University of Westminster

English Language and Literature Dissertation

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 Chapter 1
Edgar Allan Poe is celebrated today for his stories dealing with the

mysterious and the unnatural, ornate and imaginative, and the familiar as well as the

uncanny, leaving a lasting influence on the modern genre of psychological terror.

But the question of what exactly leaves such a lasting impression on the reader and

creates the feeling of terror has been debated by scholars and critics since his death,

and subsequent rise into fame. In the afterword of her collection of tales, Fireworks

(Punter, 1996, p. 4), Angela Carter describes how the Gothic tradition in which Poe

writes is greatly attributed to his dealings with the profane. It deals with themes

such as incest and cannibalism, and characters and events are exaggerated beyond

reality. But Poe was more than simply a Gothic writer, his extensive essays and

criticisms attest to his preoccupation with leaving a lasting impact on the reader

through his stories, as well as creating fear. His ideas were in line with the Russian

formalists of the early twentieth century, especially Victor Schklovsky, who

associated literature with the concept of defamiliarization. For the Russian

formalists, defamiliarization was the means of making the familiar strange, and

challenging beliefs and assumptions about the world and what is ‘reality’. And the

capacity of literature and art to defamiliarize or shake people’s beliefs is closely

linked with the concept of the uncanny, which Poe sought to exploit to provoke

unease in his tales. The uncanny is concerned with making the rational irrational,

and the logical uncertain, through which Bennett and Royle theorise some possible

forms in which this takes (2004, pp. 34-5). This essay will explore the ways in

which Edgar Allan Poe generates terror in his tales, by linking his own literary

criticisms and theories with Bennet and Royle’s ideas on how the uncanny is

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 formed. This essay will also deal with the concept of defamiliarization, and how

mundane, everyday concepts are made to feel profane, perplexing and/or taboo

through a close analysis of the language used in his short stories and poems.

If any of Poe’s works dealt so thoroughly with the theme of perplexity, it

is his poem ‘The Raven’, which received relative critical acclaim during Poe’s life,

and remains one of his most well-known works in recent years. ‘The Raven’ tells

the story of a man tormented by the loss of his love Lenore, and is visited by a

mysterious raven, who follows the man’s descent into madness and despair. ‘The

Raven’ has often been noted for its musicality and stylized language, weaving both

with a vivid Gothic atmosphere to incite feelings of terror in the reader

(Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc, 2018). Unlike his other stories and poems in which

Poe dealt with the psychological torment of his characters by keeping their

symptoms scientifically factual, the narrator in ‘The Raven’ differs from this mould.

Roderick and Madeline Usher’s theorised schizophrenia and catalepsy, the

references to epilepsy in ‘The Pit and the Pendulum’, and the behavioural disorders

seen in ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ are a far cry from the mystery surrounding the true

diagnosis of the illness of the narrator in ‘The Raven’. For a writer who was overly

concerned with exploring neurological illnesses with accuracy, the lack of scientific

basis for the narrator’s ‘insanity’ in ‘The Raven’ is a significant point of discussion

(Quinn, 1950, p. 9). It is unknown whether or not the narrator is actually insane, or

whether his instability is a result of his disjointed universe. For instance, the

narrator’s inability to know for certain whether the raven is a prophet, a bird, or

demon is a constant source of his torment, which could be mistaken for madness

(Carlson, 1996, pp. 98-9). The questions concerning whether the narrator is sane or

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 not, what the bird is, or if it even exists at all has been debated by scholars since the

poem’s conception and seems to be a constant source of perplexity for readers.

One of the ways in which ‘The Raven’ deals with elements of the uncanny

to generate feelings of fear in the reader is through its threat of ‘nothingness,’ or the

unknown. This is especially relevant when considering Bennet and Royle’s

definition of the uncanny, or unheimlich, which they define as occurring when

‘real’ everyday life suddenly takes on a disturbingly ‘literary’ or ‘fictional’ quality.

To elaborate, in the poem a key feature of the uncanny is the figure of the raven

itself. Initially, the raven seems to be nothing more than an ordinary bird, but what

makes it uncanny is its odd sense of intelligence, as well as indication of menace

towards the narrator, which an ordinary bird would not possess. The sense of terror

felt at the uncharacteristic abilities of the raven is a result of the ordinary suddenly

becoming unrecognizable and the familiar adopting a sense of eerieness.

