Ecocriticism, Entropy, and the Gothic in Poe’s Fiction
Carly Bluth
Advisor: John Alba Cutler
April 22, 2015
English Department
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Northwestern University
Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirement for English Honors
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I. Introduction
Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Masque of the Red Death” (1842) opens with a warning: “No
pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous” (359). As we imagine its defenseless and
decaying victims, based on the narrator’s vivid description, disease quickly encompasses a
metonym for human suffering. Yet despite the virulent crisis across his kingdom, Prince
Prospero was, we learn, “happy and dauntless and sagacious” (359).
These passages present conflicting ideas about humanity in the face of terror and death,
exposing our own mortal ethos through the uncanny. For instance, we see how people’s lives are
at stake and rendered inferior to the natural world. This, in turn, reconfigures our notion of
vitality as a force of nature, rather than humanity. It is perhaps easy to denounce the Prince as
holding a vain perspective, trying to float above the actuality of death. Yet there is a part of us
that identifies with Poe’s character. Do we not often feel removed from—even above—the
ecological, as a species thinking ourselves invincible to impending danger?
Poe’s gothic vision of the natural world captures our naiveté as such, to tell us about
humanity’s weakness against disease as an agent of death. It is therefore necessary to consider
how Poe’s own experience with death renders mortality as inescapable. His wife, Virginia
Clemm Poe, died in 1847 from tuberculosis, anticipated in her valentine poem to Poe just one
year earlier: “Give me a cottage for my home and a rich old cypress vine, removed from the
world with its sin and care and the tattling of many tongues. Love alone shall guide us when we
are there—love shall heal my weakened lungs” (Poe, Letter to Edgar Allan Poe). Virginia’s call
to leave the world behind, quarantined from its influence to live in bliss, suggests a fantasy in
which she can endure as if impervious to the natural world. She imagines an idyllic setting
charged by love only. Poe’s gothic treatment of the natural world similarly suggests that
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humanity is inclined toward shielding itself from the ominous truth. An ecocritical reading of
Poe’s works illuminates a darker reality, whereby humanity is both confined and defined by its
vulnerability to death.
Scholars working within the framework of ecocriticism analyze the natural world within
literature, especially relative to humanity. Many ecocritics tend to call our attention to works that
highlight a diminishing sense of the environment. For instance, scholars have named writers such
as Ambrose Bierce as illustrating forgotten ecosystems, to indicate that humanity has
significantly lost its connection to the natural world (Corstorphine 127). In turn, we are meant to
reform our perspective as readers, so as to appreciate nature as more than a forgotten setting for
human affairs. Thematically, such works parallel the Romantic view of nature, which Jonathan
Bate describes as follows:
If one historicizes the idea of an ecological viewpoint—a respect for the earth
and a scepticism as to the orthodoxy that economic growth and material
production are the be-all and end-all of human society—one finds oneself
squarely in the Romantic tradition. (9)
Bate presents the Romantic genre as critiquing industrial growth and the ensuing ways that
humans have developed a dangerous material focus. Instead, as depicted by William
Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” (1798), Romanticism reveres nature as a unified place of solace
that is connected with humanity:
Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky
The day is come when I again repose
here. (99)
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Here the speaker characterizes nature as a space where he is not just self-aware, but mindful of
the environment and the consequent relationship they bear on each other. Romanticism, in this
sense, self-recognizes the importance of reveling in and preserving the beauty of the natural
world.
In contrast with this worldview, Poe’s works do not insist that we bring nature to the
forefront of our consciousness for the sake of respecting the environment. They highlight instead
how the natural world appears stronger and more vital than we are. He presents the idea of
terror—specifically in respect to the ecological—as the reality that humanity is not just fragile,
but at the mercy of the world around us as creatures undeniably sentenced to die. The key term
for this descent is entropy: the scientific law stating that matter, as an expected consequence of
the universe, declines from a state of order to disorder over time. Drawing on this insight, this
thesis examines the subject and effects of entropy through “The Fall of the House of Usher”
(1839), “The Masque of the Red Death” (1842), and “The Black Cat” (1843), from the premise
that ecocriticism helps us re-envision humans’ relationship to the natural world. I argue that
humans are susceptible to entropic processes throughout Poe’s stories as an ill-fated principle of
the world, characterizing nature as a penetrating force. In particular, disease becomes relevant
within Poe’s fiction by not only breaking down the human body and mind, but also representing
nature as outlasting humanity. We therefore can read these stories as critiquing the way humans
insist on an existence removed from nature, since Poe demonstrates that the natural world in fact
greatly impinges on—if not inevitably deconstructs—individual humans.
“The Fall of the House of Usher” represents the way Poe exaggerates characteristics of
the environment that seem benign, even indifferent. This is critical to our understanding of
human mortality: when taking a closer look, the gothic distorts the surrounding world—it
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appears awry beyond our understanding, and reveals the uncanny displacement of vitality.
Consequently, I begin by examining the narrator’s sublimity as a lens through which the natural
world appears extant, by contrast to the diseased Usher lineage. Influenced by Edmund Burke’s
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), Poe shapes the sublime—that
which induces pain and terror, producing “the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of
feeling”—as a force that recasts the power of a melancholy, grotesque scene (Burke 86). In
particular, the environment in this story significantly influences the narrator by inciting terror
from its resemblance to death.
In light of Burke’s emphasis, we see how the premise of disease as an ecological
catastrophe—one that dramatically expedites population decline—amplifies human frailty in
“The Masque of the Red Death.” As a product of the natural world, the Red Death exists as a
powerful form in itself, preventing humans from exerting control over it. Poe juxtaposes the
natural, organic world against Prospero’s constructed, inorganic environment within his castle, to
argue that nature ultimately triumphs over humanity. The castle, presented as an “impenetrable”
fortress against the Red Death, serves as a medium through which Prospero tries to combat
entropy in its most exaggerated form. As a result, Poe captures humans’ temporal state:
conveying a vision of time, this story depicts death as an inevitable aspect of the natural world
that Prospero attempts in vain to fight.
In the next section of the thesis, I discuss how the narrator in “The Black Cat” possesses a
fragmented subjectivity (his splintering sense of self) that affects his ability to act rationally and
morally. Highlighting how alcohol reduces his vitality, I elaborate on disease as an invocation of
entropy and human weakness. While the narrator zealously believes that he is a domestic figure
completely removed from the natural world, he ironically behaves according to primitive, violent
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instincts. Poe presents the narrator as de-constructing Romanticism, specifically the idea of
humans’ holistic relationship to the surrounding world: by contrast, the narrator represents how
man seeks to reject nature as a separate, binary model to the domestic sphere. Yet as the end of
the story suggests, the natural world survives—specifically the black cat as an ecological
presence—while the narrator faces death as the ultimate consequence.
