Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Final Thoughts II, Evil
Katja
ENGL 48A
Journal # 24, Final Thoughts II, Evil
6 December, 2006
"'I had a fancy [...] that the minister and the maiden’s spirit were walking hand in hand.'" (Nathaniel Hawthorne 1283)
"The brother had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by considerations of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial ground of the family. " (Edgar Allan Poe 1542)
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher evil is the antagonist. Prominently featured but vaguely personified, evil takes form according to the reader’s will. In contrast to this amorphous evil, stands two females, their aspect messianic.
Hawthorne’s dead virgin plays the sacrificial lamb to Hooper’s depraved clergyman, taking the fall for the "secret sin" (Hawthorne 1282). Similarly, the soon-to-be dead sister of Roderick Usher is offered in atonement for intentionally unmentioned, but intimated, transgressions. The men whose lives have been devastated by female wily ways are forever and irrevocably lost to the psychological fetters that bind them to their crimes. Although scapegoating the women superficially gets them off the hook, Hooper and Usher both suffer the greater trauma of living with their clandestine knowledge. Beseeched by desperation, Hooper tries, like the proverbial ostrich, to hide in plain sight, perhaps attempting to avoid looking Truth in the eyes, whereas Usher tries to obscure the evidence while it is still alive—never a good idea.
Hawthorne, a dedicated family man with female friends, appears to have little in common with Poe, a deeply misogynist eccentric and epic drunk. However, their similarly clever turns of tale offer a fresh look at these classic American Gothic parables. Here two innocents play out their roles as casualties of male oppression. Letting women bear the burden for the sins of humanity is a historically pervasive phenomenon notwithstanding the gender of the Biblical Christ, whose reflection is seen on women’s faces worldwide.
ENGL 48A
Journal # 24, Final Thoughts II, Evil
6 December, 2006
"'I had a fancy [...] that the minister and the maiden’s spirit were walking hand in hand.'" (Nathaniel Hawthorne 1283)
"The brother had been led to his resolution (so he told me) by considerations of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial ground of the family. " (Edgar Allan Poe 1542)
In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher evil is the antagonist. Prominently featured but vaguely personified, evil takes form according to the reader’s will. In contrast to this amorphous evil, stands two females, their aspect messianic.
Hawthorne’s dead virgin plays the sacrificial lamb to Hooper’s depraved clergyman, taking the fall for the "secret sin" (Hawthorne 1282). Similarly, the soon-to-be dead sister of Roderick Usher is offered in atonement for intentionally unmentioned, but intimated, transgressions. The men whose lives have been devastated by female wily ways are forever and irrevocably lost to the psychological fetters that bind them to their crimes. Although scapegoating the women superficially gets them off the hook, Hooper and Usher both suffer the greater trauma of living with their clandestine knowledge. Beseeched by desperation, Hooper tries, like the proverbial ostrich, to hide in plain sight, perhaps attempting to avoid looking Truth in the eyes, whereas Usher tries to obscure the evidence while it is still alive—never a good idea.
Hawthorne, a dedicated family man with female friends, appears to have little in common with Poe, a deeply misogynist eccentric and epic drunk. However, their similarly clever turns of tale offer a fresh look at these classic American Gothic parables. Here two innocents play out their roles as casualties of male oppression. Letting women bear the burden for the sins of humanity is a historically pervasive phenomenon notwithstanding the gender of the Biblical Christ, whose reflection is seen on women’s faces worldwide.
# posted by Katja @ 12:53 PM 
