After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, a spirit of nationalism developed in the states, which soon led to the creation of an American identity. Literature became a part of this identity, and was written in two different styles: Dark Romanticism and Transcendentalism. Famous authors of Dark Romanticism include Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, while famous Transcendentalist authors include Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. The Transcendentalists believe that nature was innocent and beautiful in its entirety, while the Dark Romantics believe it hid evil under the outside. Despite the efforts of the Transcendentalists to explain the beauty of the world to their readers, Dark Romanticism became more popular, as it was more relatable
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The Dark Romantics parallel the hidden evil of a person to the hidden evil inside of nature, to show that even something that seems normal, can be evil on the inside. In “The Devil and Tom Walker,” Tom Walker takes the wrong shortcut into a swamp covered with “dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of tadpole, the bullfrog, and the water snake; where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half-drowned, half-rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire” (479 Irving). The author creates an ominous setting, which later proves to be the house of the devil (480). The evil of nature paralleling the evil characters or spirits of a story was a tactic used to refute the Transcendentalist views of nature, and also helped the Dark Romantics uncover the true evil of the human psyche. Poe wrote similarly and believed that nature itself hid a supernatural evil. In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, the narrator observes “an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn-a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued” (595 Poe). The atmosphere is ghastly and evil, due to the ambiguous vapor surrounding the home, and the evil aura it possesses. The narrator feels it has no likeness to heaven, and …show more content…
Poe utilized the effects of guilt on the human psyche to explain his character's path to madness, and to identify their thoughts with the reader’s. In “The Raven”, the main character has murdered his wife after she blocked him from killing the second cat with an ax (186). After the cat is absent from his life for some time, the narrator reveals that the “guilt of his dark deed disturbed [him] but little” (187). He does not care about ax-murdering his own wife, because as a result, the cat was not present in his life. His “happiness was supreme” after the cat was gone, which indicates his madness, as he disregards his wife’s death, because the cat does not bother him anymore (187). Poe utilizes the same tactic in “The Tell-Tale Heart” after the narrator has killed the old man (191). Because of the destruction of the evil eye, the narrator “smiled gaily, to find the dead so far done” (191). The guilt of killing the man that provided him a home did not show itself, but rather the jubilee he felt when ridding himself of the so-called “evil” the eye possessed. The reader sympathizes with the anger the narrator feels towards the cat and the eye, and they may overlook the path the narrator took to get rid of their problem, which can reveal their own
The Dark Romantics parallel the hidden evil of a person to the hidden evil inside of nature, to show that even something that seems normal, can be evil on the inside. In “The Devil and Tom Walker,” Tom Walker takes the wrong shortcut into a swamp covered with “dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of tadpole, the bullfrog, and the water snake; where the trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half-drowned, half-rotting, looking like alligators sleeping in the mire” (479 Irving). The author creates an ominous setting, which later proves to be the house of the devil (480). The evil of nature paralleling the evil characters or spirits of a story was a tactic used to refute the Transcendentalist views of nature, and also helped the Dark Romantics uncover the true evil of the human psyche. Poe wrote similarly and believed that nature itself hid a supernatural evil. In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, the narrator observes “an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn-a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued” (595 Poe). The atmosphere is ghastly and evil, due to the ambiguous vapor surrounding the home, and the evil aura it possesses. The narrator feels it has no likeness to heaven, and …show more content…
Poe utilized the effects of guilt on the human psyche to explain his character's path to madness, and to identify their thoughts with the reader’s. In “The Raven”, the main character has murdered his wife after she blocked him from killing the second cat with an ax (186). After the cat is absent from his life for some time, the narrator reveals that the “guilt of his dark deed disturbed [him] but little” (187). He does not care about ax-murdering his own wife, because as a result, the cat was not present in his life. His “happiness was supreme” after the cat was gone, which indicates his madness, as he disregards his wife’s death, because the cat does not bother him anymore (187). Poe utilizes the same tactic in “The Tell-Tale Heart” after the narrator has killed the old man (191). Because of the destruction of the evil eye, the narrator “smiled gaily, to find the dead so far done” (191). The guilt of killing the man that provided him a home did not show itself, but rather the jubilee he felt when ridding himself of the so-called “evil” the eye possessed. The reader sympathizes with the anger the narrator feels towards the cat and the eye, and they may overlook the path the narrator took to get rid of their problem, which can reveal their own