Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte

Elien Martens

The Representation of Women in the Works of

Edgar Allan Poe

Masterproef voorgelegd tot het behalen van de graad van

Master in de Taal- en Letterkunde
Engels - Spaans

Academiejaar 2012-2013

Promotor Prof. Dr. Gert Buelens

Vakgroep Letterkunde
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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Dr. Gert Buelens,
without whom this dissertation would not have been possible. His insightful remarks,
useful advice and continuous guidance and support helped me in writing and completing
this work. I could not have imagined a better mentor.

I would also like to thank my friends, family and partner for supporting me these past
months and for enduring my numerous references to Poe and his works which I made
in every possible situation. Thank you for being there and for offering much-needed
breaks with talk, coffee, cake and laughter.

Last but not least, I am indebted to one more person: Edgar Allan Poe. His amazing
although admittedly sometimes rather macabre stories have fascinated me for years
and have sparked my desire to investigate them more profoundly.

To all of you: thank you.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................................ 6

1. The number of women in Poes poems and prose ..................................................................... 7

2. The categorization of Poes women ................................................................................................ 9

2.1 The classification of Poes real women BBCs Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and
Women......................................................................................................................................................... 9

2.2 The classification of Poes fictional women Floyd Stovalls The Women of Poes
Poems and Tales ................................................................................................................................. 11

3. An overview of my approach .......................................................................................................... 13

Chapter 2: The Poetical Woman ............................................................................................................. 14

Chapter 3: The Archetypal Poesque Woman ..................................................................................... 19

1. The helpless maiden ........................................................................................................................... 19

2. Case study: The Dupin tales ............................................................................................................ 20

2.1 The Murders in the Rue Morgue ......................................................................................... 20

2.2 The Purloined Letter ............................................................................................................... 22

3. Conclusions regarding the archetypal Poesque woman or the helpless maiden .... 23

Chapter 4: The Female Narrator(s) ....................................................................................................... 24

1. Frequency and agreements ............................................................................................................. 24

2. Signora Psyche Zenobia in How to Write a Blackwood Article and A Predicament

......................................................................................................................................................................... 26

3. Female narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart? ................................................................................ 30

4. Conclusions regarding the female narrators ............................................................................ 34

Chapter 5: The Lesser-known Variations The Intelligent Women ........................................ 36

1. Kate in Three Sundays in a Week .............................................................................................. 37

2. Madame Lalande in The Spectacles .......................................................................................... 40

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 3. Conclusions regarding the intelligent women ......................................................................... 45

Chapter 6: The Dark Ladies ...................................................................................................................... 46

1. Who are the Dark Ladies? ................................................................................................................ 46

2. Berenice ............................................................................................................................................... 48

3. Morella ................................................................................................................................................. 53

4. Ligeia..................................................................................................................................................... 57

5. Madeline Usher..................................................................................................................................... 63

6. Conclusions about the Dark Ladies .............................................................................................. 68

Chapter 7: General Conclusions .............................................................................................................. 69

Appendices..........................................................................................................................................................72

Bibliography.......................................................................................................................................................76

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 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Edgar Allan Poe is a 19th-century writer who is most well-known for his theory that the
death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the
world (The Philosophy of Composition 165). Consequently, his tales where women
seem to be attractive, but passive victims who are murdered at the start or during the
tale are most widely read and are thus the most popular ones. However, Poes oeuvre
offers more variation on the representation of women than the beautiful, dead woman.
Unfortunately, these variations where women are in fact smart and play an active role
go mostly unnoticed. Therefore, it is worth to have a look at the variety of women that
Poe really presents to us, especially in his prose works. Moreover, it is also interesting to
investigate the representation of this beautiful, dead woman, seeing that she might not
be so passive and victimized as she may seem at first sight.

Various researchers have investigated how women are represented in the stories of
Edgar Allan Poe, but it is noteworthy that little of them have paid attention to the lesser-
known tales, of which Three Sundays in a Week is an example. Most critical attention
has gone to the tales of the Dark Ladies; Berenice, Ligeia, Morella and The Fall of
the House of Usher. Yet we should not leave out the other stories, especially seeing that
they can offer a new insight on Poes representation of women. Various researchers
(Stovall and others) have proposed categories in which we can classify Poes fictional
women, yet they mostly continue by analyzing only the popular tales. In this paper, we
will therefore focus on the lesser-known tales as well. To start, in this first chapter, we
will have a closer look at those different classifications, preceded by a graph which will
illustrate how often women appear in Poes poetry and prose. In continuation, we will
have a closer look at the womens classification by the BBC documentary Edgar Allan
Poe: Love, Death and Women, followed by the classification as discussed by Floyd Stovall.
Both have a very different approach and therefore it is interesting to observe how each
suggests diverse methods to place these equally diverse women into categories. In
addition, we will present the categories of classification that are used in this paper.

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 1. The number of women in Poes poems and prose

Before discussing how women are represented and categorized in the works of Edgar
Allan Poe, we should have a closer look at how often they in fact appear in his oeuvre.
We will do this by means of two graphs. The first graph illustrates the number of women
in Poes poetry, the second in Poes prose. As a starting point, we will use the
classification into Poetry on the one hand and Fiction on the other hand, as exercised
in The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe (the 2006 edition by Barnes &
Noble). We will not include the Scenes from Politian, nor the prose poem Eureka or
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, seeing that these do not result to be
interesting for our analysis. The main focus of this paper will be on Poes short stories
but we will have a brief look on his poetry as well, since Poe was a renowned poet and
his vast number of poems can therefore not be ignored. The list of the classification of
stories and poems used to compose these graphs can be found in the appendices.

The Appearance of Women in Poe's Poetry

2%

No (specific) women
46%
Mention of women but not
49%
about them
About/for a woman

3%
Female poetic voice

From this graph, we can deduce that of the 63 poems mentioned in The Complete Tales
and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, 29 poems or 46% do not deal with women at all. Two
poems, or 3% of the total number of poems, make small mentions of women but are not
truly about them. Only one poem, Bridal Ballad, has in fact a female poetic voice. All
other poems have or at least appear to have a male poetic voice. Even though the

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larger percentage, around 54%, deals in some way with women, however small a
mention it may be, a significant 46% does not deal with women at all. For a poet who
claims that the death of a beautiful woman is the most poetical topic in the world, that
46% of poems that completely ignores women is quite remarkable.

The Appearance of Women in Poe's Prose

3%

27% No women at all

46% Only small mention(s)

Women with a considerable

24% part
Female narrator

Regarding Poes prose, the numbers are a bit more varied. In this graph I have included
the 70 short stories mentioned under the title Fiction in The Complete Tales and Poems
of Edgar Allan Poe. Of these 70 stories, 27% - or 19 stories do not have any female
character, nor is there any mention of a woman in general. The other 73% of the tales do
contain women in smaller or larger roles. Even though it might seem contradictory to
Poes famous statement mentioned in the previous paragraph, his prose actually
contains more women than his poetry. However, nearly a quarter of the tales only
enclose small mentions of women. In these tales, no woman plays a considerable role. In
46% of the stories, so nearly half of the total number, women actually do play a
considerable part. And in two stories, or 3% of the total, we even come across a female
narrator. Yet there is some discussion about this topic, seeing that one of these two
stories mentioned, Mellonta Tauta, is mediated by two men and can therefore not
completely be considered a tale with a female narrator but we will discuss this later
on.

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 2. The categorization of Poes women

As we have already stated, various researchers have proposed categories in which we

can classify Poes fictional and real-life women. To offer a short look into what
categorizations are available, I will present two case studies. The first case study is a
documentary by the BBC, called Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and Women. In this
documentary directed by Louise Lockwood, we receive an account of Poes life and how
the topics of love, death and women played an important role in it. Regarding the subject
of women, they mainly refer to the real women in Poes life and not the fictional ones.
However, I believe that the categories mentioned apply to his fictional women as well
and therefore I will use the three groups of women discussed as a starting point for an
overview of the women in Poes oeuvre. To be clear: when I refer to the categories and
the examples of Poes real life, this stems from the BBC documentary; when I refer to his
fictional women, this is my interpretation of which women could belong to the
categories proposed by the BBC. The second case study is an article by Floyd Stovall,
written in 1925 and ever since often referred to by other academics. His classification is
more detailed and varied but on some points it is open to discussion, as we will see in
the second part of this section.

2.1 The classification of Poes real women BBCs Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death and
Women

The three main categories discussed in the documentary are the mother figure, the
virginal maiden and the unobtainable icon. The first category, the mother figure, is
represented in Poes life by his aunt and mother-in-law Maria Clemm, Virginias mother.
His real mother, Eliza Poe, died while he was very young and therefore Poe found a
replacement first in his stepmother, Frances Allan, followed by his mother-in-law
(Weekes 149). In Poes works, we can find the mother figure for example in the poem
For Annie: She covered me warm, / And she prayed to the angels / To keep me from
harm / / To shield me from harm (Poe 87)12. Another example of the mother figure

1
Unless otherwise stated, all quotes referring to Poe stem from Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Tales and
Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Barnes & Noble Leatherbound Classics. New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc.,
2010. Print.
2
Regarding poetry, I will not refer to the lines in the poem but to the page numbers, so as not to cause any
confusion with the short stories discussed in the following chapters.

