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Grave Expectations: When Idealization Takes a Deadly Turn
Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “Ligeia” reads like an out-of-control opium dream,
detailing the narrator’s descent from obsession into madness. To read it is to be immersed in the
narrator’s horrific hallucinations, all based
around his extreme idealization of his first
wife, Ligeia. Harry Clarke’s illustration (fig.
1) is an accurate depiction of how the narrator
worships Ligeia, elevating her to a dark
pseudo-saint, eventually trembling before her
in awe and terror. Throughout the story, the
narrator proclaims his love for Ligeia, but it
should be clear to the reader that this so-called
love is not healthy, nor is it equally
reciprocated. As Joan Dayan so succinctly
Figure 1. Illustration of Poe’s Ligeia, by Harry Clarke,
From Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 1919.
observes, “For Poe, adoration is always a
deadly business” (245). While this story
certainly takes obsession with a woman to hyperbolic heights, the narrator’s obsession is
mirrored in relationships today, especially in certain pockets of nerd culture. (“Nerd culture”
could loosely be defined as the community of self-identified nerds – people on the fringes of
popular society, often awkward, intellectual, and obsessive.)
The “deadly adoration” isn’t unique to Poe’s characters; it is also a distressing reality.
Arthur Chu’s article “Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds”
explores the prevalence of similar thinking among men in society, nerd culture in particular, and
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the dangerous the consequences of that kind of entitled thinking. Chu says, “Fixating on a
woman from afar and then refusing to give up when she acts like she’s not interested is,
generally, something that ends badly for everyone involved. But it’s a narrative that nerds and
nerd media kept repeating.” Much of this article focuses on creepy examples of men idealizing
women, and how their anger can lead to rape and violence, not just in fiction and film, but also in
real life – a fact that is almost too disturbing to comprehend. (That isn’t to say that this is unique
to nerd culture, only that the article focuses on that particular subculture.) Chu was writing in
response to the incident in May of 2014, when Elliot Rodger was “some maniac [who] shot up a
sorority house in Santa Barbara and posted a manifesto proclaiming he did it for revenge against
women for denying him sex” (Chu). Not only did Rodger “shoot up” the sorority – he also
stabbed and killed three men, and took to the streets in his car, shooting and hitting pedestrians.
In total, six people were killed and thirteen were wounded (Lovett and Nagourney). This wasn’t
the first time thwarted sexual advances have led to devastating results, nor will it be the last.
Perhaps there is something that can be learned by examining Poe’s “Ligeia” in the context of
nerd culture and unmet, untenable expectations.
Rodger’s act of extreme violence as a result of rejection wasn’t a singular event – this
uncontrollable outrage resulting in murder continues to happen again and again, not just in the
United States, but also across the world. In May of this year, a woman in Mumbai, Rubeena
“Ruby” Qureshi, was murdered and raped by her brother-in-law because she rejected his sexual
advances (Khan). A month later, a Pakistani woman, Maria Abbasi, was literally set on fire and
left to burn to death for turning down a marriage proposal (Ansari). Also in June, a man in
Florida fired thirty-three rounds at his neighbor’s house when she continued to refuse his sexual
advances – which hadn’t stopped over the past year (Farmer). And just a few weeks ago, on
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October 25, a man from Indiana shot and killed his girlfriend, Wendy Sabatini, for turning down
his marriage proposal (“Court Docs”). Locally, in Boise this summer, there was even an incident
wherein a man attempted to murder his ex-girlfriend and her son when she decided to end the
relationship (Breiding; “Man Killed…”). The Tumblr blog When Women Refuse was created as a
response to the UCSB shooting as well, and it is still used to document these and similar
instances, posting news articles and personal accounts of instances of women being threatened or
worse, only because they refused a man’s advances. This list is a small sampling of this kind of
tremendous rage in the face of rejection, and it is easy to get lost on the rabbit trails of seemingly
unending examples of tragic incidents. With all this in mind, looking at Poe’s narrator might
provide some insight into the reasoning behind these attacks.
