| One of the main features and themes of Poe's Gothic | | | | Therefore, writing at the edge of delirium is the |
| stories is the theme of madness. In defining madness in | | | | condition of thinking. Setting out Foucault and Derrida's |
| Gothic texts, traditional psychoanalytic approaches | | | | terms, it can be said that Gothic fiction produces the |
| provide familiar and problematic answers. If according | | | | crises of reason in association with the crises of |
| to Botting (1996) Gothic signifies a writing of excess | | | | madness. As the result, in this theory, reading Gothic |
| (p.1), then madness is thoroughly a Gothic concern | | | | means willingly being involved in the delusional systems |
| since it exceeds reason. Gothic does not merely | | | | of texts and to adopt their hallucination in order to |
| transcribe disturbed and vicious or horrifying worlds: its | | | | overcome and be overcome by their power of |
| narrative structures and voices are interwoven with | | | | conviction. |
| and intensify madness they represent. Poe's "heroes" | | | | In "The Fall of House of Usher" the narrator, who is |
| have obvious flaws or rational strengths that never | | | | vulnerable to the delirium built by the Usher territory, |
| allow the victory of insane perception over reality. But | | | | constantly swings between the perceptible rationality |
| he loves the exploration of imagination and the power | | | | and 'the rapid increase of his superstition'. In fact his |
| of bringing the effects into artistic existence. Madness | | | | doubts and confusion mirrors Madeline's physician who |
| in Poe's Gothic tales is being studied in two ways: | | | | seems 'perplexed with low cunning'. The narrator, a |
| mental alienation and madness doesn't versus reason. | | | | victim to Roderick's wild influences, is our only sane |
| Mental alienation | | | | witness; however his narrative authority turns out of |
| Though madness and mental illness are brought | | | | control. He champions the vision of a fictional; tale to |
| together in the field of insane and excluded languages, | | | | alleviate what he believes to be Roderick's delusional |
| madness and mental illness have no relationship in | | | | madness, while his own narrative detachment (itself a |
| literature. But in three separate circumstances Poe's | | | | construction of events) is progressively crossed by his |
| narrator of the "the Fall of House of Usher" refers to | | | | own enthralling meeting with the Ushers. What makes |
| Roderick as a 'hypochondriac'. At first glance it seems | | | | sense here is that Roderick may have deliberately |
| odd that he should do so, because he never states his | | | | buried Madeline alive, the narrator may be complicit in |
| slightest doubt that Roderick is really sick: definitely | | | | her hasty burial, but we cannot validate the madness |
| upon greeting Usher, the narrator is shocked by his | | | | of the Usher household with certainty. The narrator's |
| friend's 'altered appearance'. This contradiction is | | | | mind staggers between objective knowledge and |
| explained while we come to understand that, the | | | | delirium as he escapes the collapsing house leaving the |
| narrator who claims he has some knowledge of 'the | | | | reader in a state of confusion and doubt. |
| history of mental disorder' is using a medical term. In | | | | In "The Tell-Tale Heart" the narrator's distinction |
| fact he correctly diagnosed Roderick's combination of | | | | between madness and acute hearing ability seems so |
| physical and mental complaints as symptoms of | | | | important to him that the reader becomes susceptible |
| hypochondria, a melancholic disorder which has been | | | | whether he is really mad or not. At the very beginning |
| discovered for centuries and was widely known and | | | | of the story he says: "...but why will you say that I am |
| discussed among physicians in Poe's own time. In | | | | mad. The disease had sharpened my senses-not |
| Poe's time the doctors viewed a broad relationship | | | | destroyed-not dulled them. Above all is the sense of |
| between mental alienation and the imaginative insight. | | | | hearing more."(p.354). Whether the sound is the |
| But they in no way distinguished between hallucination | | | | hallucination of his own heart beat or the old man's |
| and the possibility that the Romantic imagination could | | | | heart, first heard in reality and then imagined to be |
| break through the bounds of ordinary perception to a | | | | heard or that of deathwatch beetling, the fact is that |
| higher order. The moment of Romantic triumph, in | | | | whatever he actually hears, it shows that he is |
| which the individual imagination succeeded in idealizing | | | | gradually dissociated from reality. In the third paragraph |
| the real, was in medical terms, the moment at which a | | | | of the story he says: |
| nervous disorder turned to complete delusion. | | | | Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen |
| It could be said that there is a connection between the | | | | know nothing. But you should have seen me. You |