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can be found in Poes fiction, namely in Ligeia, a story which we will discuss later on. In
this tale, the narrator is referred to with child-like terms, thus placing Ligeia in the role
of mother. The next category is the virginal maiden. In Poes life, this role is performed
by Virginia Clemm, his first cousin and wife. The virginal maiden is without a doubt the
category that appears most often in Poes works, both in his poetry and his prose. In his
poetry, we encounter the virginal maiden in what is probably one of Poes better known
poems: Annabel Lee. According to some researchers, Annabel Lee is based on a real-
life character, namely Virginia Clemm (Sova 12). Nevertheless, I agree with Elizabeth
Phillips that we should not link the poet to his poems in such a biographical manner
(103). Undeniably, [r]eal disservice is done to Poes work by the assumption, perennial
and predictable as spring peepers, that his works are simple keys to his biography
(Phillips 103). Another example of the virginal maiden in his poetry is Lenore, who is
described as the dear child that should have been thy bride (Poe 55). In Poes prose,
we find the virginal maiden in the figure of Mademoiselle LEspanaye in The Murders in
the Rue Morgue, who lives with her mother and is not described as having a
relationship with a male of any kind. Berenice, of the tale with the same name, is placed
into this category as well. She is engaged to the narrator, also her cousin, but is not yet
married. Therefore, she can still be called a maiden. In addition, the narrator tells us that
feelings with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind
(Poe 230). Relating this reference to a non-physical relationship with the spirit of that
time, in which a woman was supposed to remain a virgin until marriage, we can safely
assume that Berenice belongs in the category of the virginal maiden. The last category
mentioned in the documentary is the unobtainable icon. According to the documentary,
Frances Sargent Osgood, a poetess in Poes time, represents this category most strongly.
She is known for her literary relationship with Poe as well and many claim that they had
a romantic relationship, but this is not completely certain (De Jong 27). However, it is
certain that Poe wrote several poems in her honour, for example To F--s S. O--d (which
easily fills in as To Frances Sargent Osgood). Regarding Poes other works, Lenore
from The Raven can be placed into this category since she is now unobtainable for the
narrator and he converts her into an icon by his nostalgia and repeated ponderings and
cries for the lost Lenore (Poe 68-71). Ligeia, from the eponymous prose work Ligeia,
is an example of this category as well since Ligeia does become a partner in the
narrators studies but the narrator is not able to put his theory into practice the way

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Ligeia does (Poe 256). On many levels, Ligeia rises above the narrator and therefore she
can be seen as an unobtainable icon as well.

2.2 The classification of Poes fictional women Floyd Stovalls The Women of Poes
Poems and Tales

Floyd Stovalls classification of Poes women does not refer much to the actual women in
Poes life but rather to his fictional women; the women in his prose and poetry. In his
article, The Women of Poes Poems and Tales, Stovall suggests that there are five
general types of women in Poes works (198). Stovalls categories are as follows:

First there are a number of pieces that describe spiritual beings in feminine form. Then
there are both poems and tales that have to do with the death of women, Poes favorite
theme. A third group introduce ideal and preternatural women; and a fourth group
should be made to include all other types of fictional women. Finally, there are the living
women of Poes acquaintance. (Stovall 198)

As is clear, most attention goes to Poes fictional women. Where Webb observes that
there are a lot of similarities among the Dark Ladies (215), Stovall earlier noted that
[m]ost of Poes women, too, are very much alike in appearance and in character (197).
Yet it is still possible to place them into categories, based on their role in the poems and
tales. Stovalls categorization depends a lot on the importance of the role the women
play in the stories and poetry, thus his classification is very interesting for this paper.

His first category, the spiritual beings in feminine form, is accompanied by the examples
of Nesace in Al Araaf and the angels in The Conqueror Worm. The next category,
namely that of the beautiful, dead or dying woman, is of more interest to us. Stovall
refers to the poems The Sleeper, Lenore and The Raven, but also To One in
Paradise and of course, Annabel Lee. This category appears most often in Poes
poetry, but there are definitely examples in his prose as well. The Dark Ladies are
generally described as beautiful and all of them die or seem to die at some point.
Therefore, I believe they fit in this category as well. However, Stovall places some of
them in another category, namely that of the women who have ideal or preternatural

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qualities (or both). Ligeia (the prose version) is placed into this category by Stovall and
whereas I agree with this classification, I also believe that we cannot ignore her role in
the death of a beautiful woman category. The same holds for Berenice and Morella,
who are also placed into this ideal or preternatural category by Stovall. According to
Stovall, these three categories mentioned are the most interesting ones. This is also
obvious by his designation of the last category regarding the fictional women, which is
called quite simply Poes other fictional women. This last category is again separated
into four groups: those of the minor poems, those of the stories who are not clearly
individualized, the grotesque women, and the women who are mere mechanisms of the
plot (Stovall 204). Indeed, this last category seems to be a random collection of less
important or interesting women. Conversely, I believe that these women are exactly
more interesting to investigate because they offer a variation to the typical Poesque
theme of the beautiful, dead woman. Not many people know Poes other stories and it is
exactly because some of these stories have received only sparse critical attention that
they deserve to be investigated. For the minor poems, Stovall refers us to Tamerlane
and Eulalie as the most interesting ones of this category. Regarding the women who
are not clearly individualized, he mentions Kate of Three Sundays in a Week, Madame
Lalande of The Spectacles and Madeline Usher of The Fall of the House of Usher.
Nevertheless, I do not agree that these women are not clearly individualized. Stovall
claims that Poe has attempted to create normal, everyday women, but has succeeded
only in making them ordinary and dull (204-205). As I will explain later on in this
paper, I disagree with Stovall that these women are not interesting and especially that
they are ordinary and dull. Exactly because they appear normal, everyday women, they
offer variation in Poes works. Unfortunately they are lesser-known variations and do
not belong to the popular tales, but I will demonstrate that these women are in fact
important women in Poes oeuvre and most surely cannot be forgotten. The following
category, that of the grotesque women, makes mention of Hop-Frog and King Pest
but we will not investigate this category. The last category is named women who are
mere mechanisms of the plot and as an example, Stovall points out the women that
appear in Poes detective stories often also named the Dupin tales. Seeing that these
characters illustrate the popular view of Poes women as passive victims, we will discuss
this stereotypical image before illustrating that there are other, more interesting women
in Poes works as well.

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 3. An overview of my approach

As is clear, Poes women have been represented in many different ways, but I would like
to propose a new view that does not leave out the lesser-known variations. However,
first we must discuss the archetypal women of Poes poetry, followed by those of his
prose, in order to be able to detect how the variations are in fact variations. Regarding
his poetry, we will offer a short overview of his poems, accompanied by some critical
attention that has been given to them. Regarding his prose, we will discuss the
stereotypes by means of the Dupin tales, more specifically The Murders in the Rue
Morgue, but I will also refer to The Purloined Letter. In the first tale, the women are
dead from the start. In the second tale, the female character does not appear herself but
is only discussed indirectly and consequently represented as a poor, helpless maiden
who needs the help of a man to solve her problems. In addition, we will also discuss the
representation of the female narrator in Poes works. Seeing that a female narrator is
very rare in Poes works, it is definitely worth investigating how this exception is
represented. When we have discussed this clichd image of the dependent Poesque
woman or rather girl and the female narrator, we will move on to the lesser-known
variations in Poes work. These lesser-known variations are the smart women, who
outwit men and are represented in a strong, positive light. They have not received much
critical attention and are often barely known among (beginning) Poe readers, so
therefore it is undeniably worth examining these exceptions. Additionally, also the
well-known tales of the Dark Ladies deserve to be mentioned. Even though these tales
are already rather popular, they can be seen in a different light than usual as well. In fact,
the women of these tales are not as powerless and unimportant as they might seem to
be during a first reading. After having then discussed these Dark Ladies, we will draw
some conclusions about how women thus are represented in Poes stories and
moreover, how the image of the Poesque women is in fact more varied than most people
believe it to be.

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 CHAPTER 2: THE POETICAL WOMAN

Even though we will mainly focus on Poes short stories in this paper, we cannot
disregard Poes poems. As we have seen in the previous chapter, nearly half of the
poems do not deal with women in any way. This is a lot more than in the short stories,
where only a quarter of the stories do not deal with women at all. Following Poes
theory about his perfect poetical topic, a lot of his poems should deal with the death of
beautiful women. In this chapter, we will thus offer a short overview of how women are
represented in Poes poems and investigate if Poe in fact follows his own theory or not.

