This document provides guidance for analyzing Gothic literature such as Poe's stories. It discusses how Gothic writers explore the "inner world" or mind of characters. It instructs the reader to look for clues about a character's mental state, conflicts from a lack of self-control, and names/places that suggest darkness or what is hidden. The document also notes that Poe provides few concrete details, requiring the reader to use their imagination to interpret the context, settings, and characters.

1. Narrating the
Undercurrents of
American Culture

3. On the Edge
• Through flashback, Poe’s narrator reveals the
incidents which bring him to the point of facing
his own death on the very next day.
• We learn of the narrator’s personality, which is
monstrously altered apparently by an addiction
to alcohol.

4. Clues
• Remember that Gothic Literature employs the
literary device of the grotesque.
• “Grotesque”, an adjective, derives from the
Italian, meaning “grotto” or “cave”.
• The “cave” used in the gothic sense is the mind, the
inner world.
• Gothic writers explore the inner world of the main
character.

5. Pursuing the Clues
• Look for words in the story that refer to the
mental state of the character.
• Look for conflicts that result from a character’s
lack of self-control.
• Look for names or places that suggest darkness
or what is hidden.
• Look for actions that defy rational explanation.

6. • Notice as well that Poe provides us few concrete
details.
• His language is often spare and suggestive.
(“I suffered myself to use intemperate
language to my wife.”)
• We must enter into our own imaginations to
develop the context of the setting, the
action, and the physical appearance of the
characters.

7. What Is Really Going On?
• Remember, we are expected to enter into
the character’s mind, and by so doing, enter
into our own as well.
• What motivated the character to act as he
did? By extension, what motivates us to act
as we sometimes do?
• Poe believed that our irrational actions
(pleasant one moment, crabby and irascible
the next) result from our “perverse” nature.

8. Our Dual Nature
• Look for characters who exhibit separate
personalities.
• Look for situations that involve two separate
states of being.
• Look for unexplainable events.
• Look for characters in torment—usually a
consequence of guilt.