Features of Horror in the Work of E. A. Poe - Bachelor Thesis

Prepis

1 UNIVERZITA KONŠTANTÍNA FILOZOFA V NITRE FILOZOFICKÁ FAKULTA FEATURES OF HORROR IN THE WORK OF E. A. POE Bakalárska práca 2012 Albín Michalec

2 UNIVERZITA KONŠTANTÍNA FILOZOFA V NITRE FILOZOFICKÁ FAKULTA FEATURES OF HOROR IN THE WORK OF E. A. POE Bakalárska práca Študijný program: učiteľstvo anglického jazyka a literatúry a etickej výchovy Študijný odbor: učiteľstvo akademických predmetov Školiace pracovisko: Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Školiteľ: prof. PhDr. Anton Pokrivčák, PhD. Nitra 2012 Albín Michalec

3 Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre Filozofická fakulta ZADANIE ZÁVEREČNEJ PRÁCE Meno a priezvisko študenta: Albín Michalec Študijný program: Študijný odbor: Typ záverečnej práce: Jazyk záverečnej práce: Sekundárny jazyk: učiteľstvo anglického jazyka a literatúry a etickej výchovy (Učiteľské štúdium, bakalársky I. st., denná forma učiteľstvo akademických predmetov učiteľstvo umelecko-výchovných a výchovných predmetov Bakalárska práca slovenský anglický Názov: Prvky hororu v diele E. A. Poea Anotácia: Bakalárska práca sa zameriava na vznik literatúry hororu a jej uplatnenie vo svetovej literatúre. Jej hlavnou úlohou je však rozobrať a interpretovať hororové prvky vo vybraných dielach amerického spisovateľa a literárneho kritika Edgara Allana Poea, ktorý je jedným z najvýznamnejších predstaviteľov tohto literárneho žánru. Práca sa zaoberá aj vplyvom E.A. Poea na nasledujúce generácie spisovateľov. Školiteľ: prof. PhDr. Anton Pokrivčák, PhD. Oponent: Mgr. Diana Židová Katedra: KAA Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Vedúci katedry: prof. PhDr. Gabriela Miššíková, CSc. Dátum zadania: Dátum schválenia: prof. PhDr. Gabriela Miššíková, CSc. vedúci/a katedry

4 Čestné vyhlásenie Čestne vyhlasujem, že bakalársku prácu som písal samostatne na základe preštudovaného materiálu a použité zdroje som na príslušných miestach uviedol. Declaration of originality I, the undersigned, solemnly declare that this Bachelor thesis is a result of my own independent research and was written solely by me using the literature and resources listed in Bibliography. Nitra,

5 Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to my consultant prof. PhDr. Anton Pokrivčák, PhD. for his supervising of my thesis and for his helpful advice during the process of writing.

6 Abstrakt MICHALEC, Albín Prvky hororu v diele E. A. Poea [Bakalárska práca]. Univerzita Konštantína Filozofa v Nitre. Filozofická fakulta: Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky. Študijný program: učiteľstvo anglického jazyka a literatúry a etickej výchovy. Školiteľ: prof. PhDr. Anton Pokrivčák, PhD. Nitra: FF UKF, s. Bakalárska práca sa venuje hororovej literatúre a dielu Edgara Allana Poea, uznávaného amerického autora, ktorý patrí medzi jej popredných predstaviteľov. Prvá časť práce sa zaoberá vznikom hororovej literatúry ako aj jej pozíciou vo svetovej literatúre. Cieľom tejto časti je uviesť čitateľa do literatúry hororu, čo je dosiahnuté tým, že sú prezentované kľúčové diela hororovej literatúry napísané autormi, ktorí pôsobili pred začiatkom literárnej kariéry E. A. Poea, ale tak isto aj diela autorov, ktorí pôsobili až po Poeovej smrti, a v ktorých je viditeľný vplyv Poeových hororových poviedok. Druhá časť bakalárskej práce má za úlohu analyzovať a interpretovať prvky hororu vo vybraných hororových poviedkach Edgara Allana Poea, ktorými sú poviedky Čierny kocúr, Jama a kyvadlo a Zradné srdce. Každej z týchto poviedok je venovaná samostatná kapitola, v ktorej je postupne zosumarizovaný jej dej a následne interpretované kľúčové hororové prvky. Najdôležitejšou častou práce je však práve interpretačná časť, v ktorej autor ponúka svoje porozumenie jednotlivých hororových prvkov vo vybraných hororových poviedkach Edgara Allana Poea. Kľúčové slová: hororová literatúra, prvky hororu, hororová poviedka, hororová atmosféra, napätie, strach, hrôza 5