The Raven and Annabel Lee are probably two of Poes most famous poems. And
indeed, both deal with women who have passed away. Moreover, the poetic voice is that
of the bereaved lover, the lips best suited for such a topic as Poe claims in his The
Philosophy of Composition (165), written to explain how he composed The Raven. In
this poem, Lenore is characterised only as a sainted maiden (Poe 71), the rare and
radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore (68) but who passed away, causing the
poetic voice much sorrow. She clearly is the stereotype of Poes poetic woman: dead and
beautiful. The same goes for Annabel Lee, who is described as a maiden (Poe 89), a
child (89), the beautiful Annabel Lee (90), my darling, my life and my bride (90).
Both womens characters are not developed; the only thing we really know about them
is that they were beautiful, but unfortunately have died and that this causes the poetic
voice much grief. Indeed, these poems rather deal with the mans grief than actually
discuss what these women looked or were like. This follows Persons statement about
Lenore that she exists hardly even as a memory in the involuted game the speaker plays
with the raven (Poes Poetics of Desire 2). Additionally, even though Annabel Lees
poem is in fact named Annabel Lee, we do not learn much about this character either.
Both women might have been [n]ameless here for evermore (Poe 68).

In Poes prose we encounter a female narrator (see chapter 4) and as we have seen in
the first chapter, there is a female poetic voice in Poes poems as well. One poem, Bridal
Ballad is told from a womans point of view. This makes it stand out from his other
poems, in addition to the fact that it is now a woman who mourns a deceased man, the

14
dead DElormie (Poe 61). As we can see in the lines And the voice seemed his who fell
/ In the battle down the dell (Poe 61), she actually loves another man than the one she
is about to marry. Yet this poem can still be compared to the previous ones in that, apart
from the fact that she does not love her fianc, we do not know much about this woman.
There is no description of her appearance or of any specific character traits. She remains
just a bride, lamenting her situation of not being able to marry her true love.

Another poem that might be worth discussing is one of Poes To poems. These
poems are supposedly written for women in his life, so they suggest another type of
poem than the previous ones. As an example of one of these poems, we will discuss To
Fs S. Od. This poem is quite obviously written for Frances Sargent Osgood, as we
have already discussed in the previous chapter. However, if the poem were not named
using her initials, there would have hardly been a way to determine it is about her. The
object of the poetic voices affection is barely characterized. Instead, as in most of his
To poems, it seems that we are rather dealing with a weak extract of an unidentified
woman who can be replaced by any other person. I thus agree with Karen Weekes that
these women lack individual development (150). Moreover, she also argues that Poe is
often writing [] about a female object and ignoring dimension of character that add
depth or believability to these repeated stereotypes of the beautiful damsel (Weekes
150). Yet Weekes claims that this quote corresponds to Poes fictional women as well.
On this subject, I would like to disagree, but I will treat this matter in the following
chapters. However, this statement does seem to be true for Poes poetical women, seeing
that there often is no clear description of them, neither physically nor personality-wise.
It is frequently only claimed that they are beautiful, but as Leland S. Person argues about
Poes poetic characters, a womans beauty serves as a narcissistic mirror for reflecting
and heightening [] male desire (Poes Poetics of Desire 2). In other words, even
though the poems may have womens names as titles and they may be directed at
women using To titles, it is actually always about the I, the male poetic voice.

One of the rare poems in which the beloved is not dead but is in fact an important,
perhaps even superior woman, is For Annie. In this poem, Annie is represented as a
mother figure who shields the poetic I from harm:

15
 She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm. (Poe 87)

In addition, the I in this poem places himself on her breast, a typical position of the
child when lying with the mother:

She tenderly kissed me,

She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast. (Poe 87)

Yet again, this woman is not physically described. She is identified as a mother figure
only, protecting and loving the poetic I. In the other mother poem, Sonnet To My
Mother written in honour of Maria Clemm, Virginias mother the woman is again
primarily characterised as a mother whose main function it is to love and care. She is
identified as mother to the one I loved so dearly (Poe 89) and is said to be dearer than
the mother I knew (89) but that is all we truly know about her.

Keeping in mind Poes famous theory about the perfect poetical subject, it is rather
surprising that only 51% of his poems are in fact about or for women. A stunning 49%
hardly deals with women or even not at all. Yet it is interesting that Poe uses the
subject of the beautiful, dead woman in his prose as well: think for example of the Dark
Ladies or the Dupin tales. Regarding his poetry, this topic in fact does not arise all that
often, so it seems that the term poetic does not apply to poetry alone. Moreover, most
of his poems are recounted from a male point of view, discussing the males feelings,
thoughts and views. The woman is not characterized at all; it seems that the most
important element about her is that she is beautiful. There is hardly any interest in the
females character, thoughts or emotions in most of the poems about or for a woman.

16
Therefore, considering this surprising representation of women in Poes poetry, it seems
appropriate to turn in more detail to his Philosophy of Composition, that deals with
how a story or poem should be constructed. To explain this matter, Poe describes step-
by-step how he has composed The Raven. However, even though the sentence about
the death of a beautiful woman may be the most famous phrase in this essay, he writes
about much more than this. Moreover, this one quote is not much expanded upon; more
emphasis is placed upon the raven and the lover than on the importance of the female
character. Yet from this small extract (nearly the only one that deals with the subject of
woman), we can deduce that indeed, the females most important characteristic must be
her beauty:

Now, never losing sight of the object supremeness, or perfection, at all points, I asked
myself Of all melancholy topics, what, according to the universal understanding of
mankind, is the most melancholy? Death was the obvious reply. And when, I said, is
this most melancholy of topics most poetical? From what I have already explained at
some length, the answer, here also, is obvious When it most closely allies itself to
Beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic
in the world and equally is it beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are
those of a bereaved lover. (Poe The Philosophy of Composition 165).

The rest of the essay deals with Poes mode of constructing the story line, rhythm, the
lovers feelings and the conversation between the lover and the raven. We can thus
infer that not much attention has been specifically devoted to women in this essay.
Naturally, his best-known sentence is striking for its rather harsh treatment of women,
but we should thus keep in mind that most of the essay deals with the tone, the rhythm,
the lover and the raven, and not so much with the female character.

In addition, the fact that most of Poes poems do not even deal with women and that the
poems that do include them often only describe them as being beautiful, seems to
contradict some researchers theory that the women in Poes poems actually represent
(a version of) Poe himself. This theory can be found in Baudelaires view on Poes poetic
phantom women: they are types for Poe himself (qtd. in Dayan Poes Women 4).
Since we often only learn that these women are beautiful, but learn nothing about their

17
intelligence or other character traits, it is rather hard to believe that these empty
female stock characters stand for Poe himself.

Even though this is just a short overview of Poes poetical women, I believe it is clear
that there just is not that much to say about them. Most of these women are not
described by means of their physical appearance, yet their character traits are also
ignored. They mainly occur as a means to a male end: the woman must die in order to
enlarge the experience of the narrator, her viewer (Miquel-Baldellou 181). Indeed, the
women lack an identity and development of their own and even though they may
receive title roles, they often still remain an empty character in the poem itself. In this
way, Poes poetry refers to a prototypical beautiful, dead woman perhaps a bit too often.
Unfortunately, I thus have to agree with Karen Weekes and Leland S. Person that most of
these women represent weak stereotypes that are repeatedly used for the poetic voices
selfish purposes.

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 CHAPTER 3: THE ARCHETYPAL POESQUE WOMAN

1. The helpless maiden

Discussing women in the works of Edgar Allan Poe, one cannot help but notice how often
they are completely ignored, as we have demonstrated by means of graphs in the first
chapter. Moreover, when women do appear in his stories, they are often placed in the
role of helpless victims. In this third chapter, we will therefore analyze the image of the
helpless maiden that has become the clich of gothic literature and that is evidently
present in Poes works as well. This image is the one that is best known among Poe
readers and therefore constitutes the prototypical Poesque woman. Yet it is interesting
to observe that exactly the tales where the female character is helpless and dependent of
men are the most popular ones. The admittedly rather scarce tales where a woman is
intelligent and independent go mostly unnoticed. In this chapter, however, we will first
offer an overview of the stereotypical image of the helpless maiden in order to then
refute in the following chapters the popular view that this is Poes most important
portrayal of woman.

19
 2. Case study: The Dupin tales

According to Stovalls classification, as discussed in chapter 1, the women who merely

serve as mechanisms of the plot and thus receive no important role in the story
whatsoever - can be found strikingly in the detective stories about C. Auguste Dupin
(205). Indeed, these tales are among the most famous works of Edgar Allan Poe,
especially considering that they are widely acknowledged to be the first detective tales
(Thoms 133). When reading these tales, one cannot help but notice how the women are
characterized in these tales or better yet, how they lack any character of their own.
Stovall recognized that they are usually not described, and [...] exist for no other
purpose than to satisfy the exigencies of the plot (205). Exactly because for example
The Murders in the Rue Morgue has become so popular, the women in these tales have
helped in creating the image of the helpless and dead or dying maiden that is seen as
stereotypical of Poes works. Indeed, the most important women in this tale, Madame
LEspanaye and her daughter Mademoiselle Camille LEspanaye, are identified only by
their helpless shrieks and deformed corpses.