Poe manages to capture the terror of the uncanny through the process of

defamiliarization in ‘The Raven’. Bennet and Royle suggest a few forms through

which the uncanny takes place, one of which is the strange repetition of a situation,

event, or character (2004, p. 38). Poe’s use of semantic parallelism in the repetition

of the word ‘Nevermore’ is addressed in his own essay ‘The Philosophy of

Composition’, wherein Poe discusses his choice of the word ‘Nevermore’ as the

“pivot upon which the structure of the story would turn” (Poe, 1846). His selection

of the refrain came after considering the need for a single, easily remembered word

which would change meaning as the story progressed, which in this case also

addresses the mental state of the narrator. For instance, the use of the word

‘Nevermore’ in stanza 8 is a straightforward response when the narrator asks the

animal’s name, but the tone of the word gradually becomes more sinister until

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 stanza 14, where the narrator mourns the loss of his love Lenore. Here, the narrator

begins to fear that the raven will leave him just as Lenore left him, and the raven’s

response, ‘Nevermore’, implies that the raven never intends to leave the narrator.

This implication is pivotal to the turn of the narrator’s mental state, after which he

starts to call the raven a “thing of evil”, to which the raven only replies

“Nevermore” (2008, p. 97). Again, the shift in the meaning of the word by the end

of the poem gives the implication that the narrator will never be free of his sorrows

for his lost Lenore.

Although his poem seems to conform to Gothic tropes, Fred Botting states

that Poe blurs the boundaries between reality, illusion and madness rather than

attempting to rationalise the Gothic like his contemporaries (1996, p. 120). The

madness of the narrator, or lack-thereof, is evident in the composition of the poem

itself. Throughout the poem, the metrical sound is fairly consistent as trochaic

octameter. However, what is worth noting is the variation in the last line of each

stanza with only seven syllables with four feet, as is seen in the example “Only this

and nothing more” (2008, p. 92). The instances of deviation within the poem, seen

with the incomplete sixteenth foot in the last line of each stanza with its withheld

weak syllable, interrupts compounded trochees. The immediate effect of this

incomplete foot is to break the lull in rhythm established by the initially strict metre

and jolt the reader ‘awake’ from the lull. This instance of phonological deviation

also serves to demonstrate the narrator’s own mental state, which becomes more

affected every time the Raven says the term “Nevermore” (Godden, 2000, pp. 993-

4). In terms of rhyme scheme, the second, fourth and fifth lines end with a syllable

left off for every line that ends with the ‘or’ sound. Poe claims in his ‘Theory of

Composition’, that having made up his mind as to a single-word refrain, he was

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 “inevitably led ... to the long O as the most sonorous vowel, in connection with ‘r’

as the most producible consonant”. The refrain “Nevermore” is famously the

vehicle required by Poe’s preferred phoneme, uniting the sound with the subject of

the refrain, ‘Lenore’. The variation in the lines ending with the ‘or’ sound places

more emphasis on the refrain ‘Nevermore’, leaving the sense that the line is

unfinished. Aside from placing further emphasis on the refrain, the broken metre

can be seen as an indication of the narrator’s own insane state, or disturbed

mentality (2000, pp. 994-6).

A point of perplexity within the poem surrounds the exact nature of the

relationship between the narrator and the bird, and its relatively ‘taboo’ nature. In

the 1970s, Katrina Bachinger proposed the theory that the narrator’s repeated

lament for his lost love, ‘Lenore’ is significant since it leads the speaker and reader

to expect that the bird itself is a surrogate for the lost Lenore (Jones, 2016, p. 81).

