Allegory, Symbolism, and Madness – Comparing the Demons of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne
As contemporaries of each other, Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne endeavored to write about man’s dark side, the supernatural influence, and moral truths. Each writer saw man as the center-point in his stories; Poe sees man’s internal struggle as madness, while Hawthorne sees man as having a “secret sin.” Each had their reasons for writing in the Gothic format. Poe was not a religious man; he was well educated and favored reading the German Gothic literature, which would become the basis for his own writing. Hawthorne on the other hand, called on his Puritan-Calvinistic background to influence his writing style. Along with his formal education, and his self-imposed solitary time, that he spent reading and observing nature. Poe’s writing allows the reader to observe man’s thoughts and behaviors from within his mind and demonstrates how his behavior influences his surroundings. As opposed to Hawthorne’s writing, where a man’s behavior is affected from outside influences, as such, placing him in settings that will manipulate his emotional and mental behavior in an effort to deliver a moral theme. Each author would write their own version of a Gothic tale that would spin the reader’s imagination into places it might not otherwise go.
The mechanics of Gothic fiction contain two key aspects, the first is allegory, and the second is the use of symbol. Poe and Hawthorne each utilized these two distinct styles of Gothic writing. Poe would favor the use of symbols in his writing while Hawthorne depended strongly on the use of allegory to create his tales. James K. Folsom describes Hawthorne’s use o...
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...still be tantalized by the descriptive language of haunted woods, and ornately morbid houses. Readers of this style of fiction will always be intrigued by Poe’s internal demons and Hawthorne’s external demons.
Works Cited
Baym, Nina, general ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 6th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.
Folsom, James K. Man’s Accidents and god’s Purposes: Multiplicity in Hawthorne’s Fiction. CT: College and UP, 1963.
Haggerty, George E. Gothic Fiction/Gothic Form. PA: Penn State UP, 1988.
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Vonderembse, M.A. & White, G. P. (2013). Operations Management. San Diego, Ca: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Operations management is essential for the survival and success of any organization. According to Heizer & Render (2011), operations management (OM) is the set of activities that creates value in the form of goods and services by transforming inputs into outputs. Operations managers today contend with competition, globalization, inflation, consumer demand, and consistent change in technology. Managers must focus on the efficiency and effectiveness of processes such as cost, dependability, distribution, flexibility, and speed. The intent of this paper is to discuss the processes and operations management of the Kroger Company.
If Roderick Usher and Mr. Hooper have anything in common it is that they both share the burden of hidden sin. Both Poe and Hawthorne use gothic elements to emphasize the human mind that is put through anxiety and depression because of their guilty conscience. Through body language and social interactions the reader becomes aware of the internal conflict that is going on inside a mind that is hiding a secret sin. It is apparent that the authors wanted the audience to put secret sins in perspective by examining an individual in society that has a secret sin.
One only needs to look at Edgar Allan Poe's works to see how disturbed he truly was. Poe wrote about men being buried alive, a heart that would not stop beating even after it was taken from the body, a man being tortured by a swinging blade, and a tormented man being haunted by a raven. Why would a person write about such horrors? What demons did he seek to exorcise through his writings? What made him so tormented and cynical? Maybe for Poe it was because both his mother and his bride were snatched from him by tuberculosis. Or maybe it was because the world around him was surrounded by violence and death. Or maybe Poe was just that tortured, due to his broken upbringing.
The architecture of the courtroom establishes clear power disparities within the courtroom setting. The physical dimensions of Courtroom 5.1 were organised in such a way that the hierarchal nature of the court is visually clear from the moment you step into the room. The stratification of power amongst the courtroom actors is displayed through the ‘structural elevation’ of the seating (Carlen, 1976, pp. 50). The magistrate is seated at the uppermost level at the bench facing the defendant, solicitors and public gallery. This particular positioning demonstrates pre-eminence which allows com...
Confusion, fear, wonderment, shock and horror—just a few words of many to describe the emotions Edgar Allen Poe’s tales are known to elicit. Critics say that Poe was well ahead of his time in his ability to examine the human psyche and create characters that really make the reader think, if not recoil in horror. One particular theme Poe quite often repeats is that of madness and insanity. He is known for his wonderfully twisted tales involving such characters as an unstable brother with a mysterious ailment (The Fall of the House of Usher,) a methodical murderer (The Tell-Tale Heart,) and an enraged, revenge seeking, homicidal maniac (The Cask of Amontillado.) Through analysis and citations of the tales listed above, in conjunction with the opinions of literary critics, the reader will clearly see the oft repeated theme of madness and insanity hard at work.
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The United States enacted mandatory minimum sentences for drug convictions beginning in 1951 with the Boggs Act. The Boggs Act provided both mandatory minimum sentences for first-time drug convictions and it increased the length of sentences for subsequent convictions. In 1956, the Narcotics Control Act increased the minimum sentences spelled out in the Boggs Act. It also forbade judges from suspending sentences or imposing probation in cases where they felt a prison sentence was inappropriate. In 1970, the Nixon Administration and Congress negotiated a bill that sought to address drug addiction through rehabilitation; provide better tools for law enforcement in the fight against drug trafficking and manufacturing; and provide a more balanced scheme of penalties for drug crimes. The final product, the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, repealed man...
...o get attracted by easy and quick ways of learning things. If the technology provides easy and attractive solutions to students, they will get addicted to it and overuse it in ways which can certainly drop the educational standards. Gelernter disagrees with the comment made by a school principle, “Drilling addition and subtraction in an age of calculators is a waste of time.” (279). He revels the bitter truth where American students are not fully prepared for college because they have poorly developed basic skills. In contrast to this reality, he comments, “No wonder Japanese kids blow the pants of American kids in math.” (280). He provides the information from Japanese educator that in Japan, kids are not allowed to use calculators till high school. Due to this, Japanese kids build strong foundation of basic math skills which make them perform well in mathematics.
Maccoby, E. E., & Martin, J.A. (1983). Socialization in the context of the family: Parent-child interaction. In P.H. Mussen (Series Ed.) & E.M. Hetherington (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 4. Socialization, personality, and social development. New York: Wiley.
Edgar Allan Poe has a unique writing style that uses several different elements of literary structure. He uses intrigue vocabulary, repetition, and imagery to better capture the reader’s attention and place them in the story. Edgar Allan Poe’s style is dark, and his is mysterious style of writing appeals to emotion and drama. What might be Poe’s greatest fictitious stories are gothic tend to have the same recurring theme of either death, lost love, or both. His choice of word draws the reader in to engage them to understand the author’s message more clearly. Authors who have a vague short lexicon tend to not engage the reader as much.
In Hawthorne's use of symbols in The Scarlet Letter, we observe the author making one of his most distinctive and significant contributions to the growth of American fiction. Indeed this novel is usually regarded as the first symbolic novel to be published in the United States ( Dibble, p. 77 ) . Hawthorne attempts to spread a revelation into imagined characters and scenes, to transfer the realization of the symbols into a warmth that will animate the entire...
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s hatred of Puritanism was so big that he described in many of his writing such as The Scarlet Letter and The Minster Black Veil. He usually satirized them as evildoers and sin creators, not holy and Christ zealous as they described themselves. Hawthorne also used the effects of mysterious human mind and spontaneous action to describe the Puritan as satanic worship and God disobedience. In result, his writing reflected much of his Puritan ancestry affections.
Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 8th ed. New York:
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