2.1 The Murders in the Rue Morgue

As is clear in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, it is a man who is described as being
clever and a remarkable analyst. In this respect, one cannot fail to notice how in the
rather theoretical beginning of the tale the whole explanation of what an analyst is, is
characterized by the personal pronoun he, not she. The two murdered ladies do not
get speaking roles given that shrieks hardly count as interesting additions to the
conversations and are not described physically, apart from the wounds inflicted on
their bodies. Following Church, Poe locates meaningful, rational discourse in the two
men and limits the two women to shrieks and screams (411) 3. The harshness of the
violence towards these women has led researchers to various theories. Marie Bonaparte
reduces the story to a Freudian primal scene (qtd. in Church 409) while Lemay sees
the murders as the deleterious consequence of modern humankinds sexual repression
(qtd. in Church 409).

3
However, we should not make the mistake to connect Poe to the narrator or to claim that this tale represents
Poes own misogynistic views.

20
In his article about misogyny in The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Church stresses how
the womens deaths [remain] strangely unpunished (409). Indeed, every man remotely
involved is set free without charges and even the orang-utan is not killed for his
aggressive behaviour but is sent to the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Church even goes so
far as to state that Dupin and the narrator show a misogynistic satisfaction in the
deaths of the mother and daughter (409). His arguments consist of Dupin and the
narrator living together in a secluded way not needing women in their lives and of
Dupin wishing to establish his mental superiority over other men (410). Church thus
deduces that Dupin

must see in the circumstances of these two women, and modern women generally, their
possession of new powers intellectual, material, and sexual and therein must
experience an excruciating affront to mans, but above all, his own superiority (410).

It is indeed interesting to observe that both mother and daughter do not have any men
in their lives. They take care of themselves, and the only other person who helps them
with domestic chores is also a woman, Pauline Dubourg, the laundress. They are known
to have money and Madame LEspanaye is said to have rather mystical powers, telling
fortunes. Naturally, such self-reliant women could pose a threat to some men who feared
the womens lack of need for a male person in their lives. According to Church, the
women apparently consider themselves superior to and satisfied without men (411).
This view of the women as considering themselves superior makes the murders all the
more interesting. It seems that women who pose a threat to mans superiority are being
killed to eliminate this threat. Concluding, Church claims that [t]he tale thus mocks and
punishes the women for aspiring to be men when they should be sexually subservient
(413).

Even though the women in The Murders in the Rue Morgue represent a rather
ambiguous image with them supposedly being a threat to masculinity by living alone,
not needing men and having a lot of money, I believe their helplessness and typical
female role in stressful situations is emphasised more convincingly. They only utter
shrieks and screams, in the moments before the murders they were in their night-robes,
the mother was combing her hair, they did not perceive what was going on behind them,

21
and in the end the daughter faints at seeing so horrible an event. Throughout the tale the
powerlessness of women is stressed in general as well, as we can perceive in quotes
such as [n]o woman could have inflicted the blows with any weapon (Poe 379) and
the strength of Madame LEspanaye would have been utterly unequal to the task of
thrusting her daughters corpse up the chimney as it was found (383). It seems that
they are such an easy, obvious target, just because they are women. This is indeed a
rather misogynist view, yet it stresses how a lot of people perceive the women of Poes
tales.

2.2 The Purloined Letter

Another Dupin tale, The Purloined Letter illustrates this image of helpless maiden as
well. The whole plot is about a woman who is powerless as a man steals a letter from
her, even though she knows he is the one who steals it. The woman gets no direct role in
the tale; we do not see her, nor does she speak. The only way she is typified in this tale is
by means of the image of, again, a helpless maiden who does not know how to solve the
situation without the help of a clever man. She is represented as not sufficiently clever to
solve this crime; only Dupin is considered adequate to find the solution. Once more, the
woman is seen as inferior to man. Apparently, she is not even worthy of receiving a
decent role in the tale.

22
 3. Conclusions regarding the archetypal Poesque woman or the helpless
maiden

After observing the overall passivity and speechlessness of the women in both The
Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Purloined Letter, it remains clear that the image
presented to us of the famous Poesque woman is a fairly negative one. These women
hardly receive speaking roles if shrieks even count as speaking roles and have
therefore no opinion of their own. Moreover, they are either murdered right at the start
of the tale or are presented as desperately in need of an intelligent man who is able to
solve their problems, because naturally a woman is not able to overcome her own
difficulties. Even though these detective tales do not belong to the Gothic genre, the
image of the female character that we are offered throughout does correspond to the
stereotype of the helpless maiden of this popular 18th-century literary genre. However,
seeing that with these tales, the new genre of detective fiction is introduced, it is rather
disappointing that we do not find a new position for the women. Instead, their position
as powerless, naive and dependent girls is only reinforced. The women of the Gothic
fiction did receive speaking roles but here they are only shown as dead or desperate and
voiceless. Sadly, this new genre just builds on previous traditions regarding women
probably because of the popularity of these rather antifeminist tales.

23
 CHAPTER 4: THE FEMALE NARRATOR(S)

1. Frequency and agreements

Following the stereotype of the helpless maiden, it seems appropriate to investigate the
rare female narrator in Poes works. We will discuss her role subsequent to that of the
helpless maiden, considering that her importance is rather disappointing as well. With a
female narrator, we would expect a powerful woman who has her own voice in
contrast to the helpless maidens of the Dupin Tales who remain voiceless. However, as
we will illustrate in this chapter, the representation of the female narrator in Poes tales
is quite unsatisfactory as well.

While the stories where women receive a considerable role are scarce, the stories where
we encounter a female narrator are even scarcer, as we have seen in the graph in the
first chapter. Only 3% of his entire oeuvre of short stories contains a female narrator.
Nevertheless, even this 3% is rather ambiguous. Most researchers agree that we only
encounter a female narrator in How to Write a Blackwood Article and in the
accompanying story A Predicament (Martin 200). These two stories are generally
considered as one. This is the case in The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe,
the book used for this paper, as well. We will therefore consider this story as one whole
from here onwards and discuss it under the title of How to Write a Blackwood Article.
Yet this story is not the only one with a female narrator. The short story Mellonta
Tauta also contains a female narrative voice. Yet this narrator is heavily mediated by a
supposed male translator and by a preface of Poes hand. Consequently, we will not
discuss this story as having a female narrator since it is (albeit allegedly) mediated by
two men and it would therefore be rather dubious to discuss it as having a true female
narrator with a completely unique own voice. In short, only one story of Poes entire
prose oeuvre can be considered to have a female narrator.

Even though we can thus state that there is only one short story containing a female
narrator, Gita Rajan believes that there is one more story that might actually be written
from a female point of view. In her compelling article A Feminist Rereading of Poes

24
The Tell-Tale Heart, she discusses the tale as if the narrator were a woman. Seeing that
this is a revolutionary point of view, we will discuss this reading as well. Yet first, we will
research the image of the Signora Psyche Zenobia, the female narrator of How to Write
a Blackwood Article and A Predicament.

25
 2. Signora Psyche Zenobia in How to Write a Blackwood Article and A
Predicament

How to Write a Blackwood Article is perhaps a bit lesser known than the Dupin tales of
the previous chapter but the story still has received plentiful critical attention. By some
critics it is even considered to be one of Poes best comic writings (Sova 110). It is
generally acknowledged that this tale was written as a satire on the exaggerated articles
that appeared in Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine (as stated by, for example, Levine and
Levine 131). How to Write a Blackwood Article is connected to the other short story A
Predicament and both have the Signora Psyche Zenobia as a narrator. Additionally, this
is the only tale that contains an obviously present female narrator. This makes How to
Write a Blackwood Article all the more interesting to investigate since this one woman
consequently becomes the representative of Poes female narrator. According to Thomas
H. McNeal, Signora Psyche Zenobia is modelled on a real live person, namely Margaret
Fuller, a literary critic and scholar (205). In this section, however, we will not go into
this comparison to a real live person, since this thesis has not been sufficiently proved,
as Levine and Levine (131) note as well. Instead, we will look into the Signora Psyche
Zenobia solely as a literary character.

Signora Psyche Zenobia is presented to us only through her own mediation. We do not
get a physical description of her facial characteristics, but we do get a description of her
clothing one which emphasises her vanity. Regarding her character, a lot can be
gathered from her speech, her behaviour and Mr. Blackwoods comments towards her.
As we can derive from the text, Zenobia seems to be easily distracted Where was I?
Ah! (Poe 269) but also rather haughty and vain, as we learn from the first sentence of
the story: I presume everybody has heard of me (Poe 269). Additionally, she is also
rather naive. When Dr. Moneypenny claims about Zenobias society that our [the
members of the societys] initials [P.R.E.T.T.Y.B.L.U.E.B.A.T.C.H.] give our true character,
Zenobia responds that for my life I cant see what he means (Poe 270). Throughout the
story, this image of the naive and not quite intellectual Zenobia is only reinforced,
especially upon reading A Predicament. The quotes that Mr. Blackwood helpfully
offered are suddenly transformed into a meaningless blabber, as is illustrated in the
following example:

26
 Van muerte tan escondida,
Que no te sienta venir,
Porque el plazer del morir
No me torne a dar la vida. (Poe 274)

is transformed into

Vanny Buren, tan escondida

Query no te senty venny
Pork and pleasure, delly morry
Nommy, torny, darry, widdy! (Poe 282).