An alternative theory may be that the poem itself shows progression through the

narrator’s various states of confusion, and that amidst this progression, he realises

that the woman he once loved is unable to occupy a space within his chamber again,

confirmed after his discussion with the raven. If the narrator’s chamber is a symbol

of sexual desire and a space which represents the locus of desire, then Lenore’s

permanent absence from the chamber suggests that the narrator no longer feels that

longing for her. And therefore, the raven’s unrelenting presence in the chamber

would suggest the narrator feels desire for the creature that does ultimately stay

with him. Poe himself stated in his essay about the story the ‘Theory of

Composition’ that the narrator is a figure of frustrated desire, which could perhaps

lead to the suggestion that his desire was transferred to the other physical being in

the room, imagined or not. This theory, however far-fetched, is worth mentioning

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 since it raises valid questions about the presence of non-normative desire and queer

temporality within many of Poe’s other works as well as its use in creating the

feelings of uncanniness within his works. The sense of uncertainty surrounding the

narrator’s desire for Lenore and/or the raven arguably creates the feeling of

uncanniness by Bennet and Royle’s definition of the characteristics which comprise

the uncanny. Although this factor of uncertainty is further clarified by an

uncertainty about gender, the mystery surrounding the true subject of the narrator’s

desire arguably generates uncanniness in the poem in addition.

Bennet and Royle theorise that one of the elements which brings about the

sense of uncanniness in texts is the theme of death, and within Poe’s poem the

greatest suggestion of death is the raven itself. Poe describes the raven as a symbol

of a “mournful, never-ending remembrance,” and the narrator’s loss of his love

Lenore provides the impetus for his conversation with the raven initially. Although

the poem arguably cannot be said to be a meditation on death or a philosophical

examination of the effect of death, the theme nonetheless plays a crucial role in

generating feelings of the uncanny through the symbolism of the raven as a

harbinger of death. The raven’s uncanny knowledge about death and the afterlife is

also telling to this extent, as he replies “Nevermore” when the narrator asks him “Is

there balm in Gilead?” and inquires as to whether he will ever see his lost love

Lenore again. It is also noteworthy that the raven appears perched on a statue of

Pallas who was a goddess of wisdom, indicating that the raven possesses an

otherworldly knowledge (Engel, 2012, p. 124). This indication of the raven’s

possession of wisdom and knowledge adds a depth of credibility to his repeated

statement “Nevermore”, and his answers to the narrator’s questions as to whether

Lenore will ever return significant in indicating his status as a “prophet” or a “thing

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 of evil”. The feeling of uncanniness comes from the indication that the raven

possesses knowledge of the afterlife, as it is itself a symbol for mourning and death.

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 Chapter 2
An absolute definition for the Gothic is difficult for a genre which is so

pliable and easily influenced. Over its long-standing popularity, the Gothic has fed

on a selection of characteristics and styles from various other genres, expanding and

changing its definable meaning in its long existence. Despite this, some

characteristics of the Gothic have largely remained constant, such as its

conventional setting within an antiquated space, often a darkened castle, graveyard,

or vast prison. Another such constant characteristic is a secret, or some unearthly

presence seen within this antiquated space which haunt the characters

psychologically, physically, or otherwise (Hogle, 2002, pp. 8-21). M.H Abrams

writes that the aim of Gothic fiction was to evoke a sense of terror by oscillating

between “earthly laws of conventional reality and the realm of the supernatural”

(Abrams, 1999, p. 111). The Gothic genre dwells amongst the irrational mind, the

perverse and often uncanny nature that lies beneath the orderly surface of the

‘civilised’ human mind. Edgar Allan Poe delighted in the horrific tropes of the

Gothic, and none so more is seen in his short story, ‘The Fall of the House of

Usher’.

Many of Poe’s Gothic tales, such as ‘Ligeia’ or ‘Usher,’ are examples of

Poe’s conception of ‘unity of effect’ through which he theorized how writers could

leave a lasting emotional impact on readers, ironically asserting the use of a

methodical and analytical approach to poetry and prose instead of a spontaneous

one (Whalen, 1999, p. 93). Poe reveals his sense of aestheticism in his essay

‘Theory of Composition’, where he regards beauty as the “province” of his work

and “melancholy… the most legitimate of all poetical tones”, with the idea that the

death of a beautiful woman was the best way with which to link the two, seen with

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 the death of Madeline Usher (Poe, 1846). In ‘Usher,’ Poe achieves this impact on

readers’ emotions by combining psychological complexity with classical elements

of fear found in Gothic tales. The theme of premature burial in some of his works,

such as the ‘Cask of Amontillado’ and the ‘Tell-Tale Heart’ is established, and the

development of detective fiction manifests in his stories ‘The Murders in the Rue

Morgue’ and ‘The Gold Bug’ (Lloyd-Smith, 2004, pp. 32-3). Yet Poe’s greatest

contribution towards Gothicism was not in terms of themes, but of structure and

tone. This is seen most significantly in Usher, with the use of psychological terror.