Delving deeper into the gothic environment, Poe reifies mortality through nature: aspects
of the natural world—including disease, plant life and animals—embody forces more vital than
humans, who instead represent subjects on the verge of death. Interpreting Poe’s stories in this
way demands that we question the force of our existence. As a species hyper-aware of our
presence and strength across the planet, we face a more-daunting reality that reminds us that we
are not permanent, but in fact finite creatures within an infinite, all-powerful system.
II. Doomed Vitality
…And the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently
over the fragments of the ‘House of Usher’
—Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”
The Usher lineage is rotting from the inside out, a clear example of entropy affecting the
human condition. Roderick and Madeline, the only surviving family members, are declining into
a lifeless state alongside their disintegrating mansion. In particular, Roderick suffers from a
“morbid acuteness of the senses,” while Madeline slips into a cataleptic state (Poe 222-24). By
constantly building on the narrator’s sublimity through the environment, Poe foreshadows the
ominous, yet inevitable end to the Usher line. Burke defines the sublime as that which invokes
the idea of pain and danger, naming death its impetus (86). “The Fall of the House of Usher”
insists on capturing the terror of death through how the natural world ultimately outlasts
humanity. Specifically, by contrasting these systems through the process of entropy—the
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scientific law defines a gradual state of order into chaos. My intent is to show how Poe
demonstrates the inevitability of human mortality, to argue that nature instead endures.
Poe’s epigraph immediately suggests the relationship between the natural and human
world as a central component to understanding the story. He quotes French songwriter De
Béranger’s Le Refus, which Blake Hobby translates as “His heart is a hanging lute; / As soon as
it is touched it resonates” (47). The narrator’s position within the surrounding world corresponds
to the idea that everyone is waiting to be struck like a lute by an external force. In this sense, we
see how the grim Usher landscape perpetuates his movement toward reaching a state of
sublimity. Poe is especially interested in the Burkean view of the sublime, outlined in A
Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, to capture the significance of the land’s
ominous elements acting on the narrator. Whereas several critical interpretations of the story
have dismissed Poe’s Burkean focus, including the work of Craig Howes and Jack V. Voller, I
argue by contrast that we cannot overlook how the story configures sublime ideas of terror
through the natural world. 1
It is the narrator’s sublimity that guides readers’ perception of the Usher landscape as an
agent of terror. Immediately, he notes the obscure, yet staggering sensation that the natural world
invokes within him: “I know not how it was—but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense
of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit” (216). This passage describes nature as a penetrating
force, spreading itself into the narrator such that the darkness of the land wholly overwhelms his
spirit. In this sense, nature also imitates death as an ominous, inescapable power against which
humans are proportionately weak. As analogous forces, both nature and death shape the narrator
as an impressionable subject, utterly exposed to and at the mercy of the world around him. Burke
argues that such obscurity works to incite terror, to sustain a sense of apprehension (102).
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Scholars including Sean Moreland and John A. Cook have further named James Ussher’s work
Clio as articulating concepts of the sublime, which appears as follows in Ussher’s idiosyncratic
style:
The combination of passions in the sublime, renders the idea of it obscure. No
doubt the sensation of fear is very distinct in it; but it is equally obvious, that
there is something in the sublime more than this abject passion but at the
presence of the sublime, although it be always awful, the soul of man seems to
be raised out of a trance; it assumes an unknown grandeur. (103)
Ussher’s notions of the sublime—similar to those inspiring Poe from the Burkean view—build
on our understanding of the narrator’s position within the natural world. Specifically, by
suggesting that the sublime pulls one out of a trance, awakening his or her soul, Ussher
demonstrates how we can consider the narrator’s heightened awareness of the natural world—
particularly as it serves as a reminder of mortality. We might even say that he offers sublimity as
a cognitive advantage, through which the narrator can better understand his position in the world
as a feeble human relative to stronger forces comprising the earth.
The tarn in particular represents a powerful element toward building the sublime, since it
is surrounded by mystery and terror—sentiments that undoubtedly resemble humans’ own
notions about death. As a reflective surface, the small mountain lake reproduces a vision of the
crumbling, decaying House of Usher, which indicates the fragile and instable condition of human
life. The narrator specifically notices the images of the “gray sedge, and the ghastly tree-stems,
and the vacant and eye-like windows” (217). By describing the mansion as bearing an uncanny
resemblance to a human figure, he emphasizes its sense of lifelessness as anticipating our own
impending death. This morbidity dominates the narrator’s experience of the Usher mansion and
surroundings, which Burke describes as follows: “The passion caused by the great and sublime
in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is Astonishment; and astonishment is that
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state of the soul, in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror” (101). This
is akin to how one might respond to a conventionally beautiful scene, since both possess the
capacity significantly to impinge on viewers’ emotions. Yet the narrator demonstrates Burke’s
notion that pain has a much greater effect on the body and mind than does pleasure, especially
when one is certain that he or she is not facing any lethal threat (Burke 86). Of course, the
narrator is not positive that he is in fact completely safe in this setting, which signifies perhaps
there is more terror—or even death—to come.
We can trace the sublime further through the narrator’s discussion of the tarn, which
shifts focus to connect its intensely dark appearance with death. He characterizes the tarn as
“black and lurid” with “unruffled lustre,” anticipating the inevitable dark, inanimate state
humans perpetually decline toward: “I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and
lurid tarn that lay in unruffled lustre by the dwelling, and gazed down” (217). Its bleak
appearance resembles Burke’s notion of gloomy colors as more significant than cheerful ones,
undoubtedly due to its closer representation of death (Burke 122). But the passage is also critical
for what it suggests beyond the importance of color: the “precipitous brink” implies that the
narrator is teetering between life and death, recalling humanity’s unfixed temperament. Positing
our lives as feeble helps readers see by contrast nature’s sublime strength, which Burke describes
as follows: “Whenever strength is only useful, and employed for our benefit or our pleasure, then
it is never sublime; for nothing can act agreeably to us, that does not act in conformity to our
will; but to act agreeably to our will, it must be subject to us; and therefore can never be the
cause of a grand and commanding conception” (109). When we consider the natural world, we
must therefore acknowledge its power to subvert and humble our superior view of the human
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species. The brink of the tarn, for instance, holds power in its steepness, and is undoubtedly
capable of ending a human life.