Clearly, the character of Zenobia is mocked and she is represented as an unintelligent

woman who adopts someones words without bothering to check the correctness of
what she is copying. However, her lack of intellectuality is stressed in another way as
well. Throughout A Predicament, we are presented with a great deal of contradictions
in her speech. An example of this is found in the following sentences: In my solitary
walk through the city I had two humble but faithful companions and He was three feet
in height (I like to be particular) and about seventy, or perhaps eighty, years of age (Poe
277, my emphasis). It is obvious that every means is utilized to sketch a rather
unflattering image of Miss Zenobia something she is even guilty of doing herself, albeit
not consciously.

Moreover, it seems that Psyche Zenobia is characterized as some sort of female

stereotype. She is overly sentimental in her words, gossips whenever she has the chance
and appears to be terribly vain. We can observe her sentimentality in descriptions like
while the tears stood in his eyes (Poe 276) and Dogs they danced. Danced! Could it
then be possible? Danced! Alas, thought I, my dancing days are over! (Poe 277). The last
sentence is an example of what many researchers have claimed to be the mocking of
Blackwoods Magazines style, but it additionally mocks the character of Signora Zenobia.
It is she who takes over the so-called heterogeneous style in a rather exaggerated
manner and it is she who brainlessly follows the advice Mr. Blackwood gives her.
Subsequently, her vanity is illustrated in her treatment of others. She gossips, believes
Mr. Blackwood is evidently struck with [her] majestic appearance (Poe 270), and

27
shows no respect whatsoever towards her servant. Obviously, she considers herself to
be better than everyone else. Combining the characteristics previously mentioned, it is
rather disturbing that this is how the rare female narrator in Poes works is presented.

However, between all the comedy and satire, there is a link to be noted with the Dark
Ladies tales of chapter 6. Terence Martin sees a link between Zenobia and Ligeia, as
[s]he is Ligeia in burlesque, a caricature of a caricature (200). He adds that she is in a
way the most Poesque of all: Zenobia is the indestructible narrator, whose narrative has
no relation to the ordinary conditions of human existence (200). Zenobia does in fact
seem rather indestructible as she keeps on narrating even though her head has been
separated from her body. Nevertheless, claiming that she is the most Poesque of all is
perhaps not completely suitable. To give an example, we do not know whether she was
indeed beautiful naturally, she claims to be, but we do not receive another opinion
about the matter and therefore she does not truly correspond to Poes theory about
the most poetical topic. Moreover, a satire can hardly be called a poetic story. However,
to return to Martins statement about the indestructibleness of Zenobia, Person adds an
interesting perspective to the final moments of Zenobia. Whereas other women in Poes
works are often objectified by the narrator, [in] How to Write a Blackwood Article []
Poe even employs a female narrator to describe her own dismemberment (Person,
Gender Constructions 137). This time it is not the narrator who objectifies the female
character, it is the woman herself who submits in doing so. Zenobia has thus taken over
a typical trait of the male characters in Poes works, but this compromises her role as
example of the female narrator even more.

The complete comicality of this tale makes it difficult to sketch a serious image of Miss
Psyche Zenobia. However, considering all the textual evidence, there is not much
positive to say about the supposedly only female narrator in Poes prose. First and
foremost, the female narrator appears in a satiric story and can therefore not be taken
seriously to begin with. Moreover, the shallowness and naivet of her character are all
the more stressed throughout the tale and reach their climax in her own tale in the style
of Blackwoods Magazine, A Predicament. As the culmination of these negative
arguments, she even takes part in her own fragmentation. The Signora Psyche Zenobia
can thus be said to be a grotesque character, exaggerated and ludicrous. Concluding, it is

28
rather disconcerting and disappointing that this is how the rare female narrator of Poes
prose is sketched. Even if you consider the narrator in Mellonta Tauta as a fully worthy
female narrator, this image is not ameliorated. In this story, the narrator herself says
that she means the reader to suffer the infliction of a long gossiping letter (Poe 751)
and repeatedly refers to her giddiness (Poe 752). Moreover, Pundita, the female
narrator, is characterized as unintelligently as Zenobia, seeing that she refers to the
Greek Aristotle as the Hindoo Aries Tottle (Poe 752). Naturally, this is meant for comic
effect, but unfortunately, the comedy turns into a tragedy as we realize that this is the
way Poe chooses to represent his only female narrator(s).

29
 3. Female narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart?

The Tell-Tale Heart is one of Poes best-known tales. Many assume that the narrator is
a man, but in fact there is no textual evidence that supports that this is truly the case.
Gita Rajan was the first to notice this and she therefore discusses the possibility of a
female narrator in her article A Feminist Rereading of Poes The Tell-Tale Heart that
has been published both in magazines as in books. Jenny Webb refers to the possibility
of a female narrator as well, but does this 23 years later than Rajan. For this analysis, I
will thus use Rajans article as a starting point for a further exploration of the possible
presence of a female narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart.

As Rajan indicates at the beginning of her study, Poe himself never indicates that the
narrator is male, in fact, his text offers no gender markings (284). However, [r]eaders
have assumed that the narrator is male because a neutralized and unmarked term is
generally granted to be male (Rajan 284). In addition, the fact that the bulk of Poes
tales assume a male narrator supports a reading of The Tell-Tale Heart from a male
point of view. Nevertheless, rereading this story from a female narrators point of view
places it in a whole new perspective. Especially in the light of feminism, it is interesting
to investigate this angle on the tale. Rajan suggests supplementary readings in her
extensive analysis as well, such as a Freudian reading, a Lacanian one or a reading
following Cixouss or Bonapartes theories. The Lacanian reading works with the notion
that metaphor is male and metonymy female (Rajan 285-286). Rajan refers to this
specific use of metaphor and metonymy for her interpretation of The Tell-Tale Heart,
as we will note in the next paragraph.

To begin, we will investigate whether we can derive from the text itself some evidence
for the presence of a female narrator. As is already established, there are no gender-
marked personal pronouns, apart from two lonely utterances of madmen (Poe 498)
but this need not be a term used solely for men. However, it is possible to derive
evidence for a female narrator from the style of the tale. Deriving from the supposition
that the metonymic register [is] marked by the heart in Poes tale (Rajan 293) and
seeing that metonymy is female (286), the textual references linked to the heart can be
treated as female as well. Accordingly, we can find femininity in the narrators confused

30
emotions, such that the narrators passions and fears combine and clash and the
narrators hysterical utterances, extreme passion, obsessive desire, neurotic fears, and
pathetic confession (Rajan 293). At this point, it seems interesting to notice the
similarity between the narrators hysterical utterances and the hysterical utterances of
the female narrator in How to Write a Blackwood Article and A Predicament. In fact,
we can find some utterances of the same style of speech in The Tell-Tale Heart.
Consider for example interjections such as ha! ha! (Poe 500), oh, no! (Poe 499) and
the repetitive use of the interjection oh in general. In addition, we can notice the
excessive use of exclamation and question marks in the final scene and the many dashes
that are used to insert contradicting and fast-changing thoughts that mark the narrators
extreme passion. One can argue that these characteristics refer to the narrators
madness, but it should be noted that they are often ascribed to female speech as well. A
lot of these characteristics can also be found in Signora Psyche Zenobias speech, as is
discussed in the previous section. Both women assume a rather hysterical style of
speech, although this is more modified in The Tell-Tale Heart than in How to Write a
Blackwood Article. The hysteria is more obvious in the final scene of The Tell-Tale
Heart and is even more emphasised by the recurring use of italics. Consequently, the
style of speech in this tale might support the thesis that we are dealing with a female
narrator, considering that it is a rather emotionally influenced language.

When we discuss the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart as female, we can place the taking
care of the old man in a new light, seeing that [t]he female narrator begins in the
traditional feminine position of a nurturer (Rajan 295). Consequently, she is
represented as a daughter figure, now taking care of the older man who must then
represent a father figure. However, her love is turned into hate and her primary desire
is to rid herself of the male gaze, or domination (Rajan 295). As in some of the Dark
Ladies tales, we are introduced to a woman who no longer wants to suffer from male
domination. She wants to become an active force and no longer wants to be the object of
the male gaze. In this respect, she is stronger than the Dark Ladies. She kills the old man
but does not die in the act itself, in contrast to Madeline Usher who murdered her
brother but perished as well. We see the female narrator as an active figure, assuming
power and taking revenge on the male figures that appear to represent domination.
However, whereas it seems that she has vindicated patriarchy, in the end she actually

31
returns to be the object of the male gaze. Now the male gaze is represented by the
policemen, since they search the premises and make observations (Poe 501).
Accordingly, even though a feminist rereading grants the female narrator a temporary
masculine, active, subject posture, it undercuts this interpretation by superimposing a
judicial and patriarchal closure (Rajan 297). Where she refuses to accept the gaze of the
old man and effectively resists it by killing him, she is not able to resist the gaze of the
more active and powerful policemen and the sound of the mans beating heart (Webb
218). Before his death, the influence of the old man was represented by his gaze, but
now that his gaze is absent, his influence is present in the beating of his heart. She finally
succumbs to this combination of the gaze and the still beating heart and realizes that she
cannot defy the male oppression of patriarchy. It seems that she knows herself that
patriarchal morality condemns a woman for being aggressive, for desiring power, and
ultimately punishes her for achieving this power even temporarily and that this
unconscious or conscious realization leads her to confess her crimes (Rajan 297).