7 Abstract MICHALEC, Albín Features of Horror in the Work of E. A. Poe [Bachelor Thesis]. Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. Faculty of Arts: Department of English and American Studies. Majors: English language and literature and Ethics. Consultant: prof. PhDr. Anton Pokrivčák, PhD. Nitra: FF UKF, pp. 47. The bachelor s work is devoted to the literature of horror and to the work of Edgar Allan Poe, a well-known American writer, who is one of the most important representatives of this type of literature. The first part of the thesis focuses on the origin of horror literature as well as on its position in world literature. Main goal of this part is to introduce horror literature to the reader, which is accomplished by providing a survey of the most important works of horror literature. These works were written by authors whose literary carrier begun far before that of Poe but also by the authors whose major works were produced only after Poe s death. In the works of the latter group of authors the influence of Poe s tales of horror is clearly observable. The aim of the second part of the thesis is to analyse and interpret features of horror in the selected short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Tell-Tale Heart. Each of these short stories is given an independent chapter where plot is summarized and the key features of horror are interpreted. The most important part of this thesis, however, consists of its interpretational part where the author offers his understanding of horror features used in the selected tales of horror written by Edgar Allan Poe. Key words: literature of horror, features of horror, a horror tale, horrifying atmosphere, suspense, fear, terror 6

8 Table of contents Introduction The literature of horror The features of horror The dawn of the horror tale The early Gothic novel Edgar Allan Poe's influence on the literature of horror The Black Cat Features of horror The Pit and the Pendulum Features of horror The Tell-Tale Heart Features of horror Conclusion Résumé Bibliography

9 Introduction Edgar Allan Poe is considered to be one of the most famous and most influential writers in the history of the American literature. And not just in that of America. His literary fame and influence went far beyond the borders of the United States, which is something that was not accomplished by many of his other contemporaries. Moreover, Poe has become even more admired outside his motherland, which is probably the fact why he is not considered as a purely American writer. Nowadays, Edgar Allan Poe is famous mainly for his thrilling short-stories as well as for his fascinating poems. However, Poe s carrier in literary circles went further, for he was also a very prominent literary critic. Unfortunately, Poe's fame started to flourish only after his death in 1849, so he did not have a chance to enjoy a life of a famous and successful author. Despite being renowned for his criticism, the lack of success coming from his poetry and prose in his days was probably a decisive factor en route to his destiny. Receiving a ton of negative comments and critiques on his work in his days, Edgar Allan Poe, however, dedicated all his life to the literature, which in his own words was "the most noble of professions". Moreover, he considered this profession as "the only one fit for a man" (Fisher, 2008 p. 14). This thesis, however, by no means tends to be a biography of Poe's life, neither it will discuss the influence of Poe's misfortunate life upon his work (though it is inevitable to consider this fact while analyzing his work), far from it. The main objectives of this bachelor s work are to introduce the concept of horror to its readers and to show how much Edgar Allan Poe was devoted to this concept in his work. Poe s literary canon is very wide. It contains various literary genres, ranging from just a few lines long poems to the longer pieces of art, as novels are. All pieces of his work are of a high significance and it can be said that they all are somehow peculiar to his writing style. All of them are definitely worth reading and writing about, however, for the purpose of this thesis, only Poe s short stories will be discussed. Edgar Allan Poe wrote about 70 short stories and they all can be read and understood from different points of view. The most general division of these tales results in the following categories: the detective tales (of which Poe is considered to be the inventor), the horror tales, and, last but not least, tales featuring as satires of his contemporaries and events of his era (Poe was a master of irony). 8

10 The initial pages of this thesis are devoted to the literature of horror. In this part of the thesis, the focus will be given on the origin of this literary genre as well as on its position in the world literature. This part is very important for the further analysis of Poe s work, because, as I have already pointed out, the major part of his work belongs to this literary genre. Giving historical overview of the genre and comparing some definitions, I will try to offer here clear idea of what this genre of literature actually is. The main features of this genre will also be discussed in this part. The understanding of the principles of horror literature will serve as a very helpful tool for the analysis of Poe s horror tales. The main goal of the bachelor s work is to analyze and to interpret some of Poe s unique horror tales. In order to achieve this goal, I will offer brief analyses of each of the chosen tales and point to the similarities and differences between these these. The major part of this thesis will be focused on the most terrifying and fascinating features and characters featuring in Poe s tales. The various ways of using these features and characters result into the difference in the final atmosphere achieved in these tales. However, as I have already pointed out, Poe s short-story canon and variety of the ways in which the horror features in individual tales are being used is very vast. Therefore, the thesis will deal only with some of his tales, but it will be still enough to show its readers that a different type of atmosphere can be achieved solely by different way of using these features and characters. It was a very difficult task to select only a few tales to deal with. After a long consideration the following short stories have been chosen: The Black Cat, The Pit and the Pendulum and The Tell-Tale Heart. Besides being in much favor by their readers, these tales are considered to be the true manifestations of horrifying atmosphere. 9