Yet focusing on the narrator’s sublime experience of the landscape does not express fully
nature’s strength relative to humans’ vulnerability. The story also points to how the narrator
highlights humans’ weak condition by observing entropy acting on both the mansion and
Roderick. Unpacking his perception in these moments reveals, for instance, a small fissure down
the façade of the mansion. It not only suggests the crumbling state of the home, but also alludes
to that of the Usher family within: “Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have
discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front,
made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the
tarn” (219). This vision unites the fissure and tarn to represent a threatening omen against the
Ushers. Personifying the landscape by attributing a gloomy, “sullen” temperament to the water,
the narrator presents the natural world as possessing the capacity to feel, whereas Roderick and
Madeline are losing their ability to do so through impairing disease. In this sense, the landscape
increasingly appears vibrant, more alive than its inhabitants.
The narrator’s desire to assign human attributes to the landscape in this way ironizes how
Roderick believes earnestly in its ability to feel. It is through the narrator’s attempt to undermine
the latter’s impression of the environment as alive, conscious, and sentient, that his perception of
entropy assumes particular significance. He depicts Roderick’s disease as mentally debilitating,
mocking how he personifies plant life through the “sentience of all vegetable things:” “But, in
his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a daring character, and trespassed, under certain
conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization” (228). The narrator’s invocation of
“disordered,” “daring,” and “trespassed” not only implies that he believes Roderick’s mind is
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wanting as a product of disease, but also that his claims impede the biological classifications of
life, which he paradoxically labels the “kingdom of inorganization.” As Roderick insists on this
notion as reality, he deconstructs the idea of humans’ natural power over earth’s diverse lifeforms, and thus compromises anthropocentric views.
Roderick’s belief that life-forms contain a capacity for consciousness, beyond their basic
functions, crosses the taxonomic boundaries established by Carolus Linnaeus’ Systema Naturae
(1735). As Linnaeus was a prominent figure in the history of science, Poe was undoubtedly
learned in his work. 2 Linnaeus participated in the desire to master the natural world through the
classification of organisms: he identified three distinct areas across the biological realm—animal,
vegetable, and mineral—which ostensibly organize the system of nature. Linnaeus’ work is
significant in how it seeks to impose order across a variety of life-forms, omitting humanity in its
endeavor. His scientific practices demonstrate an autocratic approach toward the natural world,
by attempting to distinguish humanity as superior to existing organisms. This similarly reflects
the narrator’s rejection of the natural world’s power, as he also views nature from a perspective
of human entitlement.
Poe therefore tried to refute theological history, since answering the question of where
humans derived an attitude of supremacy from is largely a matter of examining Genesis. By
directly commanding humanity to control all aspects of the planet, the Bible inspirits absolute
dominion over other organisms: “God blessed them; and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and
multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of
the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth’” (Gen. 1.28; New International
Version). Humans are called to reproduce and thus expand their influence across the earth,
displacing other sources of power. Yet the end of Poe’s story frustrates Genesis’ providential
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command: the Ushers, as a portrait of declining vitality, face a gruesome death that captures the
literal fall of humanity. Poe depicts this religious notion, one that zealously favors the human
species, as therefore naïve, since the natural world—such as the final image of the tarn—may
ultimately outlast our vulnerable existence.
Roderick further recasts distinctions between people and the natural world by drawing a
parallel with himself and vegetable things, as each possessing sentience, and thus the same
magnitude and status of life. As mentioned, Poe espoused Richard Watson’s historical work
Chemical Essays Vol. V (1785) as a precursor of discussing the perceptivity of plants. Watson
dogmatically asserts that plants possess a level of consciousness equal to that of humans,
attempting to dissolve the barrier between Linnaeus’ categorized life-forms:
The greater the quantity of perception existing in the universal system of creation,
the greater is the happiness produced; and the greater the quantity of happiness
produced, the greater is the goodness of the Deity in the estimation of beings with
our capacities. […] If, it may be urged, all the species of percipient beings be not
accommodated with objects congruous to their faculties of perception, and
productive of more pleasure than pain to the whole species taken collectively,
then the animation of that matter of which they consist is an introduction of evil,
and no test of benevolence. (133)
Watson not only suggests that all species possess the capacity for cognizance, but also that God
gave them the necessary faculties to do so. By using religion to validate his claims, Watson
threatens that to believe humans are the only creatures gifted with such intelligence is to accept a
malevolent god who has instilled the earth with evil. That is, has created life without the means
for sentience. This resembles a notion that directly opposes Genesis, since here God has made all
life in equal form, whereas the Bible accorded humanity supremacy. Again, we see how
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Roderick, akin to Watson, deviates from widely accepted convictions. Diffusing Linnaeus’
general order of life-forms, he creates disorder by challenging sanctified human dominion.
The consequence of Poe’s emphasis on the natural world relative to humanity is that he
creates an uncanny effect of life-forms in the wrong place that also possess the wrong
characteristics. Notably, as the narrator defines entropy, the landscape’s grotesque elements
begin to establish a disturbing affect, as if they were more alive than life itself. The strongest
allusion to this idea is through the stonework of the mansion: “Its principal feature seemed to be
that of an excessive antiquity…Minute fungi overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine
tangled web-work from the eaves” (219). The narrator notes how fungi smother the mansion, as
if in an ecological battle to triumph over the people dwelling inside. Recalling how the landscape
penetrates the narrator’s immediate experience of the Usher estate, here too the natural world’s
strength manifests itself in the way it dominates the entire façade. Considering Roderick’s failing
health, his theory of sentience represents the fungi as a power beyond his own—especially as
they metastasize, growing fervently over the exterior of the mansion.
For a large portion of the story, the narrator continues to concentrate on the dynamics
between man and the natural world through the idea of entropic processes. He further discusses
the stonework to portray how its fractured appearance reflects humanity, infiltrating our vision of
unified order: “No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild
inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the
individual stones” (219). The decaying stones parallel individual people among humanity—as a
whole perhaps stable, yet as singular organisms incredibly unstable by contrast. We develop an
understanding of the gradual entropy occurring on the grounds, regarding both the individual
parts of the stones crumbling (though on a microscopic level) and in Roderick and Madeline’s
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feeble conditions. In fact, how the narrator describes the Usher mansion, the “discoloration of
ages had been great,” also proves true for Roderick and Madeline, who as corpse-like and pallid
figures, he associates with death (219). There is something unnatural about the fact that they do
not appear quite so alive, while in contrast nature exceeds their degree of vitality.
I suggest, then, that that the narrator is significantly affected by the natural world as it
represents a power against Roderick and Madeline’s decline into illness. The tarn, for instance,
appears to swallow the Usher lineage—the once thriving, ancient family falls and succumbs to
its death, ultimately absorbed into and devoured by the environment. As the backdrop of Poe’s
story is one of decay and disintegration, his narrator draws attention to the natural world’s
sublime power as both a force more vital than humanity, and a reminder of our pending death.
