies is very eerie. This is what we can see from the quotation below:
“... And when many weeks bad passed, and but little remained to do, save one brush upon the mouth and one tint upon the eye, the spirit of the lady again flickered up as the flame within the socket of the lamp. And then the brush was given, and then the tint was placed; and, for one moment, the painter stood entranced before the work which he had wrought; but in the next, while he yet gazed, he grew tremulous and very pallid, and aghast, and crying with a loud voice, 'This is indeed Life itself!' turned suddenly to regard his beloved:- She was dead!
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 483, 484)
3.2.2. The Black Cat
this cat could happen, still, it can not be accepted by the reader that what he says is correct. It sounds a bit forcing other people to believe what he says when he tries to explain. As we can see form the quotation below:
“...Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd --by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, had then with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, accomplished the portraiture as I saw it. ...” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 600)
The appearance of the second black cat is on the cupboard where the owner puts the liquor. Maybe the second cat knows that the liquor is the cause of the murder of Pluto and it is the reason why it appears on that place. Some other horror feeling that this black cat brings are the resemblence to Pluto such as the manner of the cat to the narrator and it also has only one eye. The narrator realizes this everyday and so does the horror, it grows more and more when we read it.
The white fur that changes slowly but sure also gives the horror feeling. It changes to the form of gallows, as if it reminds the narrator about the sin that he has done before. This really reflects the revenge from the black cat to make the narrator suffer from the mistake that he has done. The narrator himself also says that it makes him feel dread, eerie and so on. As we can see from the quotatiom below:
“...It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name --and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared --it was now, I say, the image of a hideous of a ghastly thing --of the GALLOWS! --oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime --of Agony and of Death!”
The cellar where the narrator hides the body of his wife in the walls is the perfect Gothic setting. It is dark and gloomy which isolated one from the rest of the world. It was described as “for a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted” a place where a body could easily be hidden. Poe created a perfect Gothic scene for a body to be found in this place of dampness and where it would be easy to insert the corpse of his wife in the walls. This gruesome and horrifying environment successfully terrifies the reader.
The confession that he makes to the policemen is very surprising and he says that it is unconsciously uttered. He is like being controlled by evil spirit. This makes the feeling of horror comes out.
“...(In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.) --"I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls --are you going, gentlemen? --these walls are solidly put together"; and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom...” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 605)
The most terrified and horror part of this story is when there is a sound from the walls that covers all part of the cellar. The terrible sound which is like telling people the answer where the corpse is and to tear the wall off. the last but not least, the fact about the black cat is in the tomb is really horrified. The setting is perfectly drawn by Poe’s word. As we can see from the quotation below:
3.2.3. Berenice
The horror that we can see from the setting of the place is the condition of house and the rooms. The house is the oldest mansion in the town which has been descended from generation to generation. It is being described as a very gloomy and dark or we can say it is lack of light but special; because it is antique with many chambers in it. Usually dark place gives an uncomfortable feeling to the reader and it gives a bit feeling of horror as well. As we can see from the quotation below:
“…Yet there are no towers in the land more time-honored than my gloomy, gray, hereditary halls. Our line has been called a race of visionaries; and in many striking particulars — in the character of the family mansion — in the frescos of the chief saloon — in the tapestries of the dormitories — in the chiselling of some buttresses in the armory — but more especially in the gallery of antique paintings — in the fashion of the library chamber — and, lastly, in the very peculiar nature of the library's contents —“
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 225)
The place where Egaues usually be when he is in his reverie is the library. He spends most of his time in the library. It is also the place where he was born and where his mother died. That means it has a lot of memories, including bad and good memories, and history about this library. The library is also a gloomy place which is described as a sad place with many memories from his youth, the death of his mother and so on. A place where has many many books is usually not a nice place to stay. We can see it from the quotation below:
impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight of my reason shall exist. “ (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 225)
Egaues always sits and thinks about every detail of things around him. He also thinks about death nearly all of his time. This gives a little feeling of horror to the readers. The thought that makes readers feel horror is his obsession towards Berenice’s teeth. He could describe in every detail about her teeth, how he sees the teeth in defferent manners; to be exact, he is talking about his suffer from his disease. He never lives in peace from that moment.