If one were to describe the plot of Usher, it would be difficult, as the story does not

move forward by simple narration, but by spiralling intensification. To elaborate, as

the climax of the story occurs, when it is revealed that Madeline Usher was buried

alive, the event is marked by the already decayed, crumbling house finally

collapsing into the surrounding lake. This event is the peak of the story’s spiralling

intensification, foreshadowed by Roderick Usher’s insistence that the mansion itself

was the source of the malignant influence over his family. The events of the story

all ultimately lead to the Ushers’ ruin, not only with the death of the last two

survivors of the family lineage, but also symbolically finalized by the destruction of

the Ushers’ mansion. Poe often repeated in his essays that his writings about human

obsessions, which in this case is Roderick Usher’s obsession with his sister and his

perceived notion of the mansion’s sentience, had transformed the clichés of Gothic

fiction into a “horror of the soul” (Poe, 2001, p. 10). The structure of ‘Usher’ is also

an important constituent of Poe’s unity of effect, by which the dense, calculated

formation of the composition is structured around the dénouement, or the intended

effect of the text. By the end of the novel, the reader is left uncertain whether or not

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 the events of the story really happened, or if it was entirely the fabrication of the

deranged narrator. (Punter, 1996, pp. 176-83)

According to Sigmund Freud’s essay which discusses ideas of the

uncanny, the quality which “coincides with what excites fear in general” is seen in

Poe’s tale of Usher (1996, pp. 57-58). Meindl describes ‘The Fall of the House of

Usher’ as a prototypical uncanny text, with classical features such as silence,

solitude and darkness being prominent in the depiction of the Ushers’ house. Other

features of the uncanny include recurrence, inanimate objects depicted as animate,

nervous diseases, insanity and double identities. These elements are seen in Poe’s

tale with the Usher pedigree in which an only son succeeds an only son, the sentient

mansion, Madeline’s nervous disease and Usher’s progressive madness, as well as

the parallels in which Roderick Usher and Madeline are seen as doubles. Poe’s

exploration of Usher’s madness is a by-product of late-eighteenth century

rationalism, in which psychology is used to rationalize the Gothic. However, the

influence of the Romantic movement is also prominent in the way he shows the

effects of mental disorders through the imaginative lens of Usher’s perspective,

without losing its normalizing narrative structure. These features are also

characteristic of the grotesque, but with the aim of producing fear (1996, p. 58).

Brooks and Warren argue that although ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’

succeeds in inducing in the reader the sense of nightmare, horror texts such as this

can’t be justified for its own sake without the element of tragedy to incite sympathy

from the reader. They argue that the true fear from the reader in horror stories

comes from sympathetic characters meeting an unfortunate end. ‘Usher’ then fails

as a tragic tale, since Usher’s character does not induce sympathy from the reader

with his diminished morality, shown with the murder of his sister. The story itself is

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 said to “lack tragic quality, even pathos” narrowing the characters to ‘clinical cases’

which the readers view from without. This argument states overall that ‘Usher’

lacks the basis for relatability or human interest (Spritzer, 1952, pp. 351-4).

However, this argument is weakened by the fact that Poe has made it clear from the

beginning that he will deal with the psychological consequences of fear, which is

arguably a different category of horror altogether, and is a theme relevant to human

interest. Furthermore, using such statements as “clinical case”, debars the reader

from a deeper psychological insight into the story, evidenced by the narrator’s first

impression of the mansion, stating “There can be no doubt that the consciousness of

the rapid increase of my superstition ... served mainly to accelerate the increase

itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having

terror as a basis”. This comment thereby allows Poe to establish a psychological

law wherein the consciousness of fear increases fear itself.