Although the narrator flees from the scene, retreating in horror, we are aware of his own looming
fate: he has temporarily evaded death—but alas—will experience the same fate as all humans.
He cannot run forever.
III. Contagion in Context
…And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all
—Poe, “The Masque of the Red Death”
To further trace the ominous power of the natural world through Poe’s stories, it is not
only necessary to consider disease affecting individual people, but also as a sweeping epidemic.
By exploring what, exactly, makes contagion so daunting, we will better understand the way
entropy—in its most extreme form—captures temporality as the epicenter of human existence.
The natural world’s strength is immune to anyone’s attempt to manipulate or evade mortality, to
the degree that humans are grounded in time and death remains inevitable. “The Masque of the
Red Death” demonstrates how disease, the gruesome Red Death, proves more powerful than the
inhabitants across Prince Prospero’s kingdom. It possesses a pulse that beats boundlessly on,
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even more so than Prospero’s revelers, who “in them beat feverishly the heart of life” (363).
Thus, in the face of fatal epidemic, perhaps it is the idea that disease maintains an air of vitality
even more alive than individuals themselves.
Materialism immediately plays a central role in the story, as Prince Prospero is less
concerned about the ecological disaster taking place, the Red Death, and the well being of his
kingdom, than he is with opulence. He is utterly consumed by an interest in economic health and
sensual prosperity. In particular, no one in Prospero’s castle was to concern him or herself with
the Red Death, but was to focus on the frenzied, hedonistic life constructed for guests within:
“The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were
improvisatori, there were ballet dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine.
All these and security were within. Without was the ‘Red Death’” (360). Prospero obsesses over
Beauty, a personified figure standing opposite the hideous Red Death, as representing further his
wealth. Yet when considering Burke’s aesthetic principles on Beauty, the personified figure of
the Red Death exhibits similar qualities. Burke describes Beauty as that which possesses the
following characteristics: delicate frame, no visible strength, and grace (153). Certainly, the Red
Death appears gossamer and ethereal as a corpselike figure, particularly gaunt (Poe 364).
Looking at the two authors in a similar vein, Poe’s Red Death and Burke’s Beauty do not appear
completely incongruous. Rather, the Red Death exhibits a beautiful aspect of the earth as an
avatar of nature’s power. These visions bear an uncanny resemblance to each other, as indicating
how close life and death—vitality and weakness—really are.
The extravagant ball scenes unveil further how Prospero considers his world, the castle
and those dwelling within, the core of enduring life, to defer thinking about nature’s power as
manifested in the Red Death. Exuberance bears an overwhelming presence within, through
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which he turns away from the organic, natural world, instead emphasizing the inorganic,
constructed landscape of his palace. We can consider how Prospero treats the environment by
looking at Anne Radcliffe’s gothic tale The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). Lisa Kroger argues for
the utter rejection of the natural world within Radcliffe’s work: “Everything is in praise of
artifice, from ‘the heavy walls’ and ‘frivolous ornaments’ to the ‘false taste and corrupted
sentiments’” (19). All is strikingly inauthentic. This corresponds to Poe’s focus on Prospero and
his castle for nearly the entire story, rather than on the Red Death and those suffering.
Highlighting his character’s hubristic attitude relative to the natural world, Poe is able to
illustrate alternatively humans’ strong material, rather than ecological concerns.
Prospero’s wealth not only captures how disease plagues his kingdom, but also how
economic imbalance works as his strategy for survival. Rather than helping the degenerate,
external world, the Prince leverages his wealth to help save himself, as well as those in similar
standing: “He summoned to his presence a thousand hale and lighthearted friends from among
the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his
castellated abbeys. […] The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers
might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself” (360). “Defiance”
is the key word here, signifying that Prospero’s money facilitates an attitude of triumph over
disease and the natural world. Teresa A. Goddu’s Gothic America details a similar scenario in
Charles Brockden Brown’s Arthur Mervyn, to emphasize “gothic malady” (Goddu 34).
Specifically, she suggests that gothic literature exposes the way money serves a channel to
human corruption and vice: as individuals seek self-prosperity over the benefit of collective
society, they in turn create an “underworld of pestilence” (34). Whereas Prospero’s kingdom
merely resembles a gravesite of fevered people, plagued by the Red Death, the Prince reflects a
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state of monetary wealth. Yet he unsuccessfully exploits financial privilege to escape from
nature’s wrath. For, as we know, all will ultimately succumb to the Red Death, a statement that
emphasizes nature as economically blind. Its imminent course of death knows no socioeconomical bounds.
As an embodiment of “gothic malady,” Prospero allows us to critique humanity’s use of
self-indulgence as an escape from the natural, diseased world. For instance, his animated and
extravagant spectacle is akin to the fervor of the Red Death, which thus raises a question of
which will ultimately endure: humanity or the natural world? The narrator discusses the vitality
of both systems as follows: “While the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, the Prince
Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence”
(360). The magnitude of disease juxtaposed with the grandeur of the castle represents Poe’s
attempt to articulate a clash between these two systems. Specifically, there is contention among
Poe’s portrait of both disease and the desire for life as wanton forces, as the environment exists
outside of Prospero’s castle as a threatening entity that he desperately wants to flee. Considering
the extent to which he bolts and welds his castle, he tries to prevent anyone or anything from
entering or exiting. This foreshadows the story’s dark conclusion that humanity will ultimately
desist: Poe’s vision of nature as an omnipresent force shows us that all are fated to encounter
death, while disease proves the existence of stronger forces across the earth.
In Poe’s story, disease represents the march of evolutionary progress. This means that
contagion will continue to provoke death by infecting the biological world as life and time
advance, especially without technological innovations to curb its power. Hubert Zapf raises an
interesting point about death through the process of entropy, tracing humans’ descent into “chaos
and annihilation” back to their own destructive forces, rather than those of the natural world:
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The description at the beginning of the text of the peculiar symptoms of the
disease which haunts the world of Poe’s story makes it clear that it is no force
above, beyond, or in any way separated from life but that it is life itself which has
reached a crises where it abandons its positive functions within the order of
individual organisms and thereby destroys itself. (214)
Zapf is specifically referring to Poe’s opening description of the Red Death, which is marked by
humans’ intrinsic make up: “Blood was its Avator [sic] and its seal—the redness and the horror
of blood” (Poe 359). Undermining nature’s part in humanity’s decline, Zapf instead magnifies
human agency as responsible for inciting our own enfeeblement, resembling a species suicide.