The narrator places Ligeia on the highest of pedestals, praising everything about her in
great detail. He goes on about “…the character of my beloved, her rare learning, her singular yet
placid cast of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her low, musical language…”
(Poe 1162). Each nuance about his beloved that he details, even her imperfections, express how
there is not, nor has there ever been, a woman such as Ligeia. Lengthy paragraphs are devoted to
his attempts to find the perfect description for this perfect woman, detailing her figure, her
demeanor, her footsteps, her forehead – “it was faultless” (1163), her temples, her hair, her nose
and nostrils, her lips, her dimples, her teeth, her chin, and her eyes – “those large, those shining,
those divine orbs!” (1164). He devotes the most attention to her eyes, obsessing over finding just
the right simile or allusion to effectively convey their perfection and strangeness. Some are
poetic enough: “…they become the twin stars of Leda, and I to them devoutest of astrologers”
(1164). Others come across as just plain weird: “They were even far fuller than the fullest of the
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Gazelle eyes of the tribe of the valley of Nourjabad” (1164). I’m not sure if any woman would
find the latter statement flattering, but such is the nature of the narrator’s fanatical litany.
The narrator isn’t done extolling the excellence of Ligeia yet; he goes on to praise her
disposition, her voice, and her intellect. Her knowledge surpassed that of all the other women
and even of – gasp! – men. He says, “…her knowledge was such as I had never known in
woman. Where breathes the man who, like her, has traversed, and successfully, all the wide areas
of moral, natural, and mathematical science?” (1166). To say such a thing during that time period
would have been considered outrageous. Just eight years before this story was published,
“women’s literacy was but half of men’s” (Winslow). Clearly, at least in the narrator’s opinion,
no other person – male or female – could come close to attaining the perfection that Ligeia
possesses. All this fawning goes on ad nauseam, and adulation almost seems too light a word to
use in this context.
After Ligeia’s death – a death with such dignity and grace and passion that it couldn’t be
construed as anything but perfect – the narrator flees the city and purchases a “gloomy and
dreary” abbey, and for reasons not entirely yet clear to the reader, a wife “as the successor of the
unforgotten Ligeia” (Poe 1167). This new bride is everything that Ligeia was not: “fair-haired
and blue-eyed” (1167) as opposed to “the raven-black, the glossy, the luxuriant and naturallycurling tresses” (1163) and eyes the color of “the most brilliant black” (1164) that belonged to
Ligeia. Rowena isn’t given much description at all, except that her family had a “thirst for gold”
(1167). Even her name itself backs this up; the meaning of Rowena, according to some
translations, is “fame joy,” which could conceivably be an indication that her parents were
hungry for wealth and fame (“Rowena”).
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Up until this point, the reader can’t have missed the air of melancholy and horror that has
been building. But the story takes an even darker turn when the narrator admits his feelings
towards Rowena:
“That my wife dreaded the fierce moodiness of my temper – that she shunned me,
and loved me but little, I could not help perceiving – but it gave me rather
pleasure than otherwise. I loathed her with a hatred belonging more to demon than
to man.” (Poe 1169)
These are some seriously intense feelings. It’s difficult not to feel bad for poor Rowena, basically
sold into this marriage by her family, and terrified of her new husband’s mood swings. Not only
is she dealing with the uncertainty that would have come with a new marriage, but also her
surroundings are extremely unordinary, and her husband is gleefully wrathful.
And yet, despite all the fear she must have been feeling, the worst was still yet to come
for Rowena. The narrator continues:
“My memory flew back, (oh with what intensity of regret!) to Ligeia, the beloved,
the beautiful, the entombed . . . In the excitement of my opium dreams . . . I
would call aloud upon her name . . . as if, by the wild eagerness, the solemn
passion, the consuming intensity of my longing for the departed Ligeia, I could
restore the departed Ligeia to the pathways she had abandoned upon earth.”
(1169)
The reader gains a little more understanding from this passage in terms of why the narrator is
prone to such wild mood swings. He spends his days getting high and pining for Ligeia, and
when he sees his current wife, he is disappointed and dismayed, and his grief turns to rage.
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Directly following this fury-filled account of their first month together, Rowena falls ill,
to the point that she is bedridden. Perhaps she is depressed, perhaps she is bored and this
provides her some sort of diversion, but something more sinister is definitely at work here. Even
after a brief period of convalescence, Rowena’s illness returns with a vengeance. “Her illnesses
were, after this period, of alarming character, and of more alarming recurrence, defying alike the
knowledge and the great exertions of her medical men” (1169). At this point, both Rowena and
the narrator are hallucinating and feverish: Rowena from her illness, the narrator from his
inability to step away from his opium pipe.