“...But from the disordered chamber of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and would not be driven away, the white and ghastly spectrum of the teeth. Not a speck upon their surface — not a shade on their enamel — not a line in their configuration — not an indenture in their edges — but what that period of her smile had sufficed to brand in upon my memory. I saw them now even more unequivocally than I beheld them then. The teeth! — the teeth! — they were here, and there, and everywhere, and visibly and palpably before me; long, narrow, and excessively white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in the very moment of their first terrible development. Then came the full fury of my monomania, and I struggled in vain against its strange and irresistible influence....”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 230, 231)
The setting of Berenice room also gives a sense of horror in it. In addition, the corpse of Berenice is also in it and the coffin is put on her own bed. The room is very big and dark with nobody inside except the dead body of her and Egaues. As we can see from the quotation below:
“...The room was large, and very dark, and at every step within its gloomy precincts I encountered the paraphernalia of the grave. The coffin, so a menial told me, lay surrounded by the curtains of yonder bed, and in that coffin,...” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 232)
the cemetery to see our friends or family members who have passed away; especially if the lid of the coffin is still opened or they have not been buried yet. Sometimes we can imagine that the dead body will suddenly open its eyes and get out of the coffin and start to hunt us. Edgar Allan Poe describes the situation exactly the same feeling as this. We can see it from the quotation below:
“God of heaven! — is it possible? Is it my brain that reels — or was it indeed the finger of the enshrouded dead that stirred in the white cerement that bound it? Frozen with unutterable awe I slowly raised my eyes to the countenance of the corpse. There had been a band around the jaws, but, I know not how, it was broken asunder. The livid lips were wreathed into a species of smile, and, through the enveloping gloom, once again there glared upon me in too palpable reality, the white and glistening, and ghastly teeth of Berenice....” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 232)
The book that is always there near Egaues also gives the feeling of horror to the reader. For the first part of the story, Egaues is only connecting what he thinks about with the statements of the books that he knows because he has read a lot of book when he was a kid. But near the end part of the story, the book is opened and is underscored by somebody. When he reads it, he also surprises and feels fear by himself. Because he feels that what the book says reminds him about something; something that he has ever done before. And it also gives the same feeling to the reader. As we can see from the quotation below:
“…These things were in no manner to be accounted for, and my eyes at length dropped to the open pages of a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The words were the singular but simple words of the poet Ebn Zaiat: — "Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas."* Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my head erect themselves on end, and the blood of my body become congeal [congealed] within my veins? “ (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 232)
of the servant approaches the library and talks to Egaeus builds the atmosphere of horror in the story. Once again Poe describes it by using a very Gothic description. He describes the light tap when his servant comes by using the words “pale as the tenant of a tomb” to build the Gothic atmosphere. We can see the description of the way the servant talks from the quotation below:
“There came a light tap at the library door — and, pale as the tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were wild with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky, and very low...”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 232)
The next description about his finding of Berenice’s grave is also very eerie. The description of the sound that the servant hears before he goes to find it builds the atmosphere of horror successfully. We can see it from the quotation below:
“… He told of a wild cry disturbing the silence of the night — of the gathering together of the household — of a search in the direction of the sound; and then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a violated grave — of a disfigured body enshrouded, yet still breathing — still palpitating — still alive!”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 232)
The violence that he does to the dead Berenice is very cruel plus eerie. He himself also feels the horror when he realizes what the things inside the box are. We can see it from the quotation below:
“… With a shriek I bounded to the table, and grasped the ebony box that lay upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my tremor, it slipped from out my hands, and fell heavily, and burst into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound, there rolled out some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled with many white and glistening substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor.”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 232)
3.3. Madness of the character
Madness of character is one of the Gothic elements, which is almost always appears in Gothic fiction. It is a change of the character’s attitude, which is influenced by evil thought, crime, superstitious belief, and obsession and so on. Usually the characters that get mad are male characters while the women are in distress. As an appeal to the pathos and sympathy of the reader, the female characters often face events that leave them fainting, terrified, screaming, suffering and destroyed by the madness that consumes the male character. In order to find out the madness of the character in this story, in this thesis, I will analyse it by focusing on the characterization of the characters of the stories.
like a soliloquy in drama or stream-of-consciousness, an attempt to duplicate raw sensory data in the same disordered state that the mind receives it.
Description of characters also helps us to understand the author’s intent. In real life we are told from an early age not to judge people by external appeareance, but in fiction the opposite is more often the case: physical description is invariably a sign of what lurks beneath the surface. Given the brevity of most short stories, these physical details may be minimal but revailing in their lack of particulars.