While this is certainly a provocative argument, I want to suggest that humans are
invariably at the mercy of the natural world as a power greater than our own. We cannot
overlook how Poe describes the complexity and strength of the universe in his long essay
Eureka, to inform a deeper understanding of how nature’s intangible forces are beyond
humanity’s faltering strength:
Unless we are to conceive that the appetite for Unity among the atoms is doomed
to be satisfied never;—unless we are to conceive that what had a beginning is to
have no end—a conception which cannot really be entertained, however much we
may talk or dream of entertaining it—we are forced to conclude that the repulsive
influence imagined, will, finally yield to a force which, at that ultimate epoch,
shall be the superior force precisely to the extent required, and thus permit the
universal subsidence into the inevitable, because original and therefore normal,
One. (26)
Poe argues that the earth will inevitably collapse into itself, annihilating its life-forms. He clearly
diffuses optimism relative to the earth’s finitude, cautious to make such claims that the human
race will subsist. Instead, he is aware of our limitations in both body and mind against the
intangible realm. Yes, humans do possess the ability to alter certain aspects of the earth, as
demonstrated today through the phenomenon of global warming. However, Poe argues that the
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natural world will inevitably bring about our species’ destruction, whether through apocalyptic
disaster, the finite end of the world as suggested by Eureka, or widespread devastation by
disease. In an effort to provide a buffer against reality, Prospero’s contrived, lavish world tries to
distract from this formidable notion.
Yet a clock stands imposingly within the castle, reminding revelers that their time is in
fact fleeting and is inevitably doomed to expire. Poe presents the clock as infringing on
Prospero’s frenzied ball, by forcing revelers back to reality: “There came from the brazen lungs
of the clock a sound…but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the
musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to
harken to the sound” (361). The revelers’ disheartened response to the clock suggests its
cacophonous sound. That is, the very sound of reality—death—seeping into the castle. It is clear
that the clock invokes discomfort throughout the ball, as “light laughter” underlines a sweeping
sense of uneasiness throughout (363). The revelers conceal within this laughter a shared
understanding that they cannot actually escape or hide from the surrounding world. Their final
hour is in fact approaching.
Poe begins to refer to the revelers as dreams, highlighting further how Prospero tries to
manipulate reality through an ornate, fantasy-like environment, where natural forces such as
disease have no power. In this sense, Prospero is fighting corporeality: “To and fro in the seven
chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these—the dreams—writhed in and
about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the
echo of their steps” (363). By personifying dreams to embody the human form, Poe recasts
revelers as comprised of more abstract ideals. In particular, his language appears surreal,
portraying the partygoers as figments of a reverie, as they float through a string of colorful suites.
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He imbues the scene with traces of the fantastic, whereby frustrating the material world. This
buttresses Prospero’s vision of immunity from disease, by undermining reality.
And still the gigantic ebony clock breeches Prospero’s dreamlike world, reminding
revelers that they dwell within a false construct of the world. Whereas Prospero considers his
castle and his ball the epitome of life, bathed in revelry and safe from contagion, Poe alludes to a
more-daunting notion through the clock’s “dull, heavy, monotonous clang” (361). It signifies the
mere illusion of the castle as shelter from the Red Death. Similarly, Catherine Lanone uses this
theme as the groundwork for discussing a variety of gothic stories, such as Dan Simmons’ The
Terror (2007):
Above all, the Gothic vignette is meant to hold up a mirror darkly, suggesting that
we are all Franklins or Prosperos, seeking a vain Grail and believing in our
technological fortresses, regardless of the Grim Death that will always seep inside
and await us where we least expect it, in a final conflagration of our own
designing. (39)
Lanone implies Prospero’s responsibility for his own death, such that his castle inadvertently
seals his tomb. The natural world thus triumphs over the materialistic and the constructed, as the
Red Death brings a fatal end to Prospero’s castle.
The opposition between the artistic performance of nature and what it represents
authentically within Prospero’s castle is articulated ultimately through the colorful suites. Critical
discussions of the text have accredited William Shakespeare’s seven ages of man (from As You
Like It, 1623) to inspiring Prospero’s apartments as symbolizing life from birth to death:
“Returning to the cold, blue eastern room, one recognizes the image of dawning human life,”
which prefigures, “in this western room, the blood-colored panes depict, of course, the dread
effects of the plague, and the black tapestries represent death itself” (Vanderbilt 381). As the
presence of a masked figure arrests the revelers’ attention—the embodied character of the Red
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Death—Poe emphasizes where the intruder stands relative to Prospero throughout the colorful
rooms. In particular, he creates a battle between blue and black, life and death, Prospero versus
the masked figure: “It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale
courtiers by his side. […] He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid
impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained
the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer” (365). This
highlights, then, Prospero’s obsession with life, whereas Poe describes the figure, standing
within the velvety room, as a bearer of death, “dabbled in blood” and “besprinkled with the
scarlet horror” (364).
Poe portrays the figure’s movement as completely uninhibited not only to highlight
revelers’ fear, but also to advance the idea that no one can hinder death’s inevitable presence and
power. Yet an important connection develops between how Poe initially describes the figure’s
movement—a “slow” and “solemn” gait—and the revelers’ acknowledgment of the “mummer”
(364-65). For instance, Poe characterizes the ball as upbeat and colorful, yet no one seems to
notice a corpse-like figure lurking in the crowd. It would undoubtedly stand out among such
gaiety, especially given its horrific appearance. Poe emphasizes the air of ignorance absorbing
Prospero’s guests, as they grow increasingly unaware of the world around them, the Red Death.
I suggest that initially the revelers do not recognize the threat of the natural world, and
instead gain a sense of pleasure from the intruding presence of the Red Death. Again, attributes
of performance manifest themselves within Prospero’s castle, as revelers watch the spectacle
between the Prince and the personified figure unfold: “But from a certain nameless awe with
which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none
who put forth a hand to seize him” (365). Not one of Prospero’s guests tries to extinguish the
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figure of the Red Death’s presence. Instead, they participate merely as an audience looking onto
the scene between Prospero and his opponent. What is organic—the immediate threat of the
natural world through the masked figure—is here treated as another layer atop Prospero’s
contrived and embellished setting. It is therefore essential at this point to note how Poe draws on
Burke’s principles of sublimity in the final moments of the story: “When danger or pain press too
nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances,
and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful, as we every day
experience” (Burke 86). While the revelers watch from a distance, removed from the immediate
action, they are unable to recognize such danger in the threat of death. It is only when Prospero
falls lifeless, that they spring into action and are jolted by reality: they ultimately try to attack the
figure, but only face death in turn.