11 1 The literature of horror Have you ever been scared? That is the question one may expect when speaking about horror. I feel confidence in saying that all of us have already encountered horror at least few times in our lives or that we all have our own horrors haunting us from time to time. But does it make us aware of what the horror in connection with literature actually means and where it comes from? I have seen a lot of movies and heard about lot of haunting stories, but it was nothing compared to the horrors and the excitement I have experienced while reading the short stories that will be discussed in the following chapters. But prior to that, I have to start with the genre itself. As I have already mentioned, stating what the literature of horror actually is plus what its features are is of the utmost importance for the purpose of my thesis. Therefore this chapter takes precedence and comes first. It may appear as an unnecessary waste of paper and time (because you may think that you already know everything about horror from watching just a few movies), but if you want to discover and eventually understand all the macabre features of Poe s tales of horror, you have to know something about the history and development of this genre in the first place. This does not mean that only some dates and periods will be pointed out, it also means that we should devote some time to other authors of this genre, all of whom might have served as a source of inspiration for Poe s writing or that some of them may have been inspired by him in the periods following his death. Thus, on the following pages I will provide a brief overview of the history of this genre. The first chapter will start with the very beginnings of horror literature, which has its origins in Gothic fiction, and then we will travel in time to the present. The goal of this part is to show the readers how this genre of literature has been developing throughout the centuries and it will also enable me to set Poe s work into some literary and historical context. 1.1 The features of horror In general, the term horror story stands for a fictional narrative (usually in prose) of variable length (but tending to be between, say, 2,000 words and 100,000 or more) which shocks or even frightens the reader, and/or perhaps induces a feeling of repulsion or loathing (Cuddon, 1992 p. 416). Cuddon further claims that apart from being about murder, suicide, torture, fear and madness, horror stories are also concerned with ghosts, vampires, doppelgängers, succubae, incubi, poltergeists, demonic pacts, 10

12 diabolic possession and exorcism, witchcraft, spiritualism, voodoo, lycanthropy and the macabre, plus such occult or quasi-occult practices as telekinesis and hylomancy (1992 p. 417). I will mention some underlying works of this genre, all of whom are based upon the above mentioned features, so it is vital to keep them in mind. What is also very important to mention within each and every genre is the place where the story happens. Though not always as obviously as in The Castle of Otranto or Dracula, a Gothic tale usually takes place (at least some of the time) in an antiquated or seemingly antiquated space be it a castle, a foreign palace, an abbey, a vast prison, a subterranean crypt, a graveyard, a primeval frontier or island, a large old house or theatre, an aging city or urban underworld, a decaying storehouse, factory, laboratory, public building, or some new recreation of an older venue, such as an office with old filing cabinets, and overworked spaceship, or a computer memory (Hogle, 2002 p. 2). Again, many of these places can be found in Poe s stories, each of them enriched by his imagination. It is also quite common that within this space, or a combination of such spaces, are hidden some secrets from the past (sometimes the recent past) that haunt the characters, psychologically, physically, or otherwise at the main time of the story (Hogle, 2002 p. 2). And as Hogle further explains, these hauntings can take many forms, but they frequently assume the features of ghosts, specters, or monsters (mixing features from different realms of being, often life and death) that rise from within the antiquated space, or sometimes invade it from alien realms, to manifest unresolved crimes or conflicts that can no longer be successfully buried from view (2002 p. 2). Hogle's idea is clearly observable in Poe's "The Black Cat", where "the haunting" of this sort is offered by the late cat Pluto that appears even after its death as a sign on the compartment wall of the narrator's burnt house. This event has aroused great terrors in the narrator's soul and he was never able to get rid of it. However, the horror features in "The Black Cat" will be more closely discussed in the second part of this thesis. One of the most important things when discussing any genre of literature is the definition or the main philosophy of that particular genre. However, one must accept that the definition of Gothic changes with its contexts, and while it does have a set of historical meanings and associations worthy of study, no academic writer will ever legitimately declare a decisive victory in the battle over its precise meaning (Cooper, 2010 p. 5). Trying to set the precise point of the emergence of the genre is, however, not 11

13 as difficult as to postulate its universal definition. In The Penguin dictionary of literary terms and literary theory, J.A. Cuddon proposes a clear idea on the period of emergence and the period of greatest fame of the literature of horror. He claims that this type of literature started to flourish with the emergence of Gothic novel late in the eighteenth century and it has kept its spirit until the present days. Cuddon also suggests where the horror story received the warmest welcome when saying that "the horror story (which is perhaps a mode rather than an identifiable genre) in its many and various forms [starting with the Gothic novel] has been a diachronic feature of British and American literature and is of considerable importance in literary history, especially in the evolution of the short story" (1992 p. 417). Cuddon has a similar opinion on the close connection between the Gothic novel (examples of which will be offered on the following pages) and the horror stories written by Poe, when he claims that the horror story "is also important because of its connections with the Gothic novel and with a 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 19 th and 20 th c. in which crime is a central theme (Cuddon, 1992 p. 417). Cuddon's theory of the exact period of the emergence of a new literary genre is also supported by Andrew L. Cooper, who claims with confidence that while the Gothic has roots in medieval romances, Renaissance tragedies, and early experiments in the novel based on the romance tradition, most critics agree that the Gothic tradition began in the eighteenth century (Cooper, 2010 p. 5). Among such critics can be found Howard Phillips Lovecraft, whose insights on the history of literature of horror will be offered in the next part of this chapter. 1.2 The dawn of the horror tale I borrowed the title of this subsection from Howard Phillips Lovecraft, whose essay Supernatural Horror in Literature (first published in 1927) served as a great inspiration in writing this work. Mr. Lovecraft was a prominent American author of the so-called weird fiction, which is classified as a subgenre of horror fiction. He often used term weird tale as a synonym for a horror tale, so the readers should not be confused if it will appear in some of his statements quoted in my thesis. Lovecraft s essay is quite an extensive, yet very precise overview of the historical development of the Gothic fiction, from which the horror tale emerged. The essay 12