Poe’s unity of effect' is also established through his dealings with some of

the elements which Bennet and Royle state forms the sense of uncanniness.

According to Freud, the sense of fear derived from the uncanny is not created by

something external, or alien, but by the ‘strangely familiar,’ and often by objects

belonging to the home. (Morris, 1985, p. 300). This sense of the ‘strangely familiar’

is mainly established through the element of animism, which can be defined as the

rhetorical term referring to the inanimate and lifeless given attributes of life or

spirit. The Usher mansion, which Roderick is utterly convinced possesses the ability

to think and feel is an example of the animism creating the sense of uncanny. What

is worth noting in particular is the lexical parallelism of the term “eye-like” to

describe the windows of the house. Similar to how the refrain “Nevermore”

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 functions as a monotone statement to evoke emotion from the reader, the repetition

of the term “eye-like” here functions to produce fear and the sense of the uncanny.

But with this theory comes the doubt that the house is truly sentient, or

whether Usher’s convictions are the ramblings of a sick man. The discussion

between the narrator and Roderick when they are reading ‘The Haunted Palace’

leads to the narrator questioning the validity of Usher’s notions, stating “In his

disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed,

under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganisation” (Poe, 2000, p. 156).

At this point in time, the narrator is unconvinced that the house is truly sentient and

writes off his sense of unease, despite the constant references to the house’s stones

on which the mansion was built. Usher himself mentions that the collocation of the

house’ stones, the order of their arrangement and the decayed trees and fungi

growing around the house brought about its sentience, and therefore the sense of

animism. The rationality of the narrator regarding the issue of the house’s sentience

is significant, since it contrasts with Usher’s own irrationality. Arguably, the

house’s supposed animism is not as important as what the characters think of this

fact, allowing the story to deal with the complexities of the human mind, and

sourcing the true notion of horror not from the Gothic trope of the haunted house,

but the rational mind’s ability to doubt itself. By delving into the animism of the

Usher mansion as well as the mysteries of the human mind, Poe paved the way

towards modern psychological horror stories, and was a major influencer of the

current Gothic genre (Lloyd-Smith, 2004, p. 32).

Beyond the elements of animism in ‘Usher’ is the more specific category

of ‘anthropomorphism’, in which inanimate object are given specifically human-

like characteristics, as in the depiction of the haunted house. Poe’s description of

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 the “bleak walls” and the “vacant, eye-like windows” are reminiscent of this,

adding to the pervasive sense of gloom, which is noteworthy in characterising the

Ushers’ home as the prototypical haunted house. The atmosphere surrounding the

house with its smell of the grave, the “silent tarn” and greyness, are not only

physical traits, but also give the sense that the gloom is embedded in the very

stones. Unlike animism, anthropomorphism does not necessarily or immediately

invoke a feeling of uncanniness, but these human-like features possess a sense of

fatality within themselves, which makes the house itself a source of uncanny power.

This is also evidenced by the narrator’s description of ordinary and familiar objects

in the interior of the house, which he had regarded as unfamiliar, and therefore

uncanny (Vidler, 1992, pp. 21-4). The narrator describes how the interior, the layout

of which he was accustomed to since birth was stirring up unfamiliar fancies,

describing the interior with “sombre tapestries of the walls,” “ebon blackness of the

floors,” and “phantasmogoric armorial trophies” (2000, p. 150). The idea of

ordinary and normal surroundings containing the absence of immediate terror is

disquieting and lends a sense of otherness to an otherwise familiar setting. Although

this seems contradictory, the signs of haunting seen in the exterior of the house

compared to the relatively normal interior lends to the sense of unease. And yet,

whilst the house of Usher provokes a sense of “shadowy fancies”, it exhibits

nothing out of the ordinary in terms of its outer appearance. Rather, any sentiments

of doom as a result of the house’s anthropomorphism may be attributed to the

narrator’s own fantasies. The story itself often tends to foreground the

psychopathological threats of the narrator and Roderick Usher’s minds, more than

any outward danger.