Poe therefore critiques humanity’s cognizance—specifically how we consider our
position relative to the natural world’s influence on our own. In particular, an important
symmetry unfolds in how both the revelers and Poe’s readers experience the natural world as
sublime, specifically the Red Death’s personified presence. The story creates an illusion of safety
on both fronts: Prospero’s castle stands precariously as a barrier against disease, while readers
feel safe from contagion, knowing Poe’s story is a fictional work. However, Poe instills his tale
with a sense of irony, because if one understands the story, then one knows that death does in
fact hold “illimitable dominion over all” (366). Poe here contributes to our understanding of
humanity as a species, by replicating how though we may feel removed from the natural world,
we do not recognize its ability directly to affect us. Thinking we live apart from it, and thus can
escape from the natural world, is largely a matter of thinking that we are more powerful than all
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else. By contrast, Poe emphasizes the strength of disease through an amplified scene of death, to
highlight its inescapable conquest.
IV. Animal Instincts
But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is like Alcohol!
—Poe, “The Black Cat”
This thesis has so far shown Poe representing human mortality against the natural world’s
persistent strength. To that end, it is fitting to consider Poe’s “The Black Cat” as highlighting the
precariousness of the frontier between the human and natural world, and the error of assuming a
clear divide between these systems. As I have argued, Poe’s works capture the natural world as a
force that renders humans as vulnerable. The end of this story suggests similar circumstances:
the narrator’s moldering state symbolizes humans’ susceptibility to superior, crippling forces,
while we believe ourselves occupying inviolate space.
For example, the first line in the story—“For the most wild, yet most homely narrative
which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief”—not only introduces the narrator’s
account, but also establishes a polarized relationship between humans and the natural world
(390). I contend that through the narrator’s lens, “wild” and “homely” signify the unknown,
indomitable world in binary opposition with the domestic, civilized world. Yet we see how the
narrator’s mental and physical breakdown eventually undermines his own imagined distance
from the natural world—he resembles the very image of the “brute beast” that he sees in his pet,
the black cat (397). The narrator’s unbalanced temperament helps us appreciate how humans
inevitably deteriorate, while the story’s ultimate outcome suggests that we cannot deny nature’s
greater durability.
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Poe questions the way readers understand the natural world, by challenging how the
environment is often offset against our homes. The latter represent domestic spaces, yet the
presence of animals within the home—including domestic ones—demonstrates the natural
world’s rapid ability to penetrate the idea of an exclusively human sphere. The narrator’s
relationship with animals suggests that as humans we misconceive how these two realms
interact, including by failing to admire the outside world as a space existing relative to our own.
Perhaps nothing represents this more than the narrator’s portrayal of his relationship with the
black cat as heavily skewed toward the domestic: “I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever
I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me
through the streets” (391). It is apparent that the narrator creates a scenario of dependency, as
implied by “I alone,” akin to that of the relationship between parent and child. Yet through this
dynamic, including how the cat follows the narrator about, Poe presents the narrator’s shadow as
an image of nature perpetually following man. The two are inseparable, without a border to
distinguish one species from the other. These early pages thus depict how the narrator fails to
recognize nature’s irrepressible power as an omnipresent force: it reaches into every sphere, such
that people cannot fully manipulate or reject its presence.
Given critics’ predominant reading of “The Black Cat” as a racial allegory—in which the
cat represents how slaves were brutally treated by slaveholders—the idea of borders as racial
dividers works similarly to nature, too. For instance, Lesley Ginsberg argues that Poe’s story is
an “investigation into the peculiar psychopolitics of the master/slave relationship” (99). 3 Her
analysis distinguishes between racial identities, to highlight how humans are dissevered across
various strata of power. This similarly reflects the narrator’s attempt to maintain a divide
between people and the natural world, to subordinate its power. Specifically, after he kills Pluto,
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the narrator refers to his second cat—one that appears nearly identical to the first—as a beast
(396). In doing so, he alludes to the way slaves were often viewed as animals and kept separate
from the white household. In a similar vein, Toni Morrison has pointed to the way Poe employs
Africanism in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym—a theory suggesting that authors
subconsciously place blackness against whiteness as a negative identity—which also relates to
“The Black Cat:” “Through the use of Africanism,” argues Morrison, “Poe meditates on place as
a means of containing the fear of borderlessness and trespass, but also as a means of releasing
and exploring the desire for a limitless empty frontier” (51). Here Morrison highlights man’s
drive to probe the external, unknown world, undoubtedly with the intent to absorb it into the
domestic realm.
In elaborating on this idea of “borderlessness,” I want to consider how “The Black Cat”
expands Morrison’s argument about fear of unrestrained, unknown space. While in Arthur
Gordon Pym Poe’s characters seek glacial whiteness, but instead find themselves overwhelmed
among warmth and blackness—symbolic of a voyage to the American South—the narrator in
“The Black Cat” tries to establish a domestic setting, but instead appears frightened as the natural
world seeps in: he is disturbed by the seemingly immortal cat as a haunting vision of power. In
these stories there is a clear trend of misinterpreting one’s surroundings, as the narrator believes
he is all-powerful as a human over the natural world, when instead he is declining in body and
mind as a result of alcohol abuse. We can read this as Poe suggesting that nature extends beyond
the narrator’s control as an entity enduring in the human world, and thus represents a kind of
terror.
In particular, intemperance brings out the narrator’s impulsive side, to the degree that he
acts on primitive instincts comparable to an animal living in the wild, rather than a rational
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human being. He himself recognizes a change in state from human into a creature more
instinctual, catalyzed by alcohol: “My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my
body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre [sic] of my frame”
(392). Referring to his first episode of brutally attacking Pluto, which involved removing the
cat’s eye with a pen-knife, the narrator invokes the idea of “original soul” to deflect
responsibility for his actions. Specifically, he claims to have lost his soul to one characterized by
negative impulses and extreme violence. This works to assert that he is no longer in control of
his body and mind, and thus cannot stop himself from acting on the violent thoughts he harbors
within. Insisting this change in state is one against his will does not diminish culpability for his
crimes: it intensifies his resemblance to an animal lacking restraint.
For instance, the narrator presents the body and soul—that which shapes his nature as
either good or bad—as two separate entities, to help convince his audience that alcohol is
responsible for influencing his soul. Specifically, to the extent that he cannot even regulate how
his body acts on his ill desires. Poe suggests that dark, violent thoughts lurk deep within us, to
remind us that we are not a purely human species, but as animals possess the ability to execute
instinctual behavior—acting on violence without control, for instance, rather than meditating on
its consequences. How Poe represents the natural world as an omnipresent system in this way—
such that a fine line exists among humans, weakness, and death—is akin to how he portrays
Annabel Lee in his famous poem: given that she resides in a sepulcher above ground and dwells
among the living, her tomb, a constant reminder of nature’s inevitable course of death,
deconstructs the bounds between human and nonhuman life. Poe thus invites readers to consider
whether any boundary truly separates what is “out there”—including death and the wilderness—
from what exists at the local, domestic level.
