Gothic Literature involves many elements including; mystery, horror, death, and the darkness of the human mind. Edgar Allan Poe has written many short stories that are classified under the Gothic genre specifically, “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Fall of House of Usher,” “The Black Cat,” “Ligeia” and “William Wilson.” Within Poe’s short stories there are common gothic elements such as horror, death, mystery and the darkness of the human mind. A component of mystery can be found in “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Fall of House of Usher” settings. Starting with “The Cask of Amontillado,” the walk through Montresor’s family crypt also has an air of mystery to it; the reader doesn’t quite know his intentions yet. Montresor lures Fortunato
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Looking first at “The Fall of House of Usher” horror revolves around Madeline’s death. In the days after her death the men begin to hear moaning noises which they discover to in fact be Madeline. “ It was the work of the rushing gust --but then without those doors there DID stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold, then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated,” (Poe 1004). Roderick was so terrified of his sister and what she would do to him that after she attacked him he died. Likewise in “Ligeia” the narrator is also haunted by a character he believed to be dead. The night Rowena dies the narrator is awoken by a soft sob, which is followed by Rowena’s body coming back to life. “I could no longer doubt that we had been precipitate in our preparations --that Rowena still lived….I therefore struggled alone in my endeavors to call back the spirit ill hovering. In a short period it was certain, however, that a relapse had taken place; the color disappeared from both eyelid and cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble; the lips became doubly shrivelled and pinched up in the ghastly expression of death; a repulsive clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly the surface of the body; and all the usual rigorous illness immediately supervened. I fell back with a shudder upon the couch from which I had been so startlingly aroused,” The situation grows increasingly horrific when the body comes back a second time, this time fully alive a moving. The most shocking part,
Looking first at “The Fall of House of Usher” horror revolves around Madeline’s death. In the days after her death the men begin to hear moaning noises which they discover to in fact be Madeline. “ It was the work of the rushing gust --but then without those doors there DID stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold, then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated,” (Poe 1004). Roderick was so terrified of his sister and what she would do to him that after she attacked him he died. Likewise in “Ligeia” the narrator is also haunted by a character he believed to be dead. The night Rowena dies the narrator is awoken by a soft sob, which is followed by Rowena’s body coming back to life. “I could no longer doubt that we had been precipitate in our preparations --that Rowena still lived….I therefore struggled alone in my endeavors to call back the spirit ill hovering. In a short period it was certain, however, that a relapse had taken place; the color disappeared from both eyelid and cheek, leaving a wanness even more than that of marble; the lips became doubly shrivelled and pinched up in the ghastly expression of death; a repulsive clamminess and coldness overspread rapidly the surface of the body; and all the usual rigorous illness immediately supervened. I fell back with a shudder upon the couch from which I had been so startlingly aroused,” The situation grows increasingly horrific when the body comes back a second time, this time fully alive a moving. The most shocking part,