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 A major theme in many of Poe’s stories is the actual or symbolic live burial of

the protagonist. This element is seen in both ‘Usher’ and is relevant to the experiences of

the uncanny. In ‘Usher’, Roderick calls upon his friend to comfort him through his sickness

in his last days, which the narrator describes as an effort to console him through what

Roderick states is “the grim phantasm- FEAR”. However, Roderick’s struggle with his fear

had begun before the narrator arrived, for his struggle was not with fear itself, but

specifically with the fear of dying. Until the narrator’s arrival, Usher’s only contact with

life had been through his sister, who herself had become little more than a walking

phantom of her former self by the time the narrator arrived. Roderick’s purpose in

summoning the narrator to his home can arguably be seen as an effort to tie himself to life,

since the only other living being in his home was fading alongside him. However, if this

was Roderick’s purpose in summoning the narrator, then he makes it clear that Roderick’s

despair cannot be solved by tying himself to the narrator when he says, “intimacy admitted

me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the

futility of all attempts at cheering a mind from which darkness . . . poured forth in one

unceasing radiation of gloom.” The narrator’s observation indicates that Usher had lost the

struggle to live after his arrival, with he himself declaring “I must perish”. With this being

said, John McKee goes so far as to argue that the live burial of Madeline resulted from

Roderick’s despair, and that her burial was a last despairing effort to live, by transferring

his death onto her (1957, pp. 1-2).

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 Chapter 3
One of the most significant Gothic tropes Poe conforms to in several of his

writings is the idea of non-conformative desire. Bennet and Royle list the idea of radical

uncertainty regarding sexual desire as one of the factors which create the feeling of the

uncanny, although they further specify this as uncertainty about whether a character is male

or female. However, the mysteries surrounding sexual desire in some of Poe’s short stories

and poems can also arguably be seen to create a sense of horror and feelings of uncanny. In

Usher and Ligeia particularly, Poe conducts an almost profound investigation into the topic

of incest and taboo love. ‘Ligeia’ tells the story of a first wife of mysterious origins who,

after death returns through some preternatural force and takes possession of the body of a

second wife, imposing even her physical appearance upon the temporarily reanimated

corpse of her victim. On the other hand, Madeline and Roderick Usher, as well as their

ancient mansion itself, (which can arguably be a character in its own right) seem to share a

single soul and meet their ends successively; two odd and frightening events from different

stories which are made nightmare by way of Poe’s means of weaving gothic elements of

incest and dead brides within his texts. Arguably the themes of incest and dead brides

would have been relatively more taboo before the texts’ initial conception, due to lingering

European Puritan values since the 16th century, which ostracised pre- and extra-marital sex,

homosexuality and incest etc. But the decline of puritan values, as well as the relative

increase in depictions of sexuality in wider literature in Poe’s era had led to a

desensitisation of these taboo topics. The public for whom Poe wrote, although initially

unappreciative of his writing, were well-versed with the horrors depicted, influenced by

their inheritance of the dark folklore of Europe, as well as having gained a keen interest in

spiritual and theological matters from the first colonists (Lovecraft, 2013, pp. 191-3).

Part of the uncanny effect of these stories comes from the exploration of taboo

themes, such as incest in ‘Fall of the House of Usher’. This is in line with one of the

characteristics which generates the sense of the uncanny, which is an uncertainty regarding

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 sexuality. To elaborate, although the incestuous relationship in ‘Usher’ is never explicitly

stated, the narrator infers the relationship between Roderick and Madeline by describing the

family tree of the past Ushers as laying “in the direct line of descent, and had always, with

very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain.” The narrator then compounds the

relationship between these two characters with the setting of the house, relating the

deficiency of the house with the lineage of the Ushers. This in turn contributes to the eerie

atmosphere, since the decay of the twins’ relationship mirrors the decay of the household.