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Recalling the narrator’s idea of original soul, it is interesting to note how it resonates with
religious language: it echoes original sin, to emphasize further his change into a less human
figure. Both suggest the altering of an inborn condition, yet the narrator refers to one initially
characterized by good and replaced by sin, versus one tainted by sin and redeemed by virtue.
Arguably, the narrator’s most heinous, impulsive crime—killing his wife with an axe—marks his
final submission to ultimate sin. Still, the narrator insists on deferring blame by using religion to
rationalize his wife’s murder, as suggested by his reference to the Bible: “When I had finished, I
felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been
disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around
triumphantly, and said to myself—‘Here, at least, then, my labor has not been in vain’” (Poe
399). This passage reflects Psalm 127, which states, “Unless the LORD builds the house, those
who build it labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the watchman stays awaken
in vain” (Psalms. 127.2; New International Version). Indeed, the narrator is proud of his “labor”
in the way he alludes to divine providence to support his actions. In doing so, he mimics
righteous deeds by thinking about God in his immoral undertakings, to justify concealing his
crime. Thus the narrator’s grasp at religiosity reveals true irreligiousness, just as we see how his
attempt at exerting rationality works to expose irrationality.
More specifically, all of the narrator’s efforts to restore a sense of order to his character,
by claiming to lose his willpower to impulses and desires that he cannot control, only work
against him. They break down his human capacity for logic and an acute sense of reasoning. For
instance, he asserts: “And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of
PERVERSENESS…yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one
of the primitive impulses of the human heart—one of the indivisible primary faculties, or
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sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man” (Poe 393). The narrator describes
perverseness as “a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment to violate that which is
Law, merely because we understand it to be such” (393). He thus places himself at the mercy of a
spirit that utterly influences him, to reduce his sense of agency. This spirit resembles the very
“inclination” and “primitive impulses” that rest within us as reminders of humans’ primeval
instincts, later framed by others such as Sigmund Freud. His death drive theory insists that
humans are continuously reverting back to early, primitive states, perhaps eventually nonexistence (“Life and Death Drives”).
Certainly, the narrator’s regress into a less human species results in non-existence, as he
is sentenced to death for murdering his wife. James W. Gargano provides an influential reading
of how the narrator recedes toward such primitiveness, through his diminishing sense of
perception:
The narrator’s rational attempt to explain away his responsibility seems to me a
result of his atrophied moral sense...he is, of course, eager to introduce into a
world of psychological and moral order a concept that eliminates the onus of
responsibility and guilt. Indeed, one of the most telling points of “The Black Cat”
is the narrator’s fatuous denial of a moral order at the same time that the reader
observes its faltering operation. (175)
Gargano equates “rational” and “moral,” undoubtedly characteristics unique to human beings, to
highlight how the narrator falls outside this realm. Instead, the narrator’s attempt to assert
rationality in killing his cat further shapes him as irrational, and withers his capacity for human
understanding. For instance, whereas most rational humans arguably have the restraint not to act
on the negative or violent thoughts they might entertain, the narrator experiences a strong,
insatiable propensity to do so. Similar to animals living in the wild, the narrator carries out
behavior from instinct, which inevitably results in violence.
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The narrator’s “atrophied moral sense” brings us back to the idea of entropy, which as we
have seen plays a central role in Poe’s gothic. This story suggests that alcoholism, as a type of
disease, breaks down the narrator from order into chaos as an entropic process. Certainly, alcohol
prevents the narrator from controlling his own impulses, and thus hinders his sensitivity and
empathy toward all else. Whereas at the beginning of the story the narrator appears benign, when
he starts to drink heavily we see a malignant change in his character. Cognitive analysis behind
alcohol addiction reveals a loss of autonomy over the self: “People with an impulse control
disorder [i.e. addiction to alcohol] can’t resist the urge to do something harmful to themselves or
others. People with these disorders may or may not plan the acts, but the acts generally fulfill
their immediate, conscious wishes” (Ploskin). This demonstrates how individuals affected cannot
counteract vicious or violent thoughts. The narrator exhibits such harmful behavior without any
logical grounds to support his actions, but merely “to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only” (Poe
393). His vitality, as a conscious, sentient being, withers almost exclusively with his body, given
how rapidly alcohol abuse tends to debilitate one’s heart, liver, and pancreas, as well as increases
one’s risk of developing fatal diseases. Poe’s narrator highlights the way humans harbor
impulses and desires that are not fully under their control. Therefore, the narrator’s disease
reconfigures him as a primitive, erratic being who lacks the capacity to think rationally. He
exhibits animalistic qualities more strongly than human ones.
Notably, the narrator’s fragmented sense of subjectivity resembles how the wall
concealing his wife’s body finally crumbles, too. The story calls attention to the fact that the
narrator’s self-perception at this point does not correspond to reality: as readers we consider his
gruesome actions as posing dilemmas to our understanding of humanity, such that he represents
an ominous, violent figure. Just after he kills his wife with an axe, the narrator details the process
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of hiding her body in a proud, self-assured tone. He is confident he has successfully covered and
removed all evidence: “For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were
loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the
dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening” (398). This passage illustrates the
narrator’s failure to see himself as an instinctual, dangerous animal that is no longer fully human.
Instead, he insists on maintaining a façade of composure and normalcy, describing the aftermath
of murdering his wife in a way that suggests this is nothing more than an ordinary, domestic
occurrence.
Here the narrator re-emphasizes the fact that purely domestic territory does not exist, as
he resembles primitive aspects of the natural world living among the human world. The black cat
additionally demonstrates that one cannot form a perfect, impenetrable wall between the human
and nonhuman world. Just as the police are about to quit the narrator’s house, the black cat is
heard from within the wall where his wife’s body remains: “A dozen stout arms were toiling at
the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect
before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire,
sat the hideous beast” (400). This passage provides a further example of how Poe draws readers’
attention to the boundary between the human and natural world as an indefinite space, since the
wall does not ultimately separate the narrator from the cat.
