Ligeia Back example essay topic

Poets in the Romantic era often took a negative attitude towards science. This attitude was adopted in large part to the dominant beliefs of the Romantic poets. Romantic poets placed a strong emphasis on nature and primitivism (living a simple life), Further, Romantic poets had a penchant for the life of escapism and idealism rather than realism. This disdain for science is clearly demonstrated in "Sonnet: To Science" by Edgar Allan Poe.

The poem opens "Science... who alter est all things with thy peering eyes". Poe is stating that science changes everything with its eyes. Science looks at things that can only be observed, not dreamed. Poe goes on to say science is a vulture, whose wings are "dull realities". He is saying science believes only in a reality that is dull and boring. By using the word "vulture", Poe shows he considers science something that is evil and preys upon the dreams and "realities" of others.

Later Poe asks, "hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood, and the Elfin from the green grass and from me the summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?" This is saying that science has erased a person's ability to dream. Further, science has erased all of the whimsical fairies and elves from fantasy because these things are not observable facts or reality. On the contrary, Poe feels fantasy and poetry itself is a way to find facts and determine reality. Poe took this attitude towards science because he felt science interfered in the life of a poet. Instead of allowing people to live a simple life, science invaded the world with technology and fanciful explanations, rather than just appreciating the primitive style of nature. Also, science did not allow for escapism, it confined a person to the real world, not a fantasy world.

Romantic poets all shared a negative attitude towards science. Poe was indeed a master of the "Gothic supernatural". The characteristics of the supernatural are developed in many of his stories, especially "Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher". In "The Fall of the House of Usher", Poe illustrates a dark side. First, no distinction can be made between the real and the imagined world. The house seems to collide with the narrator's personality.

The narrator can not separate himself from the world around him because he is so involved in the mystique. Because of the great details of the story, the reader cannot separate the real world from the imagined world. The details of the house, specifically, the zigzag crack in the front, seem to describe physical aspects, when in reality, the zigzag crack will represent the downfall of the house of Usher. The relationship between Lady Madeline and Roderick is also very interesting. It seems there is a perverse relationship, something beyond the realm of brother and sister. This just adds to the details and excitement of the story.

Later, when Lady Madeline dies, she still seems alive. Poe's suggestion of color and a mock smile suggest something strange and eerie will occur. In fact, something eerie does occur when Lady Madeline comes back to exact her revenge on Roderick. She appears at the door, "with blood upon her robe... evidence of a bitter struggle... and then with a cry... she fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother... bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated". Suddenly, (after the narrator fled) there was a wild light... and a blood red moon... while I gazed, the fissure opened... and the deep and dark tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the "House of Usher".

These details show the supernatural; surely someone who is dead does not simply rise out of a coffin and come back and murder someone. "Ligeia" is another example of Gothic Supernatural and the inability to distinguish between the real and imagined world. Ligeia was the first wife of the narrator. Ligeia "came and departed as a shadow". The features of Ligeia were not of a classic beauty, she was described as having a somewhat strange beauty. It also seems Ligeia has crept into the soul of the narrator, since the beginning of the story states "I can not for my soul remember how...

I first became acquainted with Lady Ligeia. He describes the city where he believes he met her as "old and decaying". These are subtle details that add to the eeriness of the story. Ligeia is the most beautiful woman ever, human or not.

Details of her beauty are compared to that of a Greek goddess. Ligeia's eyes are a source of "torture". The narrator wants to see what the eyes of Ligeia see. Ligeia soon passes, and the narrator moves along and marries Lady Rowena.

Of course, the entire time he is married to Rowena he is thinking of Ligeia. Rowena soon falls to the hands of a spirit who supposedly put drops into her drink and causes her death. While the narrator is with Rowena, all he can think of is Ligeia. There was a sob from the corpse, and later, the narrator touches the corpse, and it shrieks, and the bandages fall, and black hair, "blacker than the raven wings of midnight" falls, and it is discovered that the body is that of Ligeia. This is determined because of the wild, black eyes, the narrator was once fascinated with. In this story, it is the desperate hope and love that brings Ligeia back.

This of course demonstrated the supernatural because fervent wishes of a husband can not bring someone back from the dead. These stories have a common thread. In both stories, someone comes back from the dead. In "The Fall of the House of Usher", it is impossible for someone to come back from the dead and kill another person.

It is also ridiculous to assume that a house can possess so much power to fall into the ground as if the ground were an ocean. In "Ligeia" after the death of his first wife, the narrator remarries but is constantly consumed by the thoughts of Ligeia. These very strong feelings and thoughts cause enough chemistry to bring Ligeia back through the body of his second deceased wife. This of course is definitely supernatural, because this also is impossible. No amount of wishing or thought can bring a person back from the dead. Both these stories possess strong traits of the supernatural and are very interesting examples of the Gothic supernatural style.