Gothic Literature: A Historical Awakening and Its Impact on English and American Literature - Essay Sample

Introduction

During the medieval era in Great Britain and Europe, there was a historical awakening due to cultural and historic crisis that people were experiencing at the time. As a result, new artistic techniques were devised, which led to the emergence of Gothic literature that combined fiction and horror, death, and in some cases, romance (Lovecraft, 2014). The gothic novel formation has significantly evolved in English and American literature, and it is perceptible that people are much attracted to the miraculous, supernatural, and mystical phenomena. The very first work of the Gothic novel was done by A. Radcliffe, M. Lewis, and H. Walpole, whose techniques helped to create an edgy atmosphere characterized by fear and uneasiness. The techniques were later deployed by both E. A. Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Thus, this paper aims to analyze and compare two works of Poe and Lovecraft, which are "The Facts in the Case of Valdemar" and "Cool Air," respectively.

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Analysis of "The Facts in the Case of Valdemar"

Poe is the narrator and does not tend to express any surprise due to the fact that everybody is very interested in M. Valdemar's case despite being given the conditions (Poe, 2019). Those who were involved in the matter attempted to remain silent concerning the affair. Nevertheless, there was a confused and imprecise account that was made public and led to discussion and mistrust. As a result, Poe, the narrator desires to clear up the realities and also as he can in his account.

Poe has been greatly concerned in mesmerism over the last three years. Over sometimes back, he discovered that nobody had been mesmerized as he thought to make him reach on the point of death (Poe, 2019). The effort would hence govern whether such a focus he had, is liable to the charming impacts of his mesmerism. It is as if the magnetic influences are either reduced or improved and also death can be briefly prevented. Poe, therefore, decided to pass a message to his great friend M. Ernest Valdemar who was quite a thin person with white whiskers that contrasted with the black hair he had. Poe had a strong feeling that the nervous man probably would turn to be a good subject in doing such experiments. The narrator previously mesmerized his great friend thou he knew that he had never achieved full control. Poe, however, assumed that it was due to Valdemar's tuberculosis and deteriorating health. He then decided to approach Valdemar, who eagerly came in agreement, to the surprise of the narrator. Since the doctors were able to predict the exact time of Valdemar's death correctly, they hence had an arrangement of when they would meet not later than twenty-four hours before his foretold death.

At the time Valdemar sent for Poe, the latter went directly to Valdemar's bedside. It is where he generally detected that his friend has really become emaciated and also had a weak pulse. Although Valdemar tried to retain his mental faculties and quite a slight amount of his physical strength, his weakness could not be hidden. Poe asked the doctors Doane and F to examine the degree of Valdemar's tuberculosis (Poe, 2019). The doctors described the level of damage and predicted that he would certainly die at about Sunday midnight. It was on Saturday evening and exactly seven o'clock when Doane and F said goodbye to Valdemar, thou they agreed to be back at ten the next day to further observe him.

As soon as the doctors left, the narrator elucidates the particulars of the proposed experiment to his friend Valdemar and was very ready to attempt too. Poe, therefore, decided that it was not a wise thing to have only two nurses to act as witnesses in his attempt if something wrong would happen. He hence decided to wait a little bit until the following day so that he would bring a medical student with him, Mr. Theodore L, with him in the chamber, and he accepted the responsibility of taking notes. Later, Poe had Valdemar to give his witnessed consent as he mesmerizes Valdemar, but knowing that he would accomplish little before the time the doctors came. They came into an agreement that the patient was nearly dying. Poe, therefore, tried again as he altered the technique he was using for fifteen minutes until when he heard that the patient's heavy breathing had stopped. By the time 10:55, Valdemar was mesmerized while Dr. Doane decided to spend the whole night with the narrator, nurses and Mr. L. Doctor F still promised to be back at dawn. They then left Valdemar alone in the room until three in the morning. Poe saw that Valdemar's body was still very firm and cold thou not seeming to be at the point of death. The right arm of the patient readily followed the commands that Poe gave, which was surprising, because Valdemar was historically not at all receptive to mesmerism. He asked Valdemar if he was seriously asleep, thou after two unsuccessful tries, Valdemar responded positively requesting Poe if he would let him just die without the need for waking. Poe asked him whether he had any feeling of pain in his chest, but Valdemar answered very negatively, proclaiming that he was still dying. Poe then decided to wait until daylight so that Dr. F would return and get surprised, seeing that Valdemar would still be alive. Poe again talked to Valdemar, who still responded negatively even on the fourth attempt that he was still sleeping thou dying.