It is thus necessary to consider how Poe’s gothic tale unravels the Romantic vision of
human autonomy relative to the environment—particularly humans’ ability to understand our
relationship to nature. Kate Rigby’s scholarship, for instance, highlights Romanticism’s idealized
environment as a self-sufficient, unified system of interrelationships: “The possibility of
perceiving the natural world not as an unchanging artifact of divine manufacture but as an
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autopoietic process of perpetual becoming was enabled by new research in the nascent sciences
of astronomy, geology, and biology” (65). As an “autopoeitic” system, the environment,
according to the Romantic view, represents its own powerful entity, which humans consequently
respect. However, Poe’s narrator emphasizes a less-picturesque reality that critiques
Romanticism as thoroughly naïve: understanding this gothic rejection of nature is largely a
matter of seeing how people try to dominate it. In particular, the narrator’s use of violence
against his cat portrays his attempt to exert a position of mastery over the natural world, rather
than appreciate its unique qualities as part of a system connected with his own.
Unsurprisingly, the racial dynamics that many critics call to our attention are especially
apparent in this relationship between Poe’s narrator and the cat. While these readings certainly
remain important critical interpretations of Poe’s story, they also help us think more about the
idea of boundaries between the self and other, especially relative to the natural world. For
example, a plantation is divided into specific spaces according to race, similar to the way the
narrator considers the world as divided between the human and the nonhuman. And nineteenthcentury Christianity in particular, lent itself to indoctrinating white men’s belief in their holding
dominion over the natural world, at the expense of all others:
For Francis Bacon, the “father” of modern science, the human vocation as defined
as the use of reason to uncover Nature’s secrets through empirical investigation in
order to gain the necessary knowledge to expand the bounds of our God-given
dominion over the rest of creation though technology: here, the pursuit of human
freedom is premised upon the enslavement of ‘outer,’ or nonhuman, nature (along
with the exploitation of those subordinate humans whose labour would be
appropriated in the process). (Ribgy 63)
Bacon suggests that humanity must exploit and “enslave” the nonhuman—including nature and
even “subordinate humans”—to successfully obtain a sense of freedom across the earth.
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In this respect, religion helped to foster an attitude of supremacy among the white race,
since men interpreted the Bible as asserting their God-given right to spread its influence over
lesser powers of humanity, too, such as African Americans. In a similar fashion, the narrator tries
to establish himself as superior, but ultimately fails, only to end up awaiting his fate at the state’s
accord: death by hanging from the gallows. Considering the uncanny resemblance that the
narrator’s death presents to the common historical punishment of slaves, Poe helps us question
humans’ motives in the world: does humanity think that it can control everything, such as
another person’s death, the racial other, and the natural world? Against such visions of mastery,
Poe’s gothic highlights man’s unsuccessful attempt to rule over nature and the environment—
including even the racial other—as the narrator ultimately destroys himself, while the cat, an
enduring force of the natural world, outlasts his death.
IV. Conclusion
Nature’s power rises over and again in Poe’s stories to call readers’ attention to our
mortality and fragility. For example, disease reduces Roderick and his surviving family to a
degenerate state, where entropy precipitates their final downfall. The story ultimately captures
nature—including the ominously dark landscape—as enduring beyond the Usher family lineage.
As it does so, it presents the domestic, human realm as vulnerable to the natural world, and
fragile by comparison. While perhaps less radical, it is not less devastating than the disease
plaguing Prospero’s kingdom. Again, our attention is called to entropy, as it undermines
Prospero’s desire for everlasting vitality by way of fatal disease: it sweeps through his fortress,
gruesomely striking down all.
“The Black Cat” builds on these examples by offering an alternative view of entropy.
Specifically, the narrator unravels by means of alcohol as disease—rather than contagion at the
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cellular level—reflecting a creature of the natural world within the domestic sphere. He is driven
by instinct rather than rationality. Although disease here is not a direct product of the natural
world, it does represent an entropic breakdown: at the final stages of the tale, the narrator is no
longer a perfectly human figure. In contrast, the cat illustrates nature as a persistent, fixed
presence—constantly returning and seemingly undying. The narrator thus demonstrates humans’
uncertain, precarious condition as he ultimately loses his sanity and faces death.
Yet these are not merely stories about death. They are also about humans’ false
conceptions of their place in the world relative to nature. In each case, Poe’s characters begin by
not only assuming that they are detached from the natural world, but also are presiding over it as
figures ruling the earth. The narrator in “The Fall of the House of Usher” distances himself from
Roderick’s perspective that the land is sentient, which suggests his refusal to acknowledge power
outside and beyond the human world. Prospero and the narrator of “The Black Cat” demonstrate
similar patterns, as we have seen how both actively set themselves apart from nature, trying to
embody the ultimate forces of power. Horrific scenes of death in all three of these stories exhibit
quite a different reality from what the characters initially believe.
Considering Poe’s gothic works through an ecocritical reading therefore helps shed light
on humans’ existence as relatively short-lived and feeble—compared to nature’s vigor and
durability. And in particular, the way humanity thinks about our existence. It is apparent that
because our harmful effects on the natural world are gradual over time, we tend to adopt an
attitude of indifference, even supremacy. But ironically, by conceiving of the natural world as
separate from us, we do not see or fully know our influence on the system, and the system in turn
on us. Much like the gothic man who fails to grasp his place relative to the natural order, we
cannot possibly claim ourselves as autonomous, thinking beings—suggested by Romanticism—
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if we fail to recognize and think through the perilous repercussions we have created. In this
sense, ecocriticism, in conversation with Poe’s gothic, illustrates the ominous reality of our
seemingly vital existence: Poe’s stories not only imagine a natural world more alive than the
characters within them, but also bring these instances uncannily to life, helping us consider our
own legacy as humans sharing the earth with powers beyond our control.
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Professor Cutler for not only dedicating time and wisdom to my thesis, but
also a wonderful degree of enthusiasm. Many additional thanks to Professor Lane for his above
and beyond guidance and support throughout the year, Professor Erkkila for inspiring my
fascination with Poe, my peers in the Honors Seminar for their constructive feedback, and Joan
Wolk for her assistance at the Enoch Pratt Free Library (Baltimore, Maryland). This research
experience brought a new layer of excitement to my thesis, which was made possible by the
generosity of the Office of Undergraduate Research (Northwestern University).
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Notes
1
See “The Power of Terror: Burke and Kant in the House of Usher” (Voller) and “Burke, Poe,
and ‘Usher’: the sublime and rising woman” (Howes).
2
Poe’s footnote reads: “[Richard] Watson—‘See Chemical Essays,’ vol. v.” This indicates that
Poe was indeed familiar with Carolus Linnaeus—Watson directly references Linnaeus in his
work on discussing the sentience of plant life: “It is not probable however, the Linnaeus in
classing the productions of nature ever entertained such a supposition” (116).
3
For other critics who consider racial allegories within Poe’s works, see Rowe’s “Poe,
Antebellum Slavery, and Modern Criticism.”