| imaginative power which characterizes people like | | | | should have seen so wisely I proceeded-with what |
| Usher and the actual madness. There is this possibility | | | | caution- with what foresight-with what dissimulation I |
| that Poe saw a connection between creativity and | | | | went to work! (p.354) |
| madness. The puzzle which Poe's Gothic fiction seems | | | | This quotation closely examines what was already |
| repeatedly to pose is that described by the character | | | | discussed about Foucault and Derrida's theory on |
| of "Elenora": | | | | madness pointed out earlier. Reading the story closely, |
| In "Elenora" as in "Ligeia" and "Morella" the rebirth or the | | | | two sides of the narrator's personality is apparently |
| reincarnation of the beloved suggests that the | | | | seen; very dreadfully nervous and impulsive, |
| Romantic idealist may, mad though he be, finally | | | | nevertheless he seems to be careful, understanding |
| achieve some success in his quest for a higher | | | | and scheming. He tries to self-justify all the way |
| meaning. If the rebirth is actual and not hallucinatory, | | | | through by: claiming that he is not mad, feeling power |
| then the protagonist imagination succeeds in idealizing | | | | and triumph on the eight night, getting the support of |
| his early mistress: if his beloved indeed passes through | | | | Death and having agony of being laughed at derives |
| the tomb, then his sensual affection is transmuted into | | | | him to confess. It can be concluded that it is still his |
| a bond with the supernatural. | | | | sense/ delusion of the overpowering 'social' that brings |
| In fact it is in the framework of this connection | | | | him to the first kill, to confess to police himself and then |
| between madness and idealizing faculty in stories like | | | | tell the story to "you" as readers. The old man is not |
| "Elenora" and "Ligeia" that we can most profitably | | | | the only representative of social authorities; rather the |
| examine the role which Roderick's hypochondria plays | | | | neighbor, policemen, god and Death are also counted |
| in "The Fall of House of Usher". Like the narrators of | | | | as representative of overpowering socials. |
| these tales, Roderick is a madman whose imaginative | | | | In the story "The Black Cat," Poe dramatizes his |
| powers may actually increase as his mind sickens; and | | | | experience with madness, and challenges the readers' |
| as in the other fictions the idealizing capacities of those | | | | suspension of disbelief by using imagery in describing |
| powers are seemingly confirmed by supernatural | | | | the plot and characters. Poe uses foreshadowing to |
| events reaching their climax at the end of the tale and | | | | describe the scenes of sanity versus insanity. He |
| involving, although in Usher's realm, the family mansion | | | | writes "for the most wild yet homely narrative which I |
| plays a part as well, the apparent rebirth of a woman | | | | am about to pen, I neither expect nor illicit belief. Yet |
| to whom the madman has been closely allied. Usher's | | | | mad I am not- and surely do I not dream," alerts the |
| superstitious impressions concerning his ancestral | | | | reader about a forthcoming story that will test the |
| home and the sister he entombs within are thoroughly | | | | boundaries of reality and fiction. The fate of the |
| in keeping with the symptoms of hypochondria. Early in | | | | narrator of "the Black Cat" is very analogous to the |
| the story he refers to those symptoms when he tells | | | | one in "The Tell-Tale Heart". It seems that Poe tries to |
| the narrator that he dreads the future, "when he must | | | | employ irony and exaggeration to rather cruelly mock |
| abandon life and reason together, in some grim | | | | his characters' decent into sanity. Both characters |
| phantasm, FEAR"(p.202). When Madeline struggles up | | | | clearly have thought a great about this issue and, by |
| from the bowels of their conscious dwelling and | | | | mentioning it in the way that they do, have revealed to |
| Roderick rises to meet her dying and deadly embrace, | | | | the reader one of the important dimensions of their |
| then the two are at once fulfilling the dark fate of the | | | | insanity: an inability to recognize it. They wrongfully |
| family line and experiencing the ultimate crisis of the | | | | equate sanity with the ability to appear calm and the |
| family illness. With the death of the twins their | | | | ability to make and execute plans. Both characters |
| sympathetic mansion sinks into tarn: in keeping with its | | | | pretend to be sane and rational at the beginning of the |
| disorder the house of Usher has finally surrounded to | | | | story; however; they are broken men, babbling their |
| its own worst and most fascinating- fear. | | | | confessions to the policemen. In "Tell-Tale Heart" |
| Thus what the narrator tries to do is to comfort and | | | | nothing of the objective nature seems to cause such |
| rescue Roderick from an illness in which the exterior | | | | transformation, it seems only from his extreme |
