dissert

Ingrid Bordesoulle

Dissertation- Essay

‘Perversity’ in The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, the only complete novel written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1838, is a point on which analyses of the novel might focus on.
The English word “perversity’ derives from Latin ‘perversus’: turned away from what is right’. In fact, as it did then in Modern English, in the early 1800’s, and it does now, the word perversity means, deliberately deviating from what is regarded as normal, good, or proper, persistently holding to what is wrong, wayward or contrary (Collinsdictionary.com 2012).
According to E.A.Poe: “Perversity is the human thirst for self-torture”.
Poe basically believes that people have a tendency to do things that are out of the norm, an impulse to act irrationally that cannot be ignored.
The body narrative is in a journal format recalled by Pym, a first person young Adamic hero, travelling on board of the ‘Ariel’, the Grampus, the Jane Guy, and even on board of the nameless canoe of the natives in the South of the earth and in the South Pole. Pym-narrator explains his adventures and gives many examples of the ways in which a person can act upon the ‘Imp of the Perverse’ embarking willingly “on some of the maddest freaks in the world” on board of the ‘Ariel’ with its shipwreck, to being hidden and locked in the hold of the Grampus, to another shipwreck and to his battle with black warriors.
Even though, Pym-narrator-hero describes his attempt in the preface to write a true sea journal narrative, designed to ‘inform’ the people of sea life, the narrator speaks of a hoax and of two intermingled narrators, it looks like adventure but as the story proceeds it gets more imagination and perversity.
Throughout the story, the na...

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...hat is perhaps a meaningless universe.

This novel thanks to the perversity in the characters, narrators, and structure shows us beyond the natural human limits. It functions as a mirror reflecting the whole functioning of the reality.

Only God can be at this higher place, abyss that attracts Pym in a happy consent toward death.

All aspects and issues of this novel are issued from a form of perversity, a passing beyond the limits. Perversity is the knowledge of what we should not know. As both imagination and perversity are what allows us to know God himself.
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket

The truth cannot be looked at in the face, as it might blind the observer with whiteness. Perversity is the key to attain such metaphysical truth fand Poe-narrator and author, along with Pym have succeeded in suc design, thanks to duality and perversity.