Rajan, in her Lacanian feminist reading of the tale, suggests that [i]nstead of a young
man desiring the power symbolized by the Father, she is the daughter desiring her
father (294). She hereby advocates a certain reversed Oedipal myth, although it seems
that the daughter not so much desires the father, but rather the power that is usually
connected to the male figure. As she deeply resents the scrutiny of his eye, feeling
abused and objectified by his paternal surveillance she acts like a male narrator would
as well (295). However, their motives would be entirely different. As we have already
argued, the motive of the female narrator would be to rid herself of the male gaze, or
domination (295). Yet, if we read the tale from a male narrators point of view, it seems
that the murder would be a rather impulsive act without any motivation behind it.
Clearly, the tale changes completely when it is regarded from a feminist point of view.
Additionally, the ending of the tale is influenced as well. With a male narrator, we know
that his confession will have consequences, but with a female narrator, these
consequences will have a deeper psychological level as well. According to Rajan, [s]he
begins and ends in a stereotypically feminine posture, the nurturer who has returned to
her quintessentially repressed object position (296). Consequently, she is more gravely
punished for her desire to become an active agent. Women are expected to be passive

32
and nurturing, so if they transgress their stereotypical role, this will have greater
consequences for them as well.

In conclusion, assuming that we are confronted with a female narrator in The Tell-Tale
Heart significantly influences our reading of the tale. Whereas with a male narrator, we
can find an Oedipal reading, with a female narrator this Oedipal reading is reversed
(Rajan 294). Additionally, the motive behind the narrators actions changes, as well as
the consequences for the crime he or she commits. However, a feminist reading of this
tale is not a very positive one. The woman tries to resist the objectification and passivity
of females but it seems that patriarchy here in the role of the policemen will always
suppress these attempts. In the end, the female narrator is back to where she started:
repressed and objectified.

33
 4. Conclusions regarding the female narrators

Although the tone of How to Write a Blackwood Article and The Tell-Tale Heart is
completely different, it is possible to find some similarities between the speech of
Signora Psyche Zenobia and the (supposed) female narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart.
Both have a rather emotional way of speaking and both womens speech is marked by
excessive exclamation marks and italics. Even though we can ascribe the slightly
hysteric way of speaking of the The Tell-Tale Hearts narrator to him or her
supposedly being mad, we can make a strong case that it is because the narrator is a
woman as well. Of course Zenobias style is significantly more exaggerated than in The
Tell-Tale Heart but this is influenced by the genre of the tale as well. Whereas Zenobia
presents a caricature of the snobbish and overly emotional nineteenth-century woman,
the female narrator in Tell-Tale if we assume there is one is markedly more subtle.
When adding Pundita in Mellonta Tauta to the equation, however, we observe that we
can classify her in the same category as Zenobia: an annoying gossip, as she even claims
to be herself (Poe 751).

In relation to the male patriarchal values, there is a considerable difference between

both Zenobia and the narrator in Tell-Tale. Zenobia does not object to the
condescending comments made by Mr. Blackwood. Moreover, she does not even notice
them and consequently does not represent an image of a strong woman who stands up
for her rights. She personifies a female stereotype and is reduced to being a simple
caricature. Nevertheless, the female narrator of The Tell-Tale Heart endeavours to
resist this reduction to a passive object. She desires to kill the old man, who here stands
for all patriarchal values. Thereby, she attempts to gain an active role in the story, a
masculine role even, according to Rajan (295). However, her attempt fails as she finally
yields to the policemen and confesses her crime, knowing that this will bring her back to
her passive, feminine condition from before.

In conclusion, both women stand for entirely different representations of the female
character. However, the image they represent is rather bleak. It seems that they are
either reduced to a grotesque caricature or, if they dare to stand up against patriarchy,
are suppressed and pushed back into their submissive and objectified role. Evidently,

34
this is not a very positive conclusion for these tales that bring the attention to the
femininity of their narrator.

35
 CHAPTER 5: THE LESSER-KNOWN VARIATIONS THE
INTELLIGENT WOMEN

In this chapter, we will discuss the lesser-known variations of Poes female prose
characters. They are part of the tales that are less popular and that most people would
normally not relate to Edgar Allan Poe. They are the smart female characters; the
women who actually play an important role in the story and may even be superior to the
men in the tale. Moreover, the genre of both tales we will discuss is different than Poes
most popular tales. Even though Poe is most known for his darker tales, full of
Gothicism, murder and suspense, he has written tales in other genres as well. What is
more, he has written various comical tales, amongst which we can find Three Sundays
in a Week, The Spectacles, The Duc de LOmelette, X-ing a Paragrab, Diddling
Considered as One of the Exact Sciences, How to Write a Blackwood Article from the
previous chapter, and many more.

Perhaps surprisingly, it is in some of these comical tales that we can find the exceptions
or lesser-known variations to Poes rule of the beautiful, dead woman. Of these lesser-
known, intelligent variations, we will discuss Kate of Three Sundays in a Week and
Madame Lalande of The Spectacles. Both appear in comical tales and offer a refreshing
view on Poes oeuvre, both as regards genre as the representation of the female
characters. The women of these tales offer an alternative to the by now stereotyped
helpless, dead maiden of his other works or the rather annoying, snobby narrator of
How to Write a Blackwood Article. Kate and Madame Lalande are truly intelligent and
play a considerable role in both stories. Therefore, it is definitely important to bring
these women to the critical attention, seeing that they offer a welcome variation to the
stereotypical portrayal of the Poesque woman and have not yet received the acclaim
they actually do deserve.

36
 1. Kate in Three Sundays in a Week

Three Sundays in a Week is a tale that is not very well-known among Poe readers.
Most readers associate Poe with his Dark Ladies tales, but fail to notice that he wrote
other stories, connected to other genres as well. Three Sundays in a Week is a rather
comical story but is regarded by various researchers as one of Poes lesser works and
consequently not worth investigating (Sova 238). As a consequence, not much has been
written about this tale nor about its heroine, Kate. However, I do believe it is interesting
to have a closer look at this story, exactly because it stands out in its apparent
commonness and because Kate does not correspond to the stereotypical female role that
people usually associate with Poe.

The first element that catches our attention when reading Three Sundays in a Week is
the contrast between the name Kate and the names of the women we have seen in
other tales. Stovall argues that Poes names are usually unfamiliar and always beautiful,
especially because of their musical quality and adds that [t]his quality he secured
chiefly by the use of long vowels, liquids and nasals (197-198). Berenice, Ligeia and
Morella correspond to these qualities mentioned by Stovall and can indeed hardly be
called everyday names. Kates name, however, is a name that seems extraordinarily
common in comparison to the names of Berenice, Ligeia and Morella. It does not have a
musical quality, it is short and does not contain liquids or nasals. The contrast is even
more strongly emphasised when we read Kates name in comparison to the rather odd
name of the narrators grand-uncle: Rumgudgeon. She clearly differs from many other
women in Poes tales, even by such a simple element as the commonness of her name.
The only connection she has to some of the other women is that she is the narrators
cousin and betrothed at the same time. This is obviously a recurring theme in the works
of Edgar Allan Poe, but one cannot ignore that Kate offers a welcome variation on the
theme.

The next element that is of interest in this tale is of course Kates intelligence. She is the
one who finds the solution to her fathers ultimatum by listening carefully to the
seafarers narration. She is the most attentive character in this story and ultimately the
others have to give in to her cleverness and wit. Levine and Levine imply that both the

37
narrator and Kate arrange the coming together of three Sundays in a week (136), but I
believe it is in fact Kate herself who finds the solution in the seamens story. Regarding
Kates intelligence, we naturally observe that she might resemble Ligeia and Morella,
seeing that they were learned women as well. However, I believe that Kates cleverness
is of a different kind than that of the two Dark Ladies. Morella and Ligeia were learned
owing to books, but Kates intellect is of a more natural source. Her intelligence becomes
all the more remarkable when we regard her age: she was barely fifteen (Poe 431).
Even at this young age, she succeeds in outwitting her father to reach her goal: being
able to marry her great love. Her father evidently still regards her as a little girl, calling
her you huzzey, you jade (Poe 432). It is only after her trick that he calls her by her
first name when addressing her. Apparently, he does seem to notice that his little girl
has grown up and that he must admit his defeat and her superiority. Moreover, it is
interesting to notice how he addresses Robert with the derivative Bobby and still
continues to do so after the trick. Obviously, Kate has risen in his esteem while he still
considers Robert or Bobby as a child or a boy, as we can derive from his
conversations (Poe 434).

What is also apparent in this tale is that Kates future husband admires her and truly
desires to marry her. It is clear that he respects her, as for example a little phrase such as
all that Kate and myself wish proves (Poe 429). Not only does he value Kates opinion,
he seems to value it more than his own, since he puts her name first in the sentence. This
is a widespread sign of respect in society and demonstrates that he considers Kate and
her opinion to be important, since otherwise he could have just exclaimed I wish
thereby denying the womans own will. The narrator, Bobby, describes Kate as a firm
friend, a good girl and evidently dreads the long time he has to wait to marry her if no
solution is found (Poe 431). It seems that Bobby and Kate can be considered to be
equals, both loving and respecting each other equally.

