Neil Bowen on
Poe and the American Gothic
Gothic writers not only used their writing to evoke fear and horror into their readers but also used their works to comment on the society at that time; whether it be Shelley's criticism of Science or Stoker's comment on orthodox religion.
American Gothic writers were no exception and were also influenced by their society's nuances, Edgar Allen Poe being the most notorious American Gothic writer. Born of unorthodox parents who were travelling actors, and later bought up in Virginia by the wealthy Allens, he was striving to become the chivalric, Virginian gentleman. these decaying agrarian ideals and the inherent acceptance of slavery jarred with the industrial and democratic views of the Northern states.
Poe's work provokes the senses through fear and terror in order to build up the pure, 'artistic' world of the imagination. This rebelled against the materialistic and rational Northern values which were attacking Poe's aristocratic world in real life. Poe wrote subtle allegories that demonstrate this alienated imagination and therefore his male protagonists were men of excessive sensibility.
At the time, scientists were also exploring the realms of the psyche which Gothic writers particularly Poe liked to push to the extremes. In other Gothic novels, the powers of darkness are removed and personified in a vampire, witch, monster etc. In Poe's work the hero is his own demon.
The Gothic influence of Poe can later be seen with work of the 20th century southern American writers, William Faulkner and Flannery O' Connor. These writers use the grotesque to reveal the distortions reflected in contemporary life and culture. The South had lost its agrarian ideal and it became a place of decay, a place governed by northern concepts of business and industry rather than southern chivalric and agrarian values.