help with engl (2) due in 4 days

Dr. Joy Smith

English-102-908

8 March 2021

Gothic Elements

Short story authors such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe from the 19th century play a large role in the gothic romance movements, which include many different types and styles of gothic elements. While these two often use similar or the same elements, they have differences which changes the effect on each story. The short story, “Young Goodman Brown,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a famous gothic themed story that includes multiple different elements. Edgar Allan Poe also has written multiple short stories including gothic elements, such as “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Gothic elements play a key role in the makeup and setting of each of these stories although there are several differences in them such as the type of setting, the creation of fear, and the different impact of the respective characters. Comment by Microsoft account: ,

In each of the short stories the setting is an especially important gothic element. In “Young Goodman Brown,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the gothic setting is the forest around Salem Village, which already creates a dark meaning because of the well-known past of Salem. One example describing the forest would be when Hawthorne asserts, “In truth, all through the haunted forest, there could be nothing more frightful than the figure of Goodman Brown. On he flew, among the black pines, brandishing his staff with frenzied gestures, now giving vent to an inspiration of horrid blasphemy, and now shouting forth such laughter, as set all the echoes of the forest laughing like demons around him” (6). The description of the haunted forest and the imagery of Goodman Brown flying through the air with the sound of demons echoing throughout creates a very dark and eerie feeling. Likewise, the setting of, “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a creepy mansion out in the countryside, which the narrator describes how “I looked upon the scene before me—upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain… There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart” (1). In the beginning of the story, the house is described as so terribly gloomy it causes sickness to the heart and also having a face portraying it as if it is almost alive, which creates a gothic background. Although both stories have a different setting, the same type of emotion and effect on the reader is created by the dark, mysterious feeling. These settings are both very vital to the stories because they set that tone of darkness to the reader, creating that gothic story line.

In both of these short stories, the creation of fear creates that gothic element that makes them enjoyable. While both authors use the creation of fear in different ways. The main way fear is provoked in “Young Goodman Brown” is the theme of good verse evil, and fear is created through the devil and devil like feelings inside himself, it is an internal battle between good and evil. This is displayed when Hawthorne writes, “With this excellent resolve for the future, Goodman Brown felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose” (1). Even though Goodman Brown knows he is making his decision based on an “evil purpose” he still continuous on with it because the evil outweighs the good. Again, the evil is portrayed when the young Goodman Brown yells, “"Faith! Faith!" cried the husband. "Look up to Heaven, and resist the Wicked One!” (9). The clearness of Faith turning evil or not is unsure by the audience and Goodman Brown. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” fear comes in as not only an element but is a theme of the short story. One example that backs this is when Poe says, “I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, FEAR" (1). In this example the character, Roderick Usher, is not necessarily afraid of dying, he is actually afraid of fear itself. Poe demonstrates fear again when he exclaims, “While the objects around me--while the carvings of the ceilings, the sombre tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy--while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this--I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up.” (1). The feeling of fear appears here even though he is in a place that has been familiar to him since he was a small child and is causing him to go crazy. Both authors use fear as a huge gothic element all throughout their stories even though it is not portrayed the same.

Another similarity with these two gothic romances is the creation of a gothic element by their respective characters. Even though both sets of characters create an element, there are different effects by each. In “Young Goodman Brown”, one character that plays a key role in the darkness of the story is Young Goodman Brown, and the is shown when the author writes, “We have been a race of honest men and good Christians, since the days of the martyrs. And I shall be the first of the name of Brown, that ever took this path, and kept—" (Hawthorne 2). Brown’s role in the gothic element of this story is that of a man who comes from a very Christian family as shown in this quote, but he unlike his family chooses the path of being a devil worshipper. This plays a role in the story because the devil is a big part of the gothic story line. Therefore, Roderick Usher is an important character to the story line of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and this is shown when Poe writes, “And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step” (1). Usher’s role in this story is that of a man with a mental health problem who is going insane, he struggles from fear. There are similarities in how both the characters create an eerie element but they both impact their stories in a different way. Comment by Microsoft account: Which Gothic element? Comment by Microsoft account: narrator asserts, "We... Comment by Microsoft account: the narrator remanences, "Quote” (1).

In conclusion, there are many gothic elements in both stories that have similar effects to the make up of the gothic romances. Although there are many similarities between the two, both had many differences which creates different effects on the story lines. While both have gothic settings, the settings were not the same which causes a different effect on the audience. Other differences include the creation of fear being very different but actually having the same end result of creating fear, and finally the characters themselves both create a gothic feeling, but they do it in different ways. To wrap everything up, there are many gothic romance stories out there, and they usually all tend to use the same styles and elements, but each element used in each story tends to have a different effect on the audience.

Works Cited

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, and Brian Harding. “Young Goodman Brown.” Young Goodman Brown

and Other Tales. Oxford Oxfordshire : Oxford University Press, 1987. Print.

Poe, Edgar A, and Eric W. Carlson. “The  Fall of the House of Usher.” Columbus, Ohio: Merrill, 1971.