American Gothic — Poe
Poe shows all the Classic signs of a true Gothic writer:
The castles and mansions with secret underground passages and strange
interior decoration, the characters with bazaar psychologies suggesting odd
sexualities, the seemingly supernatural events featuring deaths and
resurrections. Of all the American
Gothics during the American Renaissance (the heyday of American Romantics from
the early to mid 1800s), Poe is perhaps the most psychological.
And much of that psychology seems to be center around a preoccupation
with death, especially the death (and sometimes resurrection) of a strong female
force. In traditional
Gothic Literature, some older male, often a relative, traps a young virginal
niece or cousin in a landscape or building honeycombed with chambers and secret
passages. He pursues her, she
attempting to preserve chastity by running underground.
In Poe, however, this formula is often flipped on its head:
The male is attempting to preserve his sanity
against the onslaught of a powerful feminine force. Notice that I am not calling this force a woman, but rather
emphasizing the psychology of gender here.
Poe’s characters often suffer an obsession which looks suspiciously
like an internal struggle, a struggle within the male character, a struggle
pitting the traditional male psychology against a mystical feminine force within
him.
This subtle intimation of an internal struggle of gender psychologies is particularly true of “Ligiea.” In Ligiea, it is important, in fact, central to the story to note the character of Ligiea and the relationship between the unnamed narrator and his “wife” toward the beginning of the story. You should look closely at the descriptions of her knowledge of metaphysics (a traditionally male discipline, especially in the 1800s). Look closely at the passages which show his attitude toward her. Notice, in particular, their physical positions and postures as they are working together. Who’s the teacher? Who knows what about what subject? Who is higher, and which character is under the other in purely physical terms? By contrast, you should look at the character of Rowena closely and ask yourself the exact same questions. What conclusion do you reach about these character's male/female gender relationships after gathering this information? Are these traditional relationships? Are males acting like males traditionally are supposed to act? And females, how are they behaving in relation to the traditional model of women?
Click
here to see what Poe said about women and poetry