The live burial of Madeline only serves to compound this, since Roderick’s illness is

exacerbated by his deed and the ruination of his relationship. The bizarre relationship

between Roderick and Madeline seems physical in the sense that having a limited genetic

makeup, and being twins, they are in essence the same being in two different forms. This

idea of Madeline and Roderick being the same being in two forms is reinforced by the

acknowledgement of their telepathy within the text, as well as the establishment of their

close bond. Both Roderick and Madeline, who are unmarried and childless, are the last of

their family, and each other’s only company in their sicknesses. And although Roderick is

portrayed as the principal character in the story, and Madeline as a shadow glimpsed

passing with “retreating steps” only once before her death, she is arguably still a

deuteragonist in her own right, on the same level as her brother. Both twins, suffering

separately but dying together, represent the male and the female principle in their decaying

family whose members, by the law of sterility and destruction which rules them, must

ultimately destroy each other. Roderick buried his sister alive, but the revived Madeline

returns and kills Roderick by burying him under her body. The relationship between the

two, as well as their dual destruction, indicate not only the fall of their mansion, but also

the physical and moral fall of the two protagonists.

The character of Ligeia and that of Madeline usher are similar in that both

women possess an inhuman desire to live, which transcends boundaries of the ordinary.

Both women are also considered the object of male desire, or the depiction of the ‘ideal’ in

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 women. In ‘Ligeia’ particularly, the unnamed narrator is entranced by Ligeia, his love for

her seemingly his sole reason for existing. Poe deliberately omits key facts from his story,

such as the Lady Ligeia’s last name which the narrator himself does not seem to know and

inputs a sense of mystery surrounding the characters and events of the story. The ambiguity

of Ligeia’s character is evident when the narrator states “a recollection flashes upon me that

I have never known the paternal name of her who was my friend and my betrothed” (2000,

p. 226). But despite the obscure origins of Ligeia, the emphasis of the story is placed upon

physical desire and admiration for her character as well as the purely transcendental nature

of their relationship. Although subtle, the theme of necrophilia in Poe’s tale Ligeia is also

worth noting, most evident with the narrator’s obsession with the dead Ligeia. Even after

he marries Rowena, the narrator is unable to move past his fixation. This notion is seen

through the characterisation of Rowena as the antithesis for Ligeia’s character. Where

Ligeia is described by the narrator as speaking with the “thrilling eloquence of [a] low

musical language”, and having dark glossy hair described as “hyacinthine”, Rowena is

blonde, simple and relatively unsophisticated, the complete contrast to Ligeia. This contrast

is significant since Ligeia represents the unearthly, transcendental, and above all superior

universe, whilst Rowena is symbolic of temporality and earthliness. Therefore, the

narrator’s obsession with Ligeia has less to do with her as a person, but rather the

spirituality and metaphysical, with which she is commonly associated. In other words, the

narrator has an almost sensual obsession with Ligeia not as a human, but in her deathly

state. This is affirmed with the narrator’s statement “that she loved me I should not have

doubted… but in death only was I fully impressed with the strength of her affection”. This

line is significant, since it illustrates the narrator’s association between death and Ligeia’s

intensity of affection. If the narrator believed that Ligeia’s adoration for him grew the

closer she was to death, then his obsession with her, and desiring her affection for him in

return, would be at its utmost in her state of death.

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 This theory coincides with one interpretation which states that Ligeia did not

exist at all, aside from as a product of the narrator’s mind, influenced by his opium

addiction. Rowena was supposedly the narrator’s only wife, murdered by her husband in

order to replace her with the narrator’s sense of the ‘ideal woman.’ This is evident by the

narrator’s description, “it was the radiance of an opium dream- an airy and spirit-lifting

vision more wildly divine than the fantasies which hovered about the slumbering souls of

the daughters of Delos” (2000, p. 227). This is significant since one of Poe’s

contemporaries, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, influenced some characteristics of Poe’s writing,

which is most notably seen in the mentions of opium addiction and hallucinatory depictions

within his stories (Stovall, 1930, pp. 71-77). If the narrator of ‘Ligeia’ is in fact an opium

addict and Ligeia merely a figment of his imagination, then the otherworldly depictions of

her would make sense when considering her downright flawless character, described to the

extent where her lack of imperfections is almost implausible. Furthermore, the narrator’s

gaps in memory regarding information about Ligeia also compounds this theory. In

addition to not knowing her last name, which is unusual in itself considering his depth of

affection for her, the narrator discloses that he cannot remember how he first met Ligeia.