3.3.1. The oval portrait
The madness of this story is shown by the painter of the portrait. He is an ambitious man that loves art very much. But he is too ambitious and obsessive to arts that cause a rivalry between the love to art and the love to his wife. When he draws his wife, his obsession is over limit that more likely being possessed. If he is a normal person, he must feel tired, hungry, thirsty and other normal condition that people will feel. It is impossible for a person to not having a meal or even goes to the rest room for a day.
The other character, such as the painter’s wife, is a typical of a Gothic story woman who always suffers from the madness of the male character. But in my opinion, the female character in this story in not really mad, but she is stupid. She does not complain even a bit to his husband about her condition. Just because she loves him then she could do everything including bargaining away her life to him. As a normal person, one will not do such a stupid thing like that. For her attitude of an abnormal person, I also conclude it as a form of madness of character of this story.
thus a terrible thing for this lady to hear the painter speak of his desire to portray even his young bride. But she was humble and obedient, and sat meekly for many weeks in the dark, high turret-chamber where the light dripped upon the pale canvas only from overhead. But he, the painter, took glory in his work, which went on from hour to hour, and from day to day. And be was a passionate, and wild, and moody man, who became lost in reveries; so that he would not see that the light which fell so ghastly in that lone turret withered the health and the spirits of his bride, who pined visibly to all but him. Yet she smiled on and still on, uncomplainingly, because she saw that the painter (who had high renown) took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict her who so loved him, yet who grew daily more dispirited and weak. ...” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 483)
3.3.2. The Black Cat
At first, the narrator is a very kind and tender person who has humanity toward animals and all living kinds. He lives in a good and lovely family because he is taught to be a good man. He loves animals so much that his house is nearly like a zoo; which consists of many kinds of animal. Then his attitude changes firstly because of alcohol. So that he loses his ability to control his emotion and also himself and starts to become more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. He also becomes rude to his wife and dares to give physical violence toward his wife.
The development of this rude attitude becomes worse and worse each and every day. He starts to deny his pets, tortures them every time they pass by and has no feeling of regret or sorry after torturing them. This is the starting point of the narrator madness of this story. Furthermore, there is a statement telling that he does this in the unconscious condition which might be controlled by evil spirit. However, he is shy to admit the brutality he has made. As we can see from the quotation below:
At the beginning of the story, his attitude that is considered as a form of madness is shown from the way he tortures Pluto, his most favourite pet. His cruelty shows the madness of his. First, he tortures it by gouging one of its eyes from the socket. Second, he hangs it to the limb of the tree. And the statement that he says when he hangs it shows his madness. We can see from this quotation below:
“One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; --hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; --hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; --hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin --a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it if such a thing were possible --even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 599, 600)
If a person who does a crime and says love as the reason of the crime, it must be very crazy. In our daily live, in our environment and culture, nobody will accept this as a reason of doing a crime. We do the crime basically is because of hatred, jealous or other reasons, but not love. Another evident to prove his madness is the statement about his consciousness about the sin that he will get from killing it but he still does it. And he kills it because he knows he will commit a sin from it. He says so just like he is a person who likes to collect sins in his life. And from here, he starts to hate God.
away from everything. In this time, his wife shows a typical type of Gothic female character who is always suffer from her husband’s madness.