In addition, the style of speech of both Bobby and Kate should be considered. Bobby is
too obviously flattering his grand-uncle, which is even more emphasised by the italics
used: My dear uncle, you are always so very kind, how very pleasant you are at
times, you know, uncle and such a wit (Poe 429). The hidden meaning behind his
words is always mentioned between square brackets but naturally, the rude comments

38
he actually wants to pronounce would not convince his grand-uncle to let him marry his
daughter. Bobby does not dare to stand up against his grand-uncle and is plainly
overdoing his flattery by means of excessive laughing and the incessant repetition of
dear uncle or dearest uncle (Poe 429). Kate, however, is more direct in her way of
speaking and arguing. Her first direct speech is preceded by the explanation
(Interrupting.) (Poe 432). Indeed, Kate does not start her pleading with excessive
flattery but uses the simple papa to address her father (Poe 432). In her next speaking
lines, she continues interrupting. Her father clearly wishes to continue the conversation
with the sailors, but Kate stops him from doing so. Just as in Bobbys speech, Kates
speech is enriched with italics as well. However, they are used for an entirely different
purpose. Whereas Bobbys italics refer to his excessive flattery, the italics in Kates
speech are used to build her argument. We go from it is something strange, over
Roberts not quite so bad as that. To-days Sunday. to her final proof that thus three
Sundays have come together in a week (Poe 432-433). Indeed, the textual layout
underlines Kates cleverness even more, especially in contrast to the layout in Roberts
speech.

Recapitulating the most important arguments in this section, it has been proved that
Kate offers a refreshing change in the portrayal of Poes women. Although there is still a
link with some of the Dark Ladies who were intelligent as well, one can observe that the
source of their cleverness is different. Kate, at a very young age, is able to outwit the
entire company present in the scene and does so by paying attention and by witty
deducing. She is one of the only women who is represented as having a normal
relationship with her fianc, the narrator. To conclude, Kate seems to represent a
common girl with a common name but it is fascinating to see that in this story, it is the
girl who is the cleverest of all and who is able to find the solution to the problem
represented, as opposed to the Dupin tales, where it is always a man who solves the
mystery.

39
 2. Madame Lalande in The Spectacles

The Spectacles is a tale that is better-known than Three Sundays in a Week. It

belongs to Poes more comical tales. However, it is still less researched than his more
well-known Dark Ladies tales and is, like Three Sundays in a Week, by some
considered to be one of his weaker works (Levine and Levine 138). The most important
female character in The Spectacles is Madame Eugnie Lalande. Even though Stovall
places Madame Lalande among the group of not clearly individualized women (204), I
believe we do get an insight into her personality, even though she might not be a fully
developed character. Stovall argues that in this tale, Poe has attempted to create
normal, everyday women, but has succeeded only in making them ordinary and dull
(204-205). However, I do not believe that a woman who plays such clever tricks on the
people around her and even consents to a mock marriage can be called dull.

Regarding Madame Lalandes physical characteristics, a lot can be said, but naturally we
have to take into account that the physical description in the first part of the tale is
influenced by the narrators weak eyesight. In this first part, Madame Lalande is
described by the narrator as the most exquisite [female] I had ever beheld, as having a
divine form of face, as grace personified, the beau idal of my wildest and most
enthusiastic visions, a queenly apparition, and the outline of her head is compared to
that of the Greek Psyche (Poe 551-552). It is interesting to note the link here with
Ligeia, who is also compared to historys finest. Salzberg even goes so far as to say that
The Spectacles is a comic variant on Ligeia (21), as we will discuss later in this
section. Regarding Madame Lalandes clothing, the richness of it is stressed on various
occasions. From this description we can deduce that she appears to be a wealthy and
elegant lady. When the narrator regards the miniature of Madame Lalande in more
detail, he describes [t]hose large luminous eyes! that proud Grecian nose! those dark
luxuriant curls! (Poe 564). It is interesting to note here that the narrator uses the
demonstrative pronoun instead of the possessive. I believe its use is connected to the
use of the definite article in Ligeia, where it is employed by means of awe, as opposed
to the definite article usage in Berenice that refers to the narrators horror at regarding
her countenance. The numerous exclamation marks in the narrators speech support
this thesis. However, the use of the demonstrative pronoun distances the narrator from

40
Madame Lalande and again we are confronted with a description in fragments. As
Person notes, Simpson therefore falls in love not so much with the woman as with an
image of her he has created (Aesthetic Headaches 45).

When the narrator wears his spectacles and finally regards Madame Lalande with a clear
view, his speech is altered. He stutters and does not seem to find his words. Every
supposedly horrible feature is emphasised by means of italics. At this point in the story,
we learn that Madame Lalande appears young and riveting from a distance [b]y the aid
of [] pearl-powder, of rouge, of false hair, false teeth, and false tournure, as well as of
the most skillful modistes of Paris (Poe 567). As is clear, she tries to hide her decay as
best she can but thereby violates what Poes narrators have come to expect in their
brides (Weekes 154). But [p]utting on the glasses suggests a clarification of vision, a
willingness to encounter a woman as she is (Person, Aesthetic Headaches 45). Clearly,
the narrator only attaches importance to the physical appearance of his bride, seeing
that when he perceives how she really looks, he is abhorred. Person also refers to the
miniature as a reinforcement of this idea, saying that the womans image is thereby
disjoined from her self and objectified for the wish-fulfilling imagination of the male
(Aesthetic Headaches 45).

As Weekes interestingly notes, Madame Lalande

is the opposite of Poes feminine ideal: she is more than a match for the narrator in
intelligence; she is active; she is not young nor delicately beautiful; and although she is
his own great-great-grandmother she seems completely uninterested in nurturing him
(154).

Indeed, it is obvious that Madame Lalande is not the typical passive Poesque woman in
that she is not afraid to exploit her intelligence to trick the narrator. Person stresses the
importance of the fact we are dealing with a clever woman in his statement that
Simpson, of course, has been tricked and tricked by a woman (Aesthetic Headaches
46, my emphasis). Persons addition by a woman underlines how noteworthy it is that
a woman can pull tricks on men. Clearly, Eugnie is an intelligent lady with humour
not the passive or subservient woman many people expect when reading Poe. Although

41
there is an element of horror in the tale, it is used for comic ends. The scene where she
takes off her wig is illustrated by F.C. Tilney in the Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe
(1902) in a way that reflects the narrators horror upon looking at the woman who turns
out to be his great-great-grandmother. Madame Lalande herself is presented as a
horrible and grotesque creature, as we can see in the following image:

Illustration by F.C. Tilney for The Spectacles in Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe (1902).4

The narrator is appalled, thrust back in his chair, while Madame Lalande adopts a
triumphant posture with both arms victoriously thrown in the air. In fact, one could say
that her posture is rather masculine instead of feminine. Without her wig, she seems to
be bald, her face is wrinkled and hollow and her feet are placed wide apart. The narrator
cannot bear to look at her and has his hands in front of his face. It is obvious that
Madame Lalandes powerful position in this story is even more enlarged in this
illustration, also because her position is higher than that of the narrator. It would have
been even more impressive if the windows were behind her, because then the narrator
would literally stand in her shadow. Now, this only happens figuratively but still on
many levels especially intellectually.
4
Taken from: Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe a to Z. New York: Checkmark Books, 2001. Print. (page 226)

42
At this point, it is interesting to return to Salzbergs statement that The Spectacles is, in
part, a comic variant on Ligeia (21). Whereas this seems a rather far-fetched statement
at first sight, there is indeed some truth to his claim. Think for example of the physical
description of Ligeia in comparison to that of Madame Lalande. Both have large dark
eyes (Poe 554), are described in comparison to Greek beauties and both are portrayed
by means of the greatest superlatives. Madame Lalande, just like Ligeia, demonstrates
her intelligence. Ligeia does this by means of theoretical studies, Madame Lalande by
means of her clever tricks and wit. In this respect, she resembles Kate from Three
Sundays in a Week, seeing that both characters have a more practical kind of
intelligence. Returning to Ligeia, Salzberg sees a similarity in the narrators of both
stories as well, considering that in The Spectacles, Poe characterizes the protagonist
as a ludicrous version of the transcendentally inclined husband (21). In addition,
[s]imilar to Ligeias husband, the young man in The Spectacles worships the sublime
as it is personified in woman. Moreover, Madame Lalandes sudden transformation in
the eyes of the narrator can also be connected to the final scene in Ligeia. Whereas the
young Madame Lalande whom the narrator first beholds suddenly changes into a
villainous old hag (Poe 566), Rowena also suddenly transforms into another person.
Although this is a bit more far-fetched, it is still a point of consideration. As can be
deduced from the information in this paragraph, there is indeed some evidence to link
both stories together, although I believe that the similarities end with what has been
summed up.

