Hawthorne vs. Poe

Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe were both writers of the American Gothic genre whose writings were characterized by the typical Gothic devices of horror and mystery. In Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and Hawthorne's "The Minister's Black Veil" these devices are used abundantly. Interestingly, the motif of the veil figures in both of them, although to a much lesser extent in the Poe story. Hawthorne and Poe, although similar in their ability to create an atmosphere of suspense and horror as well as their preoccupation with death and gloom, differ considerably in other aspects of their work, most notably in their views of morality and the message behind their stories.

In "The Fall of the House of Usher," Poe uses images of death and decay to create an image of impending death and the dissolution that comes from age. He links the House of Usher with the tarn-a lake created by a glacier, thus signifying a centuries-long process that gradually reduces the glacier to nothing-and describes it as having air "reeked up from the decayed trees" and "a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued" (Poe). The entire exterior of the house is covered with "minute fungi" and the narrator notes indication of "extensive decay" and an almost imperceptible fissure running from the roof of the building all the way to the tarn, hinting of an imminent cracking and breaking of the House of Usher (Poe). The characters, too,

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e mortal and not when in heaven, and this is the tragedy of the story; the reader knows full well that this can do nothing toward Hooper's eternal salvation. Only if he could receive forgiveness for what he has done from the God whose rules he has broken could he be restored, but he does not even seek to do that. The Christian concept of atonement through Christ's work on the cross is strangely absent given that Hooper is a pastor, and it is as though there is no way to relieve Hooper's sin and guilt. Thus, he is doomed, but it is a doom that he has taken on himself with the opportunity for full relief and restoration available. Hawthorne intimates that people create their own hell and that no one can wrest it from them, just as no one can convince Hooper to take off the veil. In one respect, the two stories use a similar device-a ink to another incident or story. In Poe, the "Mad Trist" of Sir Launcelot Canning is eerily tied to the actual events taking place in the House of Usher, and every time Ethelred takes an action that produces some kind of sound, the characters can hear that sound somewhere in the house. In Hawthorne's story, there is a link to a related incident where another clergyman wore a veil afte

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