What the narrator describes as a vision the reader can discern as his own actions: after he
gives Rowena a goblet of wine to drink, her condition rapidly declines. There are curious,
supernatural happenings, according to the narrator, as he recounts, “…as Rowena was in the act
of raising the wine to her lips, I saw, or may have dreamed that I saw, fall within the goblet, as if
from some invisible spring in the atmosphere of the room, three or four large drops of a brilliant
and ruby colored fluid” (1170). Given the state of his sobriety, however, the reader cannot take
him at his word. He is a textbook unreliable narrator, and his attitude toward his second wife
must be considered. It isn’t a stretch by any means to suggest that this “ruby colored fluid” didn’t
fall into the wine from the ether; rather it was the narrator’s own hand that poisoned the goblet.
Rowena’s death is vastly different from that of Ligeia’s, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to
the reader at this point, given the fact that they have been opposites of each other in every other
facet of their characters. Rowena’s death is disturbing and drawn out, a far cry from Ligeia’s
elegant exit. More importantly, Ligeia’s died of natural causes, whereas Rowena was most
certainly murdered by the narrator.
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The character of Ligeia is examined in depth in Davis and Davis’ article “Poe’s Ethereal
Ligeia.” The article puts forth the evidence supporting the idea that Ligeia never actually existed,
saying:
“In reality, there is no physical Ligeia: thus the horror of the narrator's murder of
Rowena is intensified when the reader discovers that the deluded narrator has
murdered her to bring back an entirely imaginary first wife. This recognition not
only adds a new dimension to the story, but reveals how perceptively Poe
succeeded in penetrating the complex workings of a deranged mind.” (171)
With this new understanding of the narrator, the consequences of his actions take on a whole
new meaning. In both the case of the narrator and of Elliot Rodger, both men’s outrage grew to
murderous intent when their expectations were not met. In the fictional event, the narrator’s
obsession went even further than fixating on a real woman, pulling this idealized woman out of
nothing but his own drug-addled thoughts.
After his so-called “Day of Retribution,” the police found Elliot Rodger’s 141 page
manifesto entitled “My Twisted World” in his apartment (Preston). Reading through it, it’s
difficult not to feel sorry for this confused, hurting boy, despite the atrocious crimes he
committed. In the manifesto, Rodger goes into great detail about his childhood, recounting the
events that led him to what he felt was his last resort. It might be a stretch to suggest there are
echoes of Poe in his writing, but the similarities are there if the reader takes the time to find
them. One passage in particular stands out, Rodger’s awe of a beautiful girl mirroring that of the
narrator of “Ligeia”:
“I did, however, pass by one young girl, and she was like a goddess who came
down from heaven. She was walking alone, in her bathing suit, with her luscious
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blonde hair blowing in the wind. I couldn’t help but slyly admire her beauty as we
passed by each other. I was scared. I was scared that she might view me as
nothing but an inferior insect who’s [sic] presence ruins her atmosphere. Her
beauty was intoxicating! And then, just as we passed each other, she actually
looked at me. She looked at me and smiled. Most girls never even deigned to look
at me, and this one actually looked at me and smiled. I had never felt so euphoric
in my life. One smile. One smile was all it took to brighten my entire day. The
power that beautiful women have is unbelievable. They can temporarily turn a
desperate boy’s whole world around just by smiling.” (Rodger 76)
Rodger’s focus on the girl’s beauty and power, while lacking the eloquence of Poe’s narrator, is
frighteningly familiar. And since this particular girl and every other that received but failed to
reciprocate Rodger’s feelings, he decided to respond in slaughtering as many as he could.
Perhaps the most chilling part of the whole situation is that the narrator’s worship of Ligeia and
subsequent murder of Rowena seem so overdramatic that it couldn’t possibly be a reality; the
sensational language plays up the fact that this is fictional, entertaining story. However, as
evidenced in Elliot Rodger’s manifesto, this kind of dangerous thinking is not merely the work of
fiction. To the same point, Rodger isn’t the only man whose disappointment has been channeled
into rage and violence, as we continually see in the news and hear in personal accounts.
