Dark Romanticism in American Literature: Hawthorne and Poe During the Romantic period of the American Renaissance, several authors found success writing dark romance, or Gothic fiction. Dark romanticism can best be described as a form of literature using symbols and terrifying themes to discuss man’s moral weakness. Characters in dark romances struggle against the forces of good and evil, usually with evil winning. Literature explores the concept of evilness, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy to create a world where nothing is as it seems. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe were famous authors in this genre (Baym and Levine). Each of these authors wrote stories filled with psychological torment, evil encounters, and graphic violence. It is precisely this Gothic fiction that has helped shape American Romantic literature.
Hawthorne and “Young Goodman Brown” …show more content…
Based on his symptoms, today he would probably be diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, a condition where someone “may over-respond to sensation and find clothing, physical contact, light, sound, food, or other sensory input to be unbearable” (SPD Foundation). Roderick himself confessed that his ailments were physical manifestations of his own mental disorder. He believed the house was draining the life out of him and his sister, who puzzled doctors with an unknown disease that caused her to waste away. Fear played a major role in “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Roderick was scared of the future because he knew his sister was dying, and with his death the bloodline would perish. He was scared of losing his mind, of abandoning “life and reason together,” possibly a side effect of living a solitary lifestyle for many years. The relationship between mind and body, the “interconnectedness, between the physical world and the mental/psychological world” was a dominant theme in Poe’s writings (Timmerman
Hawthorne and “Young Goodman Brown” …show more content…
Based on his symptoms, today he would probably be diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, a condition where someone “may over-respond to sensation and find clothing, physical contact, light, sound, food, or other sensory input to be unbearable” (SPD Foundation). Roderick himself confessed that his ailments were physical manifestations of his own mental disorder. He believed the house was draining the life out of him and his sister, who puzzled doctors with an unknown disease that caused her to waste away. Fear played a major role in “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Roderick was scared of the future because he knew his sister was dying, and with his death the bloodline would perish. He was scared of losing his mind, of abandoning “life and reason together,” possibly a side effect of living a solitary lifestyle for many years. The relationship between mind and body, the “interconnectedness, between the physical world and the mental/psychological world” was a dominant theme in Poe’s writings (Timmerman