| self has been lost to the interior world of the | | | | hypersensitivity, while in "The Black cat" the narrator's |
| imagination. The isolation of Roderick's life from outer | | | | situation aggravates in the course of the story by his |
| reality can be seen in the atmosphere surrounding the | | | | declining nature and the escalating affection of the cat. |
| mansion which seems to arise from the decayed | | | | Poe expresses his early attachment to the cat and |
| trees and dank tarn. In this case Brennan (1997) points | | | | dramatizes the character changes he experiences |
| out: "Poe evokes Usher's lack of sane boundaries not | | | | when he writes "our friendship lasted, in this manner, |
| only through his creativity, but also through his belief | | | | for several years, during which my general |
| that all vegetable things including fungus encasing | | | | temperament and character-through instrumentality of |
| House of Usher-are conscious of perception and | | | | the Fiend Intemperance-had (I blush to confess it) |
| feeling" (p141). | | | | experienced a radical alteration for the worse "He |
| Roderick's fantasy world is like that of an artist: his | | | | warns the reader of new events in a cynical tone and |
| music; his literature which deals with extremes of the | | | | implies the beginning of the madness he denies. Poe |
| human imagination; and his art that portrays a vault | | | | first illustrates this madness when he uses imagery to |
| which is illuminated from no visible source but is | | | | describe the brutal scene with the cat when he writes |
| "...bathed...in a ghastly...splendor." Roderick, unlike an artist, | | | | "I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen knife, opened |
| has lost control of his fantasy world so that it has | | | | it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and |
| become all of reality. | | | | deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!" |
| As a result it can be stated that , what happens in | | | | following the course of events Now the reader has |
| "The Fall of the House of Usher" is that Poe explores | | | | crossed over the line of reality versus fiction. The |
| the inner workings of the human imagination but, at the | | | | author continues to illustrate the inconceivable story |
| same time, cautions the reader about the destructive | | | | when he describes the scene after the fire that |
| dangers within. When fantasy suppresses reality and | | | | destroyed every part of the house except the one |
| the physical self, as in Roderick's case, what results is | | | | wall that was still standing. He writes "I approached and |
| madness and mental death. Madeline's return and | | | | saw, as if graven in bas- relief upon the white surface |
| actual death reunites the twin natures of their single | | | | the figure of a gigantic cat and there was a rope |
| being, claiming Roderick as a "victim to the terrors that | | | | around the animals neck", leading the readers to join |
| he had anticipated." | | | | the madness and believe that this was the same cat |
| Madness Does NOT Vs Reason | | | | that he had savagely destroyed earlier that same day. |
| Brewster (2000) in his essay "Gothic and Madness of | | | | By using descriptive details, he allows the reader to |
| Interpretation" discusses Foucault and Derrida's theory | | | | feel the horrifying experience of a man who believed |
| of madness. Foucault in his famous history of | | | | he was free from the evil of madness. The story ends |
| madness calls madness as a 'crisis of reason"(p.282). | | | | after utilizing every inch of suspension of disbelief the |
| He claims that there is no relationship between | | | | reader can afford. He sums up the plot of the story |
| madness and mental illness though they have occupied | | | | when he writes "the hideous beast whose craft had |
| the same place in language. Therefore madness | | | | seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice |
| resists the confines of reason. Derrida, however, | | | | had consigned me to the hangman," implying that the |
| argues that madness can be thought within reason, but | | | | cat had induced the same torture on him that he had |
| only by questioning or thinking against reason. The | | | | brought on the first cat. |
| difference between Derrida and Foucault is pointed out | | | | Works Cited: |
| by Brewster which is worth quoting: | | | | Botting, F. (1996). Gothic. London: Rutledge |
| Derrida observes that Foucault's archeology of this | | | | Brennan, M.S. (1997), The Gothic Psyche: Disintegration |
| Silence (madness as silenced other of reason) lends | | | | and Growth in Nineteenth-Century English Literature |
| over, system or language to that silence, thus | | | | .Columbia: Camden House, Inc. |
| repeating the Capture and objectification of madness | | | | Brewster, S. (2000). Seeing Things: Gothic and the |
| by classical reason. Whereas Foucault sees madness | | | | Madness of Interpretation. In D. Punter (ED.), A |
| expelled from the domain of reason, Derrida traces its | | | | Companion to Gothic Oxford: Blackwell. (pp.281-293). |
| inclusion in the cogito. (p.282) | | | | |