14 consists of ten chapters, one of which is entirely devoted to Edgar Allan Poe. Lovecraft starts this essay with a brief introduction into the topic and then continues with the early beginnings, the apex, and the aftermath of the Gothic fiction. The final chapters are devoted to the weird fiction in America and Britain and the essay finishes with the works of Lovecraft s contemporaries and the concept of the horror tale in his era. 1 Lovecraft begins his essay with the following words: THE OLDEST and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 3). The idea hidden behind this statement is easily understandable. Lovecraft understands fear as the primal emotion of all human beings, which is undeniable. And as we all know, fear, especially Lovecraft s fear of the unknown is considered to be the primary essence of each and every horror tale. Of course, reading a book where the main character is passing the graveyard during a dark and gloomy night where with each subsequent line a reader is dying to discover whether or not some "gravy" zombie, hidden behind the nearest tombstone, will jump out on him and take a bite from his brain can be really frightening. These gloomy expectations, or in other words, fear of something that is still unknown to us (but we are hungry to discover it) can be really scary. Lovecraft (2001, p. 4) claims that we remember pain and the menace of death [besides fear another important aspects of horror tales] more vividly than pleasure and he further claims that this tendency, too, is naturally enhanced by the fact that uncertainty and danger are always close allied; thus making any kind of an unknown world a world of peril and evil possibilities. It means that sometimes we have this urge to be scared and the fact that people are attracted to the emotions like fear and pain (anyhow strange it may seem to be) is something which many authors of horror tales rely on and from which many of them also profit. It was exactly the same in the case of Poe. He took up writing horror tales primarily due to the financial problems he had because he knew that people in his age were hungry for the kind of tales he was producing. From what I have stated above, and supported by Lovecraft s opinions, it is very obvious that the impulse and atmosphere, which the horror tales are based upon, are as old as man (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 10). However, if we want to deal with the horror as a genre of literature and not just as a concept or an emotion (which was undeniably 1 H.P. Lovecraft was born in 1890 and died in 1937, the period which I refer to as his era. 13

15 present in the history of mankind since its beginning), we have to keep in mind that the typical weird tale [in our context a horror tale] of standard literature is a child of the eighteenth century (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 10). The fact that the horror tale has its roots in the literature of the eighteenth century, not sooner, might be quite confusing. After all, as may naturally be expected of a form so closely connected with primal emotion, the horror-tale is as old as human thought and speech themselves (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 7). Witch, werewolf, vampire, and ghoul brooded ominously on the lips of bard and grandam, and needed but little encouragement to take the final step across the boundary that divides the chanted tale or song from the formal literary composition (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 7). It is generally known that there had existed many mysterious, thrilling and ghastly stories (featuring supernatural beings mentioned by Lovecraft, but also many others), all of which had been doubtlessly made up far before the beginning of the eighteenth century. However, they were mostly classified just as parts of folklore or narrative tradition of various nations they originated in. And what was the reason why they could not belong to a particular genre? It was so because of the fact that they were mostly given orally, which means that they were obviously not governed by any rules or concept, therefore they could not constitute an independent literary genre. This is the reason why they will not be mentioned on the following pages of the thesis. 1.3 The early Gothic novel Although the Gothic has roots in medieval romances, Renaissance tragedies, and early experiments in the novel based on the romance tradition, most critics [like it was observable in the case of Lovecraft] agree that the Gothic tradition began in the eighteenth century (Cooper, 2010 s. 5). Most of these critics will also agree on the point of the first significant writer who gave direction to the development of the Gothic fiction, the genre that gave birth to the horror tale. And who was that particular person? His name was Horace Walpole, whom Lovecraft (2001, p. 11) defines as a very sprightly and worldly Englishman, but more importantly he considers him to be the one who gave the growing impulse definite shape and become the actual founder of the literary horror-story as a permanent form. This idea is also supported by Mary Ellen Snodgrass, who refers to Walpole s pivotal book as to the first official Gothic romance and progenitor of an enduring 14