He says in the opening lines of the story, “I cannot for my soul, remember how, or when, or

even precisely where, I first became acquainted with the Lady Ligeia” (2000, p. 226). Poe

arouses early suspicions of the narrator who, for all his adoration of his first wife, cannot

remember how they met. This lapse in memory can arguably be attributed to a narrator who

only knows his wife through the hallucinations of an opium addiction, but who wants to

present her as a real, credible person (Davis & Davis, 1970, p. 171). The question as to

whether Ligeia is a figment of the narrator’s opium-influenced mind is key when

considering the story as an uncanny text, since it directly addresses a question which haunts

literature in general: ‘Do I wake or sleep?’ (2004, p. 37). The question as to whether the

narrator is hallucinating the figure of Ligeia or not cannot be answered with any certainty,

and the trance-like state the narrator falls into after Ligeia’s death, describing his “weary

and aimless wandering,” leads to the sense of automatism. In addition, Fred Botting

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 considered the uncanny as a psychological disturbance or upheaval between what is real

and unreal, and what is normal and abnormal. The anxieties and fear which comes from the

uncanny emerges when the writer oscillates between reality and fiction, which in the case

of ‘Ligeia’ is the uncertainty regarding the narrator’s own psychological reality, and

whether Ligeia was ever a real person, or merely a fantasy.

The emphasis placed upon the physical description of the bridal chamber in

‘Ligeia’ is significant in communicating the desire the narrator had for his lost love Ligeia

and is similar to the Ushers’ mansion in its uncanniness, since it is essentially an

anthropomorphic extension of Ligeia herself. Almost immediately after the narrator

pronounces the death of Ligeia and his subsequent move from his old home, he starts

describing the bridal chamber of his second wife. Strangely, the colours of the chamber

which are created in his opium dreams, are the colours of both Rowena and Ligeia’s hair-

black and gold. In addition, the narrator who mentions on two occasions the “lofty”

forehead of Ligeia, describes the ceilings of the chamber as “lofty”. Like the dark and

impenetrable eyes of Ligeia which are described as “twin stars of Leda”, the single window

of the bridal chamber is “immense” and “tinted of a leaden hue,” which permits the light of

the sun and moon to penetrate only vaguely into the room. Much like how Ligeia’s eyes are

set off by “huge jetty lashes of great length”, so are the windows of the chamber framed by

equivalent lashes and brows with “aged vines”. Thus, in the narrator’s mind, he essentially

creates a fantastical equivalent of what he has lost, a room that is structured to resemble a

face. This anthropomorphic image is a less subtle version of what Poe described in ‘The

Fall of the House of Usher’, intended to create the feeling of uncanniness through its

resemblance with his first wife’s image (Byers, 1980, p. 43).

To conclude, the elements which ultimately make up the uncanny can essentially

be described as the thoughts and feelings which arise from making the familiar become

strange, or the unfamiliar become strangely recognisable. But the uncanny is not simply a

matter of the mysterious or bizarre, but additionally draws its roots in many of the same

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 qualities which comprise the genre of psychological horror or terror. In this sense, the

uncanny has a shared objective with the element of psychological terror in Poe’s own texts,

with the aim to leave a lasting impression on the reader through a systematic and

methodical composition of poetry and prose, as stated in Poe’s ‘Theory of Composition’.

What is worth noting in this essay’s analysis of ‘The Raven’, ‘Usher’ and ‘Ligeia’ is the

difference in the function and effect of the uncanny between poetry and prose. Poe states in

his ‘Theory of Composition’ that “I prefer commencing [with writing] with the

consideration of an effect”, leading one to believe that the use of deviation or parallelism,

as well as elements which comprise the uncanny are used to evoke some sort of impact on

the reader. The difference between these two forms then is his poetry’s tendency to evoke

emotion, whilst his prose attempts to incite tension and suspense from the reader. Bennet

and Royle state that the uncanny is an experience, rather than a theme a writer uses, or a

text possesses. The uncanny is not simply an element present in writing, but is an effect the

writing causes, concerned with how readers interpret texts and their experiences whilst

reading (2004, pp. 39-40). It is easy then to see the inextricable link between the uncanny

and Poe’s theory which is so concerned with the experiences of the reader, and his ultimate

ability to incite feelings of terror and horror.

Word Count: 6364

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