Poe’s Exploration of the Darker Side of Human Nature in the Black Cat, Hop-Forg and Fall of the House of Usher
Poe’s exploration of the darker side of human nature in The Black Cat, Hop-Forg and Fall of the House of Usher
Introduction
The main themes of Edgar Allan Poe’s works are death, perversity, revenge and destruction. The settings he employed in the given short stories, especially in The Fall of the House of Usher and The Black Cat are Gothic. Therefore, naturally the mood of these stories would be dark and sepulchral. However, this is not a trivial employment undertaken to put the reader in a certain kind of zone. The reason for a Gothic setting is to ably portray the dark and sepulchral undertones of the psyche of the stories’ characters, and through them, the nature of humans in general.
Hop-Frog Compared to the other two short stories given for analysis Hop-Frog has very limited, if any, Gothic elements. However the climax of the story in itself is greatly shocking. Hop-Frog is shown to have tricked the King and his councillors into dressing as ourang-outans on the occasion of a masquerade in the palace. With a pre-planned connivance with Trippetta, he gathers them, thus dressed and chained together, at the centre of the ballroom and suspends them from the ceiling. During this part of the story, the maniacal side of the jester comes forth. The grating of his teeth and foam forming at his mouth create a picture of a mentally unstable person. His whole demeanour changes from that of a congenial, meek servant of the King to a raging, evil villain. Hop-Frog calculatedly planned the entire action, right from the material used to create the costumes which would be easily inflamed to the easy escape he and Trippetta would make after concluding their vendetta successfully. The King and his privy-council had to pay bitterly for their unjust and cruel treatment of Hop-Frog and Trippetta through painful deaths. The manner of the killing, which was made into a ghastly spectacle, reveals the depths of darkness to which the human soul can descend in order to avenge
Introduction
The main themes of Edgar Allan Poe’s works are death, perversity, revenge and destruction. The settings he employed in the given short stories, especially in The Fall of the House of Usher and The Black Cat are Gothic. Therefore, naturally the mood of these stories would be dark and sepulchral. However, this is not a trivial employment undertaken to put the reader in a certain kind of zone. The reason for a Gothic setting is to ably portray the dark and sepulchral undertones of the psyche of the stories’ characters, and through them, the nature of humans in general.
Hop-Frog Compared to the other two short stories given for analysis Hop-Frog has very limited, if any, Gothic elements. However the climax of the story in itself is greatly shocking. Hop-Frog is shown to have tricked the King and his councillors into dressing as ourang-outans on the occasion of a masquerade in the palace. With a pre-planned connivance with Trippetta, he gathers them, thus dressed and chained together, at the centre of the ballroom and suspends them from the ceiling. During this part of the story, the maniacal side of the jester comes forth. The grating of his teeth and foam forming at his mouth create a picture of a mentally unstable person. His whole demeanour changes from that of a congenial, meek servant of the King to a raging, evil villain. Hop-Frog calculatedly planned the entire action, right from the material used to create the costumes which would be easily inflamed to the easy escape he and Trippetta would make after concluding their vendetta successfully. The King and his privy-council had to pay bitterly for their unjust and cruel treatment of Hop-Frog and Trippetta through painful deaths. The manner of the killing, which was made into a ghastly spectacle, reveals the depths of darkness to which the human soul can descend in order to avenge