16 genre (Snodgrass, 2005 p. 52). The book in which Walpole laid down the foundations of a new literary genre was called The Castle of Otranto and Snodgrass claims that the book, which was published in 1764, had become an immediate best-seller (Snodgrass, 2005 p. 52). To assure its readers to which genre they were actually committed, Walpole subtitled the second edition of the book A Gothic Story (Gothic Studies Past, Present and Future, 1999 p. 2). In this subchapter I will, therefore, offer a brief insight on this novel as well as on other important works of the early Gothic fiction, for they all may have in some way served (and I also assume that they really did) as an inspiration for Poe s tales of horror discussed in the second part of my thesis. As it was stated above, Walpole's major work The Castle of Otranto initiated the Gothic movement in world literature. At first, Walpole s The Castle of Otranto had been just mocked and laughed at, considered to be rather a parody than a serious story. Some of the critics still judge it as a rather preposterous and melodramatic story full of supernatural machinery and they claim that this story was, upon publication, interpreted by many as a burlesque and it is admittedly easy to see why (Punter, Byron, 2004 p. 169). But later on the story gained higher significance among literary circles. Punter and Byron claim that by the 1790s ( ) its significance as the originator of a new genre had become clear (Punter, Byron, 2004 p. 169). This significance can be mainly seen in the fact that this story served as a source of inspiration for many writers of the post-otranto period, who also used the castle-like settings in their works. The plot of the story is fairly easy to follow. The Castle of Otranto represents a medieval story which is set in the southern Italy and place during the time of the Crusades, which results in a very adequate medieval setting. It is a story about the tyrant Manfred, prince of Otranto, who fears an enigmatic prophecy which states that the castle and lordship of Otranto "should pass from the present family, whenever the real owner should be grown too large to inhabit it" (Walpole, 1998 p. 8). After hearing the prophecy, prince Manfred attempts to ensure his line by marrying his only son, Conrad, to Isabella, the daughter of Frederick, marquis of Vicenza. Up until this point there is nothing unusual about the story. But later on the story starts to gain rather rapid flow and a lot of supernatural features enter the story and lot of ghastly events take place. Manfred s plans to ensure his line are quite startlingly thwarted when, during the marriage ceremony, Conrad is crushed to death by a huge helmet that, as a young man 15

17 later identified as Theodore observes, closely resembles that belonging to the nearby statue of Alfonso the Good in the Church of St Nicholas (Punter, Byron, 2004 p. 178). There are many other supernatural phenomena appearing in the story. Fragments of gigantic armour being discovered here and there, a portrait walking out of its frame, a thunderclap destroying the edifice, and a colossal armoured spectre of Alfonso rising out of the ruins to ascend through parting clouds to the bosom of St. Nicholas (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 12). All of these supernatural events and features were at first considered preposterous by the critics, as it was already stated above, but later on all of them gained significance and became fundamental for any Gothic narrative. Even though critics did not give it importance, the story immediately received a very warm welcome from its readers. This acceptance was caused mainly by peoples desire and thirst for the touches of strangeness and spectral antiquity which Walpole s Otranto indisputably offered (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 12). To sum it up, the highest importance of The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole lies in the fact that it was, upon its publication, a very innovative piece of art which commenced the evolution of a new literary genre called the Gothic fiction, the genre which served as the major influence for Poe s writing. My idea is supported by Lovecraft (2001, p.12) who claims that this story, above all, created a novel type of scene, which, handled to better advantage by writers more naturally adapted to weird creation, stimulated growth of imitative Gothic school which in turn inspired the real weavers of cosmic terror-the line of actual artists beginning with Poe (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 12). The first female writer important for the development of the literature of horror was Ann Radcliffe. Radcliffe as the author of well-known Gothic novel The Mysteries of Udolpho was one of the most important female authors in the history of Gothic literature. She was born in 1764, the year during which The Castle of Otranto was published. This can be either considered as a mere coincidence or it can be looked at as a foreshadowing of her great literary fame, which she definitely achieved by committing to the same genre as Walpole did. The Mysteries of Udolpho, first published in 1794, is Radcliffe s major work and may be taken as a type of early Gothic tale at its best (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 14). The novel is a story of a young Frenchwoman Emily who lives in the castle in the 16

18 Apennines that belongs to a nobleman called Montoni. As you may have already noticed, a castle or a structure similar to it is the most frequent setting used in Gothic stories. The Mysteries of Udolpho contains many features which are also peculiar to the horror fiction. Among these the reader can find for example mysterious sounds, opened doors, frightful legends, and a nameless horror in a niche behind a black veil (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 14). These features are rather important for my thesis, for some of them can be definitely found in Poe s tales as well. Even though Walpole s Otranto is still considered as the first book of the Gothic literature, Radcliffe s Udolpho is considered the most important work of female Gothic literature. It is so mainly because by the means of this novel Radcliffe set both tone and theme of the female gothic (Snodgrass, 2005 p. 243). The next author that stands in the line of the development of the horror literature is the American novelist Charles Brockden Brown who is considered to be one of the most influential authors for Poe's writing, mainly for his detective stories. His main importance, however, springs from the fact that he is generally accepted as the founder of American romanticism (Snodgrass, 2005 p. 40). As far as the writing style is concerned, he is considered a successor of Ann Radcliffe and according to Lovecraft (2001, p.15) he was also one of her best imitators as far as the style and spirit of writing are concerned. The most important fact about his writing is that, in his novels, Brown offers the reader memorably frightful scenes and all of his novels excel mainly in describing the operations of the perturbed mind of the characters, which is something that is peculiar to Poe's tales of horror as well. This idea is also supported by Snodgrass, who states that "his [Brown's] novels were the literary precursors of the psychological fiction of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville, the first-person narratives of Henry James, and the detective thrillers of Edgar Allan Poe" (Snodgrass, 2005 p. 40). Matthew Gregory Lewis' The Monk, which was published in 1796, is also considered of a high importance for the development of the horror fiction. Lovecraft claims that by the means of his fiction Lewis "succeeded in breaking up the Radcliffian tradition and expanding the field of the Gothic novel" (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 17). But how did he expand the field of the genre? The answer is fairly simple. Lewis just offered to his readers something new and sensational. Snodgrass (2005) considers Lewis' "The Monk" to be "the most sensational, sexually explicit HORROR FICTION of its day" (Snodgrass, 2005 p. 235). The novel was very sensational indeed, mainly because the 17

