Name
Professor Martin
Engl. 2327
6 July 2008

Text: “Fall of the House of Usher”
Passage: “I endeavored to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the phantasmagoric influence of the gloomy furniture of the room – of the dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls…” (Poe 1562).

Text: “Young Goodman Browne”
Passage:  “With this excellent resolve for the future, goodman Browne felt himself justified in making more haste on his present evil purpose. He had taken a drear road, darkened by all the gloomiest tress of the forest…” (Hawthorne 1289).

Text: “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”
Passage: “All the stories of ghosts and goblins that Ichabod had heard in the afternoon, now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid them from his sight” (Irving 981).

Text: “The Purloined Letter”
Passage: “‘If it is any point requiring reflection,” observed Dupin, as he forebore to enkindle the wick, “we shall examine it to better purpose in the dark’” (Poe 1599).

Question: How do the authors use a “dark” setting to reinforce that the characters are spiritually and ethically lost? 

Issue: Issue of symbolism. In the above short stories, darkness is used by the authors both as an adjective describing the setting and as a symbol to connect to the audience’s ideas of evil or immorality. Whenever the setting transitions to becoming dark, the audience, who automatically associates darkness with evil, becomes aware of an upcoming tension or the existence of an evil action. However, the symbolism associated with darkness also serves as a description of each character’s frame of mind. As the characters become more obsessed about evil and lost in a spiritual sense, whether this is shown by thinking about ghosts or walking to join devil-worshippers, darkness overtakes the setting to reinforce the character’s frame of mind to the audience.

Critical Approach: Deconstruction provides a good approach for analyzing the above question. When generally considering good versus evil, many view them as the two distinct ends of the spectrum. During the time of these writings, good was strongly associated by the audience of upholding the values of Christianity and evil associated with the supernatural or the devil. In these four short stories, it is shown how characters can move between the two “binary opposites” relatively fluidly. The character of Goodman Browne provides a prime example of this as he is seeking to join the devil but cries out at the last moment for his wife to resist the temptation. Analyzing the above question with a deconstruction framework will show how darkness is also opposed by light, yet the two are interconnected and must exist together for a character or audience member to be able to tell the difference.

Answer: Throughout the above short-stories, darkness is clearly used to show characters’ frame of mind as they act on in ways society views as evil and/or ethically unacceptable. As the characters enter dark areas, their thoughts and motives become more focused on actions society holds as evil such as devil-worshipping or stealing. In the “Fall of the House of Usher,” the story begins as the narrator enters the house on a “dull, dark, and soundless day” (1553), and slowly, the narrator begins to feel the evil in the house as he says, “it affected me. I felt creeping upon me…the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions” (1562). Eventually, the narrator unknowingly performs the evil of burying his host’s sister alive which Poe shows him realizing as he views the “dark and tattered draperies” (1562). Hawthorne and Irving use darkness in the setting of the woods to symbolize the dark state of mind their characters have entered. Goodman Brown enters the “dark” forest with the purpose of going to join devil-worshippers, an inherently evil act. Similarly, Irving explains that the “night grew darker” (981) as Ichabod was upset about his conversation with the heiress and began to think about ghosts. Finally, Poe’s story of “The Purloined Letter” similarly uses darkness as a cue to the audience of the presence of evil or unacceptable actions which were, in this story, the stealing of a letter from the royalty. However, one difference is that the main characters are not inherently evil. Instead, they choose to “examine [the issue] to better purpose in the dark” (1599) as they seek to determine the mindset of the Minister. The choice of being able to choose whether the setting is dark is a contrast to the other stories whose characters fell into an evil trap, but Poe still uses the symbol of darkness to show actions deviating from society’s norms. Overall, the authors use a setting of darkness as an effective way to set the mood for their audience and convey character’s frame of mind.