Compare and Contrast: Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne were two phenomenal authors of the Dark Romanticism period. These American authors were two of the first writers to delve into the human mind and create psychological literature. Dark Romanticism examines the conflict between good and evil, the psychological effects of guilt and sin, and the human minds madness and derangement. Poe and Hawthorne both successfully captured the dark romanticism elements, yet they each approach these dismal aspects differently. These two authors share qualities in their writing, but they were extremely different people.
Clampitt uses the phoenix myth in comparison to the aftermath of the Holocaust and the Auschwitz death camps. In lines 10-12 Clampitt says, “Decay will undo what it can, the rotten fabric of our repose connives with doomsday.” After this she ends the poem in lines 13-15 by saying, “Sleep on, scathed felicity. Sleep, rare and perishable relic. Imagining’s no shutter against the absolute, incorrigible sunrise.” Clampitt is saying that we should not bring anew the daily memory of what happened at Auschwitz. She is also saying that history will repeat itself.
“The Black Cat” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” are two of Poe’s stories that exhibit profound examples of fear of one’s self, and Poe uses these conventions to express his characters emotions outwardly. For example, in “The Black Cat,” as the narrator starts to lose his patience with Pluto, he says, “The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take flight from my body; and a more fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame” (Poe 706). The narrator of this story is plagued by his addiction that is seemingly haunting him.
Cabrera, 1 Hannah Cabrera Block 4 Awp 9/21/11 Life Death is only the beginning. In “The Epic of Gilgamesh”, translated by Stephen Mitchell, the meaning of life is mainly death. Gilgamesh goes searching for eternal life and discovers something better the meaning of life, in “The Epic of Gilgamesh” the book portrays the meaning of life to be that death is inevitable. The thought that life can be restored after death leads Gilgamesh into the quest for everlasting life. For an example, when Gilgamesh’s friend Enkidu dies he is left broken hearted and thinks, “If my grief is violent enough perhaps he will come back to life” (Mitchell, 445).
During the Stone Age, many believed that demon possession was a primary cause f mental disorder, and one of the treatments for this at the time was to drill holes in the skull to allow evil to escape. To us, this procudure would be insane but for them it was a remedy. In the works of Conrad and Coppola the character Kurtz is seen as insame by one culture and reviered as a god by the other. So who’s right? There really isnt a straightforward answer to this but the story is told from the prespective of a society that would see his behavior as
Although both stories are told by narrators, Edgar Allan Poe writes “The Black Cat” in first person while Nathaniel Hawthorne writes “Young Goodman Brown” in the third person. Both writers named their stories after the main character in each. “The Black Cat” starts with its narrator explaining that although people may think that he is crazy, the crime which he is being sentenced to death for is a “series mere of household events”. Immediately, the culprit admits that even though the events haunt him, he does not blame himself for the ordinary succession of causes and effects. He murdered his wife, who harbored the love for animals that he once possessed, after she intervened when he tried to murder their second black cat.
Explore the strengths and weaknesses of Kesey’s use of Chief Bromden as the narrator in the novel. Consider to what extent the Chief’s madness interferes with your understanding of what is actually happening and to what extent his visions symbolically reinforce the themes of the novel. Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a famous and interesting novel about a mental-illness hospital where a newcomer, gambler R.P McMurphy, creates all sorts of trouble at the ward. Furthermore, Kesey uses one of the patients at the ward as the narrator of the story. This character goes by the name of Chief Bromden; a six foot seven American-Indian who everyone else in the ward believes is deaf and dumb.
Selen Yılmaz 20801395 Third Essay Outline OUTLINE The Climax of Madness Essay Topic: Compare and contrast the treatment of the theme of madness in “The Fall of the House of Usher’’ and “The Yellow Wallpaper’’. Thesis Statement: Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher’’ and “Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper’’ are stories which totally include madness, fear and dread that are products of human psychology. While Poe’s story is completely immersed in madness, Gilman’s story limits the element of madness to the imagination of the narrator. In Poe’s story, madness exists in the Usher’s house and its environment, however, in Gilman’s story, madness completely in the mind of the narrator. It shows that both stories handle the subject of growing madness, however, in Poe’s story, the madness surrounds all characters, whereas in Gilman’s story the narrator is the one who is the victim of the madness.
Irony is used in many places such as the story’s title, the setting an even in certain character’s personality traits. In addition to Jackson’s use of irony, the black box and the story’s title represent the importance of questioning irrational traditions and the unexpected nature of death. With the use of these two literary techniques, Shirley Jackson is able to highlight important dramatic events within the plot. Reading this story allowed me to better understand the importance of questioning society. If people would have questioned Hitler’s plans before he gained too much power perhaps we could have prevented the horrible mistreatment face by the
Insanity could be defined as “the state of being mentally ill; madness”, thus it is no surprise that writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and D. H. Lawrence beauteously integrated aspects of insanity into their stories in order to chisel the perfect piece of gothic literature, simultaneously luring the reader in to a world carved by madness and drowned in an eerie atmosphere. Portraying one as insane is a powerful gothic literary device that has been used throughout the era of the gothic, notably in Matthew Lewis' “The Monk” and Horace Walpole’s “The Castle of Otranto”. One way in which writers complement and enhance the insanity of their sadistic characters is through the psychological and mental torture that is often inflicted upon the victims