“Evil thoughts became my sole intimates --the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 603)
The next madness that is shown nearly in the end of the story is when he chops his wife’s head with his axe. A husband who has just killed his wife or someone else should feel sorry, afraid or will decide to run away. But this person does not do that. He does not plan to run away but he thinks of plans how to keep his wife’s body directly after the murder. The ways that he thinks of are very complicated where actually there is a simple way to end this problem, such as hand over himself to the police and say that that is an accident. He thought he could handle his wife alone but he could not. The ways that he thinks of give the feeling of madness to the reader, as we can see from the quotation below:
“...At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard --about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house ...” (Patrick. F Quinn, 1984 : 604)
After him walling up his wife, he feels satisfied with his work. He is proud of his work that is very well constructed. From this way of thinking, it proves that he has no moral and no humanity anymore. He is totally crazy. We can see from the quotation below:
said to myself --"Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain."...” (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 604)
After the murder, the black cat disappears mysteriously. He searches it everywhere but he could not find it. He feels very still about it and he can sleep very well at night. We can see it from the quotation below:
“... It did not make its appearance during the night --and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul! ...”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 605)
The last and the craziest thing that he does is he attracts policemen’s attention to the new wall that he made to hide his wife. He also does not know why he does so. But for the reader, it is absolutely a crazy action to do in front of police. We can see it from the quotation below:
“...--"I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls --are you going, gentlemen? --these walls are solidly put together"; and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom. ...”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 605)
3.3.3. Berenice
The narrator of this story is a melancholic type of person, which looks life in a pessimist, negative and pathetic way. This is described at the beginning of the story. It gives the readers feeling of question mark about his life and makes the readers wonder about what has happened to him. As we can see from the quotation below:
too, yet as intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow! How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness? - from the covenant of peace, a simile of sorrow? But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are, have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 225)
The name of the narrator is Egaeus which is not the real name of his, but is his baptismal name. He doesn’t want to tell his family name because he is embarrassed of his family. We can see it from the quotation below:
“My baptismal name is Egaeus; that of my family I will not mention. “ (Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 225)
He was a well educated person because he learnt much when he was a
boy and he started to reverie since he was teenager. He enjoyed it very much
until it changed him into a strange person- a double personality person,
which in one condition, he has clear visions, but on the other hand, he has
another world for himself within him. We can see it from the quotation
below:
“…that I loitered away my boyhood in books, and dissipated my youth in reverie; but it is singular that as years rolled away, and the noon of manhood found me still in the mansion of my fathers — it is wonderful what stagnation there fell upon the springs of my life — wonderful how total an inversion took place in the character of my common thoughts. The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn, not the material of my every-day existence, but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself….”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 226)
Besides, his intelligence is shown from quotations of the books that he
read. All of them are written in French and he connects them with his
even the condition of Berenice also makes him think about death that Poe
uses the word morbid meditation.
The reason he wants to marry Berenice is very strange. He says that he
never loves her before, when she was healthy and very beautiful. It is
strange, isn’t it? There is no man who doesn’t love or like a beautiful girl at
all. So this proves that Egaues has psychological disorder. As we can see
from the quotation below:
“During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind....”
(Patrick. F.Quinn, 1984 : 229)
The reason that he wants to marry her is also not because of love but he wants to analyze her as an object. He has changed into a person who has got no feeling at all. We can see it form the quotation below:
“...Through the gray of the early morning — among the trellised shadows of the forest at noonday — and in the silence of my library at night — she had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her — not as the living and breathing Berenice, but as the Berenice of a dream; not as a being of the earth — earthly — but as the abstraction of such a being; not as a thing to admire, but to analyze; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation....”
(Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 229)
CHAPTER IV
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
4.1. Conclusion
Having analyzed the short stories from the beginning to the end, I conclude that the Gothic elements can be found clearly in Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, The Oval Portrait, The Black Cat, Berenice.
shape of gallow and its appearance in the wall where his wife’s body is. They are all unsolved. The element of horror that we can see from this story is the setting of the big cat relief that happens after the fire incident of the narrator’s house. Even though the narrator has explained the possibility of the forming of the relief, we still can feel the sense of horror in it. Other settings that build the atmosphere of horror are the place where the narrator find the second black cat, the white fur on the cat’s breast, the cellar where he hides his wife, and the cat’s sound behind the wall, which seems like giving the policemen clue about the crime. We can also see the madness of the character from the narrator’s attitude, especially if we compare it before and after the first incident. His emotion and his cruelity make him becomes evil and do something like crazy. He does not even feel fear or sorry about the crime toward his wife. He still can sleep well in the night after the crime just because the black cat is not exist anymore.
her is also very strange, which is only because he wants her to become an object to analyze, not because of love.
4.2. Suggestion
I hope that the readers can understand what I have analyzed and get knowledge after reading this thesis. As my analysis focuses on Gothic elements such as mystery, horror and the madness of the character that can be found in Edgar Allan Poe’s three short stories, I wish the reader can take the clear picture of Gothic elements that was so popular in the era of Poe.
I also expect that the readers will be interested in reading the other literary works of Edgar Allan Poe, and even analyzed them so that the readers will get something about his literary works, his life or even his mind. In other words, reading literary works can enrich the horizon of thinking of the readers about all things in human life.
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http://cai.ucdavis.edu/waters-sites/gothicnovel/155breport.html
APPENDICES
A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF EDGAR ALLAN POE
Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short-story writer, editor and literary critic, and is considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction.He was the first well-known American writer to try to earn a living through writing alone, resulting in a financially difficult life and career.