The doctors accepted and encouraged that it was good for Valdemar to be permitted to die in his present state. It is because that they expected his death to happen in a matter of minutes, probably, but the narrator decided to ask him the same question again. In response, the mouth and eyes of Valdemar opened to the extent of forming a hideous sight. His body, on the other hand, no longer appeared alive thou his tongue continued to move. In a strict and broken voice, Valdemar said that he was now sleeping but as good as dead. At this point, Mr. L fainted, when he heard that the nurses who were there quickly ran away, and everybody remaining there silently tried hard to revive Mr. L, who had collapsed. He regained consciousness an hour later after much support from the people who were present. They then checked Valdemar, who at that particular time was not breathing and also no blood that was flowing from his arm, showing how worse his condition was. The narrator could hence not able to move his body with mesmerism as he thought before, though his tongue continued to try unsuccessfully to answer his many questions. It was evident that no one but Poe only can be comfortably placed in the mesmerizing rapport with the concerned patient. They then had the new nurses, doctors, Mr. L, and also Mr. P leaving the place at ten in the morning.

Later in the afternoon, everyone returned eagerly to see whether Valdemar was in the same condition as he was before. They made a decision of not awakening Valdemar since by doing that, it would result to his complete death. They kept him in that condition for seven good months while paying him a visit on a daily basis. On Friday, that was before the writing of the narrator's account, and they attempted to awaken him. Poe was not able to influence the arm of Valdemar but rather asked him about his current feelings and desires. Valdemar rapidly answered them to be quick in putting him to sleep or awaken him, claiming to already dead. In an unsettled manner, the narrator attempted to awaken him, but his body pronounced death as it breaks into a liquid and a rotating mass.

The alleged intention of the Facts in the Case of Valdemar was to express how death could be arrested or defeated by that act of mesmerism. The story ended up by suggesting evidently that death is inevitable despite all the efforts and confidence of human pseudoscience. Although the description of the doctors concerning the worsening of Valdemar's body looked horrifying in its inclusion of facts regarding pus-filled nodes and the issue of lung tissue turning into cartilage and bone. The horrible nature of Valdemar's last conversion to a putrefying liquid is eventually more terrifying than his natural death due to tuberculosis would have been. As he approached his death, Valdemar became eager to have a try of his friend's proposed experiment since the fear of death deceptively motivated him. In his case, it seemed that postponement of death simply rises its finality.

Poe has provided a logic of realism in the story because of explaining his wish of dispelling wild public rumors. He issued the story devoid of an author, which confused many people who wondered if it was a truthful, scientific account story. His inspiration came from Dr. Doane's record of carrying out surgery to the patient like Valdemar, who had a hypnotic state. The story seems to be a pure read of a gaudy dramatic tale towards a modern society. Although the author may have envisioned his story to be that way, it is also possible that he viewed the story as a practical joke. In that period, scientific theories could not contradict the prospect of the delay of death through mesmerism; the author thus subjugated these open-minded views to design his story.

More than using pseudoscientific realism as well as the jargon, Poe has used a sensational approach to fear, thus giving the story an emotional impact. Many other stories by Poe demonstrate fear through tension as a result of the reader's lack of familiarity regarding the narrator's identity like Gothic setting. However, in this story, the setting is not hidden, and Valdemar's contextual, being an author, is innocuous. After mesmerism begins, the meticulously designated developing state of Valdemar's body generates a sense of snowballing nervousness that culminates in pleas of a man to die, together with the thawing of his body. The narrator was not able to prevent death, and also instigated the suffering of the body to a distasteful fate.

Furthermore, the author has used visual imagery in furthering the impacts of his tone in the entire story. The phrase "Upon the bed, before that whole company, there lay a nearly liquid mass of loathsome -of detestable putridity," gives an incongruous image of the last jiffies of Valdemar. The usage of the words "loathsome" and detestable putridity" have conveyed the cruel but unavoidable veracity of the inescapability of death. Poe is well known for his austere as well as hopeless stories have shown by means of the tone he has used in the story. As he explains the condition, the author decided to use grim, somber diction statements like "cadaverous hue." The mesmerized words are wittingly used to hold an austere tone that instills temperament of hopelessness to the reader, meaning that death cannot be prevented, although mortal men may suspend its effects.

In this whole story, Poe gives the impression of indicating the existence of a division between the body and the soul. It is clearly shown that when the body falls almost to the point of death, the soul, therefore, remains fairly intact. Sometime after the narrator is unable any more to move any external limbs of Valdemar with the mesmerism's magnetic influence, the tongue of the dead man continued to show a lot of struggle in voicing his words. It is because both the agent of the soul of Valdemar and also his physical part of the body falters between the total stillness of his body and the vigorous soul desiring to die. Even at the point where the body was rotting into the liquid state, the tongue was confirmed as the ending component to vanish. The tongue continued to scream the word dead, thus suggesting that although Valdemar was already dead and even his body now departed, it depicted that his soul still remained in some form.

Poe, in this story, has clearly indicated a sense of science fiction. The story comprises a few components that proba...