Gothic Romanticism: Hawthorne, Poe and Baudelaire

In "The Fall of the House of Usher" many believe that Usher's weakness and nervousness is due to the fact that Madeline Usher is a vampire. Although I don't agree with this, I can see where they get this idea. In the beginning of the story the narrator states, " I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should obtain—that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more." (Poe 7). This suggests that the Lady Madeline doesn't like to be seen by other people so she shuts herself away from all people, including her brother, much like a vampire would do. At the end of the story Madeline comes back to life and starts to come after her brother, Usher. The narrator explains that Madeline, "fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse" (Poe 13). Because the author does not say that there is a weapon being used, we can assume that she must have killed her brother on her own, and some people believe that she did this by sucking all his blood that he had left. Another reason people believe that Madeline was a vampire is because the narrator says, "The
radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon which now shone vividly through that once
barely-discernible fissure" (Poe 13). According to the lore, the blood-red moon is a time for vampires to feed on their victims. Madeline chose that specific day to attack her brother and kill him, so many people say she is a vampire for doing so.

Gothic fiction writers often indirectly criticize human nature. They do this by showing how people react to certain predicaments through their characters. Edgar Allen Poe often has his characters react by killing people or animals. Nathaniel Hawthorne often has his characters go crazy after they experience certain situations. Each of these Gothic fiction writers express that humans all have a dark side to their personalities. They criticize how humans react when put under pressure. In Poe's story "Black Cat" his main character gets angry with his cat and ends up killing his wife. Although the character wasn't mad at the wife he still ended up killing her, that's just how he reacted when he was put into that situation. In Hawthorne's story "Young Goodman Brown" his main character started to go crazy because he thought that the people in his town were making deals with the devil. Although "Young Goodman Brown" isn't really a Gothic fiction story, Hawthorne still shows that our human nature is flawed because of the way we react under pressure.