19 readers could find explicit references to sexuality and sadism in the story. Therefore, Lewis was forced to reissue a bowdlerized version. The Monk is a story of a Spanish monk called Ambrosio, "who from a state of over-proud virtue is tempted to the very nadir of evil by a fiend in the guise of the maiden Matilda; and who is finally, when awaiting death at the Inquisition's hands, induced to purchase escape at the price of his soul from the Devil, because he deems both body and soul already lost" (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 16). Ambrosio then thinks that he is saved by the devil, however, "the mocking Fiend snatches him to a lonely place, tells him he has sold his soul in vain since both pardon and a chance for salvation were approaching at the moment of his hideous bargain, and completes the sardonic betray by rebuking him for his unnatural crimes, and casting his body down a precipice whilst his soul is borne off forever to perdition" (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 16). One can see this story (but also the stories mentioned above) as a source of inspiration for some of Poe's tales. The topic of cruelty imposed on people by the members of Inquisition is, for example, used in Poe's horror tale "The Pit and the Pendulum", which will be discussed in detail later. However, the topics concerning Satanism are also not unfamiliar to Poe's readers. For example, Poe's short story "Silence. A Fable", which was published in 1838, features Satan, or the Fiend, as the main character. One of the most, if not THE most, memorable and the most generally acknowledged piece of horror fiction composed prior to the Poe's era was Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, an innovative terror melodrama that was published in Besides being the first work that somehow departed from traditional Gothic narrative, Shelley's Frankenstein, subtitled "The Modern Prometheus", is generally considered to be "the world's first science fiction novel and one of the most influential works written by a woman" (Snodgrass, 2005 p. 126). Of the works belonging to the period prior to that of Poe, this one might be of the highest importance, mainly because it set the standards for the horror story of those times. Frankenstein tells a story about a young Swiss medical student Victor Frankenstein, who makes a medical, or better said, scientific, experiment, by the means of which he eventually creates a monster that "possesses full intelligence but owns a hideously loathsome form" (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 23). This is the main reason why Victor's creation is rejected by the public and why everyone hates it. The monster then "becomes embittered, and at length begins the successive murder of all whom young 18

20 Frankenstein loves best, friends and family" (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 23). After refusing to fulfill monster's demand, which was the creation of a wife for it, Frankenstein is threatened by the monster that he shall be visited by it during his wedding night. Strangling Victor's wife to death during the wedding night, the monster fulfilled its menace. Victor then promised to hunt the evil monster down, but the only thing that he finds at the end of the story is his own damnation in the creature's clutch. 1.4 Edgar Allan Poe's influence on the literature of horror All the stories mentioned above were written before Edgar Allan Poe's literary career has begun and they all had, in some way, influenced the work of the master of terror. Poe, born in 1809, started his literary career as a very young boy, but during that period he devoted all his talents to writing poetry, which he considered to be the only valuable representation of art. However, as it is generally known, the biggest success coming from the writing was experienced by Poe during the eighteen-thirties when he was, due to financial reasons, forced to shift his talents towards writing fiction. The truth is that Poe was never able to earn himself a comfortable living and enough fame, but he was always very popular among American readers (but also among those on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean) and it was mainly the latter part of his work, the tales of horror, that inspired many writers of the future generations in their work. Therefore, by the means of this subchapter, I want to show how did the literature of horror change under Poe's influence and who were its major representatives after the period of Edgar Allan Poe. I will also try to point to the similarities between their work and that of Poe. There were several writers who were born while Poe was still alive, but whose career had begun only after his death. One of the writers whose work was inspired largely by that of Poe was an Irish-born American writer Fritz James O'Brien. Lovecraft (2001, p.43) considers him to be the earliest of Poe's disciples. Snodgrass (2005, p. 258) maintains Lovecraft position when she claims that "O'Brien produced elements of the macabre approaching the power of Edgar Allan Poe". Among O'Brien's major works can be found a ghost tale The Pot of Tulips (1855) and "The Diamond Lens" (1858) where the main motif is that of a mad scientist falling in love with a subject of his laboratory research. Quite an important name in the history of horror literature is that of Ambrose Bierce, an American writer born in Snodgrass (2005, p. 27) depicts him as "an 19

