Erudition and Sickness in Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic Stories
Main Article Content
Abstract
Edgar Allan Poe's gender representation is intricate because it revolves around the sickness and disease of both men and women. The illness and death of women have captured the attention of feminist scholars, but they have generally overlooked how in portraying his physically invalid and psychologically unstable narrators, Poe rejects the cultural norms of nineteenth century masculinity that stressed the intellectual and physical supremacy of men. If Poe's portrayal of women is a key to understanding his gender perceptions, it is equally imperative to critically analyze his representation of men and their diseased condition to understand his critical appraisal of the cultural discourses of male authority, and how he converts the patriarchal idea of male dominance and superiority into monomaniacal thinking. In this paper, l critically analyze Poe's representation of men in "Morella," "Berenice," "Ligeia," and "The Fall of the House of Usher" to understand his insight into antebellum gender discourses.
Downloads
Article Details
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:>
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).