Behind A Mask and Southern Goithic Short Stories

We finished reading Behind A Mask, by L.M. Alcott, who really wrote it under the name A.M. Barnard. It was a very interesting novel revealing how authors make their characters hide behind masks, as well as themselves. Just like Jean, the character in her story, Alcott hid behind a mask by writing under another name. It is interesting though because in the end of the story, the governess, Jean, who was ultimately changing the roles in the house by ruling it instead of serving them, gave everyone what they needed, after messing with everyone's hearts. It makes you wonder that if hiding behind a mask is really all that bad? Sometimes it gives a person a little bit more confidence, and ironically, more truth comes out behind the lie of a mask. I think this is because there is no option to hurt your own pride if someone disagrees with you, but if you are not wearing a "mask" to protect you and your opinion, someone could ultimately hurt your feelings and pride.

We also began reading short stories from the Southern Gothic such as, "the Goophered Grapevine", "The Sheriff's Children", and Jean-Ah Poquelin". I enjoyed reading these, but then again, I did not necessarily enjoy the endings of these stories. These stories tell an important story of our Country's history of a past that is so sad, and reading about this time period in and through the ironic stories about curses, illegitimate sons, and disease ridden brothers, it is sad at the end to think that those stories tell a deeper meaning about the history of America, and the fight of the Civil War.

Edgar Allen Poe

We read two short stories by Edgar Allen Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher" and, "Ligeia". Poe really brings out the grotesque part of the word Gothic. I was very disturbed by both of the outcomes of these stories. In "The Fall of the House of Usher", Roderick Usher berries his twin sister ALIVE. And in "Ligeia", mysteriously two of his wives die, and after his second wife has been laying in his bed, dead for days, the spirit of his first love, Ligeia, overtakes his dead wife's body! That is what I describe grotesque!

Poe also uses descriptive imagery to describe and set the scene of his gothic settings. He intently talks about the gloom, the moonlight, and the crack in the house of Usher, vacant eye like windows, and the decayed trees. He even refers to "a sickness of the heart" when describing the house. With these descriptions you feel apart of the eery-ness that Poe unveils.

In "Ligeia" he also uses imagery to set the gothic scene. In this short story, he focuses on light and dark imagery. When he is with Ligeia, his one true love, everything is in a light shade, and when he is with his second wife, whom he married for her status in society, everything is in a shade of darkness. His context, symbols, and use of words really makes the reader feel apart of the grotesque story.

Young Goodman Brown and Sleepy Hallow

These are the fist Gothic novels that we have read that are taken place in America. It is very interesting because it relates to American history-- something we are all very familiar with. It brings a twist of uncertainty to something so certain.

I think that Young Goodman Brown also points to inherently good or inherently evil in human beings, similarly to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This time, Goodman Brown goes to a satanic meeting in the middle of the night and sees all of his loved ones in the same meeting. It forever changes his outlook on life, now knowing what his loved ones are living for. Hawthorne plays on the word "Faith" meaning believing, but also using the word as Goodman Brown's wife's name. Goodman Brown says things like, "Faith kept me back a while" and "My Faith is gone!". Both of these quotations can be interpreted to be about his wife or his personal faith.

The Legend of Sleepy Hallow is about Ichabod Crane trying to come into a sleepy little town, and ultimate believe he can run it. Little does he know what he is getting into. While he is there, he hears about the evil spirit of the Headless Horseman. I think it is interesting to read these stories that are placed in America, and to see what how the author interprets the situation and adds their own element of gothic to America. Here Irving is able to set the gothic scene in this small little town that seemed to be tiny and quaint, but in reality the scariest spirit from the Revolutionary War roams the dark nights.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

I enjoyed getting to finish Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It was very interesting to learn more about Doppelgangers, and how Stevenson used them in his novel. Without prior knowledge, the reader would never really know if Jekyll and Hyde were truly the same person or not. It only becomes clear when Hyde kills himself and Utterson reads Jekyll's true account of what really happened behind the mask of Mr. Hyde. I think it is interesting how Stevenson brings up a very interesting topic of the innateness of human beings. Are we inherently good or inherently bad? I believe Stevenson is proving that we are inherently bad when he reveals that Hyde has taken over Jekyll's body and ends up killing himself, both Jekyll and Hyde, for good. He reveals that even our moralistic selves, desire some kind of evil, and in Dr. Jekyll, that evil turned out to take his own life.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Mortal Immortal

It is very interesting to start reading Robert Louis Stevenson's, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Mary Shelley's short story, "The Mortal Immortal", at the same time because it draws a new light on Gothic literature. It still is a form of romanticism, because the reader still gets indulged and swept away in the possibility of the impossible, but instead of Abbey's and Heroines, these two authors tell a tale with more of a scientific spin to the Gothic era.

In the "Mortal Immortal", Shelley brings in potions to create things that could never happen in real life. The first potion to create perfect love and the second to give the main character, Winzy, immortality. Through these romanticized, scientific experiments, we can question Shelley about the reliability of her narrator. He claims to have been living for 323 years! We can either blindly trust him, or wonder if the potion really gave him immortality, or if he literally went crazy by drinking some sort of mixed up concoction, that nobody really knows what is inside.

In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson is presenting a similar scenario. This narrator is describing the situation in which Mr. Utterson, the lawyer, is trying to comprehend the relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. So far the narrator seems to be accurately recording the situation, and there is no reason for the reader to question his or her reliability. Just like Shelley, Stevenson incorporates a new type of romanticism. The novel is still very much in the Gothic era, with Gothic characteristics such as architecture, darkness, and suspense, but once again you see mystery and impossibilities through experiments and testing instead of bleeding statues or secret passage ways.