21 eccentric American master of the tall tale and the gruesome and uncanny images of supernatural stories" who was also a journalist, satirist, and pamphleteer, but whose artistic reputation, according to Lovecraft (2001, p. 43), springs up mainly from his "grim and savage short stories". Similarly to Poe, most of Bierce's tales are tales of horror, in majority of which the main themes are the physical and psychological horrors within nature. However, there are also some differences between the work of Poe and that of Bierce. Lovecraft (2001, p. 44) views the major distinction in the fact that the horror in Bierce is not so much about perversion, as it is in the case of Poe, but it lies in a definite and uncannily precise atmosphere. As Lovecraft (2001, p. 44) further claim, while "in Poe one finds it a tour de force", in Bierce "diabolism held in its tormented death a legitimate and reliant means to the end". One of his most famous tales is called "The Death of Halpin Frayser" and it is sometimes considered to be "the most fiendishly ghastly tale in the literature of the Anglo-Saxon race" (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 44). Edgar Allan Poe found his successors also beyond the borders of the United States of America. One of them was Oscar Wilde, a well-known Irish satirist and playwright, whose only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, first published in a magazine in 1890, is a true manifestation of a horrifying atmosphere. Oscar Wilde was one of many great admirers of Edgar Allan Poe, "particularly [his] "The Oval Portrait", the macabre story of the power of art over a human soul" (Snodgrass, 2005 p. 363). This story served as a major inspiration for Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, where the art and the life are closely connected. The novel tells a story about a young and very handsome man called Dorian Gray, who decided to be a sitter for a portrait. This portrait, however, is not an ordinary one. It eventually starts to grow older while there are no marks of aging on the Dorian himself. Every sin, or even crime, that Dorian commits is reflected on the Dorian of the portrait but leaves no mark on the real Dorian. In the public, Dorian behaves as a well-brought young man while during the nights he is a frequent visitor of local dins and brothels. Thus, the concept of a doppelgänger 2 is present in this story, which can be again seen as an influence of Poe upon Wilde's writing, for this concept can be found in Poe's writing as well, namely in his short story "William Wilson". 2 The doppelgänger is "a mirroring or duality of a character's persona" and it "refers to the twin, shadow double, demon double, and split personality, all common characterizations in world folklore" (Snodgrass, 2005 p. 83). 20

22 Talking about the Doppelgängers, or in other words, about the concept of the literary double, one must not omit Robert Louis Stevenson's novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, first published in Stevenson, a Scottish storyteller, labeled his major work a "Gothic gnome" for its distortion of character identity. "Through a perversion of science, Dr. Henry Jekyll, a variation on the mad scientist stereotype [like in the case of Shelley and O'Brien], concocts a chemical salt to free the bestial elements of his personality. Jekyll represents the curious man of science; his double and foil, Mr. Edward Hyde, whose name implies the act of hiding and the hide that covers a beast, acts out the primitive, murderous, stalking urges of the monster" (Snodgrass, 2005 p. 94). The main character suffers from a psychological distortion and he eventually descents into evil, which wrenches his original self from its psychological moorings and turns him at intervals into a brute. Again, some of the horrifying features in this story resemble Poe's "William Wilson", but I find the main similarity between this story and those written by Poe in the masterly handed description of emotional and psychological changes experienced by the main characters. Among the world's most famous bestsellers one can definitely find Bram Stoker's Dracula, a Gothic novel published in It tells a story about the Transylvanian count, Lord Dracula, a vampire "who dwells in a horrible castle in the Carpathians, but finally migrates to England with the design of populating the country with fellow vampires" (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 51). Dracula's primary victims are young female virgins, whom he attacks with fangs that leave paired holes on their necks. Stoker's Dracula "has become almost the standard modern exploitation of the frightful vampire myth" (Lovecraft, 2001 p. 51), however, this novel has "popularized one of the world's most fearful and erotic culture hero-villain" (Snodgrass, 2005 p. 86). One can ask what served Stoker as an inspiration for this novel and the answer can be once again found within Poe's work. In his "A Tale of the Ragged Mountains", first published in 1844, Poe presents to the readers Mr. Augustus Bedloe, an elderly man who bears a very close resemblance to a vampire being. Inspired by Poe or not, Bram Stoker definitely deserves his place among the masters of terror and his contribution to this field of literature is undeniable. There are many other authors that, to a high degree, contributed into the field of the literature of horror. Arguably the most famous among the contemporary ones is Stephen King, the American writer of horror fiction, who has, according to Snodgrass 21

23 (2005, p. 201), "inherited Edgar Allan Poe's title of master of fantasy and Gothic horror". His novels, among which the most famous are The Shining (1977), Christine (1983), Pet Sematary (1983), It (1986), or Dreamcatcher (2001), have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide and are rightfully considered the most famous bestsellers of modern literature and they all are definitely worth talking about. However, this thesis is devoted to the first real master of terror, Edgar Allan Poe. Therefore, on the following pages I will concentrate solely on his work and I will offer my interpretations of some of his most famous tales of horror that have definitely served as a source of inspiration for the work of many authors mentioned above. 22

