The Gothic in 19th Century American Literature

The Gothicin 19th Century American Literature

The Scarlet Letterby Nathaniel Hawthorne

The Fall of the House of Usherby Edgar Allen Poe

When looking at the Usher's home, the narrator claims to experience an “insufferable gloom pervading his spirit.” These dark feelings indicate that the house uses the bad energy from the anguish and unpleasantness that resides inside its walls, and forces it out onto the people who are either passing by or attempting to go inside.

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The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe

"Flights of troubled gray fowl, kith and kin with flights of troubled gray vapors among which they mixed, skimmed low and fitfully over the waters, as swallows over meadows before storms. Shadows present, foreshadowing deeper shadows to come" (Melville 2898).

FEAR REVENGEDESPAIRHATREDANGER

"It was whispered, by those who peered after her, that the scarlet letter threw a lurid gleam along the dark passageway of the interior" (Hawthorne 50).

"It was open--wide, wide open--and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness--all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; . . ." (Poe 2729).

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Benito Cereno by Herman Melville