So what do we do with this knowledge? What can we learn from the examples of Poe’s
narrator and Elliot Rodger and the men of their ilk? Understanding that the narrator’s impossible
standard of Ligeia is what doomed Rowena – not a failure on Rowena’s part in any way, as well
as understanding that Elliot Rodger was motivated by similar unmet expectations – he was
constantly baffled and frustrated that the women he set his sights on never returned his feelings,
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stating in his final YouTube video (which has since been removed), “Girls, all I’ve ever wanted
was to love you and to be loved by you. I’ve wanted sex. I’ve wanted love, affection, adoration.
You think I’m unworthy of it. That’s a crime that can never be forgiven” (Preston). This kind of
thinking isn’t unique, and that is what needs to change. As Chu argues, there needs to be a major
shift in thought, especially in those members of nerd culture who think women are a prize to be
won if they work hard enough or do the right things. If this kind of misogyny continues to be
encouraged by society, then this level of violence won’t ever end. It has to end.
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Works Cited
Ansari, Azadeh. “Pakistani Woman Dies after Being Set on Fire.” CNN, Cable News Network, 2
June 2016, www.cnn.com/2016/06/01/asia/pakistan-woman-fire-death/.
Breiding, Benjamin. Personal interview. 2 July 2016.
Chu, Arthur. “Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds.” The Daily
Beast, The Daily Beast Company LLC, 27 Mar. 2014,
www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/27/your-princess-is-in-another-castlemisogyny-entitlement-and-nerds.html.
Clarke, Harry. “Illustration for Edgar Allan Poe's Story ‘Ligeia’ by Harry Clarke (1889-1931),
Published in 1919.” Wikimedia Commons, 4 July 2007,
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligeia#/media/File:Ligeia-Clarke.jpg.
“Court Docs: Greensburg Man Fatally Shoots Girlfriend after Rejected Proposal.” WTTV CBS
Indianapolis, WTTV CBS Indianapolis, 27 Oct. 2016, cbs4indy.com/2016/10/27/courtdocs-greensburg-man-fatally-shoots-girlfriend-after-rejected-proposal/.
Davis, Jack L., and June H. Davis. “Poe's Ethereal Ligeia.” The Bulletin of the Rocky Mountain
Modern Language Association, vol. 24, no. 4, 1970, pp. 170–176.
www.jstor.org/stable/1346725.
Dayan, Joan. “Amorous Bondage: Poe, Ladies, and Slaves.” American Literature, vol. 66, no. 2,
1994, pp. 239–273. www.jstor.org/stable/2927980.
Farmer, William O. “Village Resident Charged with Shooting Into Neighbors Home.” Sumter
County Sherriff, 21 June 2016,
www.sumtercountysheriff.org/pr/2016/20160621_villagesresidentcharged.pdf.
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Khan, Samiullah. “Mumbai Crime: Man Killed Sister-in-Law for Rejecting His Sexual
Advances.” Mid-Day, Mid-Day Infomedia Ltd., 23 May 2016, www.midday.com/articles/mumbai-crime-man-killed-sister-in-law-for-rejecting-his-sexualadvances/17265181.
Lovett, Ian, and Adam Nagourney. “Video Rant, Then Deadly Rampage in California Town.”
The New York Times, The New York Times, 24 May 2014,
www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/us/california-drive-by-shooting.html.
“Man Killed, 2 Hurt in Overnight Shooting in Boise.” KTVB, KTVB-TV, 29 June 2016,
www.ktvb.com/news/local/man-killed-2-hurt-in-overnight-shooting-in-boise/259386974.
Poe, Edgar Allan. “Ligeia.” The Bedford Anthology of American Literature, edited by Susan
Belasco and Linck Johnson, Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2014, pp. 1162 – 1172.
Preston, Jennifer. “Gunman Made Threats in 141-Page Manifesto and YouTube Videos.” The
New York Times, The New York Times, 24 May 2014,
news.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/24/gunman-made-threats-in-141-page-manifesto-andyoutube-videos.
Rodger, Elliot. “My Twisted World.” N.p.
assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1173619/rodger-manifesto.pdf.
“Rowena.” The Meaning of Names, Names.org, www.names.org/n/rowena/about.
Winslow, Barbara. “Education Reform in Antebellum America.” The Gilder Lehrman Institute of
American History, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History,
www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/first-age-reform/essays/education-reformantebellum-america.
When Women Refuse, N.p. whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com/