24 2 The Black Cat Edgar Allan Poe s The Black Cat is considered one of the most famous short stories of world literature. Poe wrote this short story in 1843 and it was published on August 19 of the same year by United States Saturday Post. The story immediately caught attention of the American readers and the literary critics even now view the tale as among Poe s finest works, and they have especially praised his handling of the mentally ill protagonist (Sova, 2007 p. 33). This story together with many others written by Poe became a matter of discussion at university courses and it even inspired many directors in creating movies titled The Black Cat. These adaptations, however, do not have much in common with the original text. The Black Cat is a dark and gloomy narrative (the faithful readers of Poe would not be surprised upon this classification) proposed by a man who committed horrible crimes. The narrator regards this story as a series of mere household events (Poe, 2008 p. 230), yet they are by no means ordinary and they are not at all fitting the household setting. The story, if we omit the introductory part, begins with the description of narrator s childhood. He tells us that from his very boyhood he loved all kinds of animals and that his parents allowed him to have as many of them as he pleased. When he was at the verge of manhood, he married his wife who shared passion for animals with him. The couple had various birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, several rabbits, a small monkey, and, of course, a cat called Pluto. The last animal mentioned is, apparently, in centre of the narration. At first, the narrator was very fond of the cat and he really liked its presence, but then it all changed. The narrator confesses that he started to drink heavily, calling alcohol the Fiend Intemperance, which caused that the perpetual presence of the cat became annoying to him. He explains the alteration of his character by saying: I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of the others (Poe, 2008 p. 231). And, indeed, the narrator manifested the alteration of his character by using intemperate language to his wife and eventually offering personal violence to her. His animals also became the victims of his anger and cruelty. At first, the narrator maltreated all the animals but Pluto. However, as the narrator admits, at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish (Poe, 2008 p. 23

25 231), began to experience the effects of the narrator s ill temper. One night, after returning home drunk and fancying that Pluto is avoiding him, the narrator seized the cat. The poor frightened animal scratched him with its teeth upon which the narrator grew extremely angry and, by the use of a pen-knife, he cut on of cat s eyes out. This event marked the cat so that at the approach of its master Pluto fled in extreme terror away. The narrator was irritated by the cat s avoidance and he tells us that the spirit of PERVERSENESS (Poe, 2008 p. 232) had possessed him. He describes this spirit as to be one of the primitive impulses of the human heart (Poe, 2008 p. 232) that causes people to do wrong for the wrong s sake only. This spirit was, as the narrator thinks, the main reason or the motivation for a horrible thing that he has done to the poor cat. 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 (Poe, 2008 p. 232). Indeed, this spirit must be working in a very strange way because it made the narrator do things about which he knew were bad if one only started thinking about them. The night when the narrator committed this horrible crime he was woken up of his dreams by the cry of fire. He found out that his house has been set on fire but he managed to escape with his wife and servants out of it before it has completely burnt down. On the following day the narrator visited the ruins where he found out that all walls with one exception had fallen in. The exception was the compartment wall against which had rested the head of narrator s bed. There would not be anything unusual about it if only there was not displayed the figure of a gigantic cat upon the white surface of the wall. The narrator was shocked and even extremely terrified when he saw that there was a rope about the animal s neck (Poe, 2008 p. 233). The picture was showing signs of a very high similarity with the hung Pluto. The narrator then tried to calm himself down by trying to find a proper explanation for this. The phantasm of the cat (Poe, 2008 p. 233) has been reappearing in the narrator s mind many times in the next few months and after he regretted the loss of the 24

26 cat he started to look for a new one. One night, sitting in a local den of more than infamy, the narrator found a cat that was in its appearance very similar to the late Pluto. There was only one difference in the looks of the old and the new cat - a white splash over its breast. The narrator decided to buy out the cat from the landlord but he said he never seen the cat before. The cat accompanied the narrator on his way home and it domesticated itself in his new house and came to much favour with his wife. On the morning after bringing the cat home the narrator found out that this new cat has also been deprived of one of its eyes. At first he was feeling very uneasy and annoyed at cat s presence but these feelings eventually rose into the bitterness of hatred (Poe, 2008 p. 234). The cat was following its master wherever he went and it lingered with him whenever he was. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly-let me confess it at once-by absolute dread of the beast (Poe, 2008 p. 234). The narrator s loathing for its pet reached its fullest potential when he finally distinguished the image created by the splotch of white on the cat s breast. It was an outline of gallows, which the narrator regards as the mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime-of Agony and of Death (Poe, 2008 p. 235). The presence of the cat and the sign on its breast started very haunting the narrator even in his dreams but he did not dare to harm his cat-stalker. However, the narrator found a victim for his violence in his loving wife. One day, upon entering the cellar with his wife, the narrator finally found enough courage to end the life of the poor cat. However, prevented by his wife from axing the poor cat, the narrator s anger grew to the maximum, resulting in him burying the axe into his wife s brain. After committing this horrible deed the narrator found out that the best way how to get rid of the dead body was to wall it up in the cellar. The narrator was well aware of the fact that for a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted (Poe, 2008 p. 236). He inserted his wife s body into a projection in the wall and walled it up with the bricks so that no trail would be left behind. After finishing the job, the narrator was very satisfied. The next thing on his schedule was to get rid of the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness (Poe, 2008 p. 237). However, on the narrator s astonishment and relief in the same time, after the narrator committed this horrible deed, the cat disappeared. 25