To sum up, it is clear that Madame Lalande offers an alternative to the typical Poesque
woman, while at the same time hinting at those well-known macabre stories. She is
witty and intelligent but does not represent the beautiful dead woman and this is
abhorrent to the narrator. We can thus apply Weekes statement that [o]nce a woman
steps out of the narrow boundaries of the stereotypical feminine role, she is reviled
rather than revered (154). Nevertheless, Person blames the narrator for the confusion
in this tale as well, because when they project such an ideal, male characters commit
themselves to a creative process at once destructive and self-destructive (Aesthetic
Headaches 44). In conclusion, Person notes that [t]he death of a beautiful woman may
have been the most poetical topic in the world for Poe, but his tales suggest an equal

43
fascination with women who have life, if not lives, of their own (Aesthetic Headaches
47).

44
 3. Conclusions regarding the intelligent women

As is clear, Kate and Madame Lalande offer an entirely different representation of the
female character in Poes prose. They do not conform to Poes thesis about the beautiful,
dead woman. In addition, they offer a refreshing alternative to the snobby narrator of
How to Write a Blackwood Article. Kate and Madame Lalande are clever women, not
identified by their appearance alone but moreover by their intelligence and wit. They do
not die, nor are they dying, and their lovers do not attempt to murder them. Indeed, we
see a rather contrasting image to that of the typical Dark Lady as well, in addition to the
helpless maiden or disappointing female narrator. Naturally, the genre of these tales is
different, but is interesting to observe that exactly the tales where the woman is
represented in a positive light are lesser known by most people. However, this makes
Kate and Madame Lalande all the more interesting. Exactly because they offer variation
to the beautiful, dead woman and instead seem to represent the normal, everyday (but
by no means dull) women in Poes tales, they cannot be forgotten. Moreover, Poe seems
to suggest a new image of the (literary) learned lady. His friend and contemporary
Tucker talks about the unmarriageable learned ladies in his novel George Balcombe
(Dayan Amorous Bondage 247) and therefore it is noteworthy that Poe represents
these intelligent women as having been married or about to marry. Clearly, their
intelligence does not pose a problem such as it does in other contemporary novels.

45
 CHAPTER 6: THE DARK LADIES

1. Who are the Dark Ladies?

Poes so-called Dark Ladies are probably the most famous and most written about
women of his entire oeuvre, as the sheer number of studies dedicated to them
underlines (for example by Elisabeth Bronfen, Debra Johanyak, Joan Dayan, Jenny Webb
and many more). They have been so frequently investigated that they often represent
the epitomes of Poes women, completely eradicating the existing variety of types of
women in his other works. An important influence of their popularity, following Carlson
(Tales of Psychal Conflict: Berenice, Morella, Ligeia 174) is that they can be
connected with Poes theory of the death of a beautiful woman, to which we have
already referred. It is for this reason that these tales are often read first when beginning
to study Poes works. Consequently, the reader forms an image of the typical Poesque
woman in relation to these Dark Ladies. The reader that is not very familiar with Poe
might see these women as daunting creatures, returning from the dead to haunt their
past lovers, but as we read deeper into these tales, we see that there is more to them
than meets the eye.

The tales that are commonly (among others by Debra Johanyak and Leland S. Person)
considered tales of the Dark Ladies are Morella, Berenice, Ligeia and The Fall of
the House of Usher. The Dark Ladies themselves thus are respectively Morella,
Berenice, Ligeia and Madeline Usher. All four tales are (more or less) named after their
principal ladies and are therefore often referred to with the more general term Poes
womens tales (as in Miquel-Baldellous Demonising the Victorian Heroines Coming-
of-Age in Edward Bulwer-Lyttons Lucretia and Edgar Allan Poes Womens Tales). In
this chapter, we will investigate each woman and her story; we will summarize what has
already been written while offering new perspectives as well. We will demonstrate that
these women do not play the secondary role of a character that returns from the dead to
haunt the narrator the latter whom is often considered to be the protagonist, thereby
placing the woman on a lower level of importance. We will prove that the image that is
formed of these women during a first reading needs to be deepened and placed into

46
perspective relating to Poes other tales. In short, we will try to gain deeper insights into
these memorable women and the importance of their role in Poes oeuvre. First, we will
have a look at Berenice, followed by Morella, then Ligeia (accompanied by Rowena, the
other woman in the tale), and we will end this chapter with Madeline Usher. Finally, we
will conclude that these women in fact play a more powerful and independent role than
appears at first sight and that they might even occupy the superior position in relation to
the narrator.

47
 2. Berenice

Berenice is the protagonist of the tale with the same name. In the beginning, she is
described by the narrator her cousin Egus to whom she is also engaged as agile,
graceful and overflowing with energy, roaming carelessly through life with no thought
of the shadows in her path, or the silent flight of the raven-winged hours (Poe 228).
Physically, she is a gorgeous yet fantastic beauty and she is compared to a Naiad (a
type of nymph that lives near water) or a sylph (an invisible being of air) thus
combining two elements of nature (Poe 228). Still using the nature imagery, the narrator
recounts how Berenice falls ill, saying that the disease fell like a simoon upon her
frame (Poe 228). The physical description of the ill Berenice is definitely worth noting
since this type of description reappears in a very similar way in the other tales of the
Dark Ladies. Indeed, as Jenny Webb already stated, the [character] traits of the women
show remarkable consistency and their common characteristics are evidenced on the
level of physical minutiae as well: more than one woman is described as having black
curling tresses, profound, wild eyes, high pale foreheads (sic) etched blue veins, thin,
pale hands, and an emaciated frame (215). Berenices description certainly fits the
majority of these characteristics: she has a lofty, pale and placid forehead, her hair falls
in ringlets and used to be dark. Nevertheless, her eyes seem pupil-less and lifeless,
which creates an opposition to the wild eyes of Ligeia, whom we will discuss in another
section of this paper.

From the third part of the tale on, the description of the ill Berenice progresses, zooming
in on one particular aspect of her appearance: her teeth. This progression from looking
at Berenice in her totality to meticulously analyzing her teeth is linked to the
progression of the narrators disease, a form of monomania or an intensity of interest
[...] in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe which
evolves to a supernaturally exaggerated interest which was the prevailing feature of the
disease (Poe 229). This obsession with teeth of course immediately brings vampirism
to mind. Indeed, the image of the ill Berenice very much resembles the stereotypical
representation of a vampire: lifeless eyes that seem pupil-less, thin and shrunken lips
and the teeth that are long, narrow and excessively white, with the pale lips writhing
about them (Poe 231). Even though some researchers choose to see a vampire in the
narrator (Twitchell, qtd. in Blythe and Sweet 23), I agree with Blythe and Sweet that it is

48
actually Berenice who most resembles a vampire figure. However, it is important to note
that it is his [the narrators] diseased imagination that sees the passive Berenice in the
threatening patterns of the vampire and its spell (Blythe and Sweet 23, my emphasis).
They conclude that the vampirism in this story is used rather satirically by Poe,
especially when we observe the ending, where we see a man who thinks he can destroy
a vampire not by the traditional methods of the stake but by pulling its teeth (Blythe
and Sweet 24).

Apart from the vampiric theory, there are also other aspects of the teeth that we need to
consider. Interestingly, already at the end of the second part of the tale, the word teeth
is written in italics and in the third part the focus on teeth is marked by a repetition:
The teeth! the teeth! (Poe 231). This repetition appears again when the narrator
defines Berenices teeth as ideas: Des ides! [...] Des ides! (Poe 232). You could thus
say that this progressive zooming in on one particular feature reduces Berenice to
exactly that feature given that the narrator regards the teeth as ideas, it seems that he
reduces Berenice to just an idea. According to Jules Zanger (qtd. in Carlson Tales of
Psychal Conflict: Berenice, Morella, Ligeia171) these ideas are linked to Platos Ideas,
the absolute True, Good, and Beautiful essences or forms beyond all change, time and
sense perception. Accordingly, by pulling her teeth in the end, the narrator perhaps
wishes to preserve only the perfect, true idea of Berenice instead of the image of the
sickened Berenice that appals him so. Although this might seem a romantic action,
originating in love and the desire to preserve the memories of a vague, platonic
preexistence in which, if recovered, he might again be happy and whole (David
Halliburton, qtd. in Carlson Tales of Psychal Conflict: Berenice, Morella, Ligeia 170),
it is not an action of love at all, as most other researchers agree. According to Dayan,
[t]he pulling of her teeth is a total extraction of her identity and a mark of his
derangement (qtd. in Carlson Tales of Psychal Conflict: Berenice, Morella, Ligeia
172). I choose to agree with Dayan, since we deal with an extreme case of objectification
in this tale, as will be explained in the following paragraphs.

Another reading of the teeth is seen in various studies that show the teeth in a more
sexual light. Miquel-Baldellou, for instance, believes that Berenices smile may be a sign
of sexual desire (184), just as Weekes also notes that [s]howing ones teeth in a smile
can indicate sexual interest (156). Miquel-Baldellou adds that Berenices deterioration

49
in general reflects a moral shift from innocence to sexuality (184). When she becomes
ill, her entire appearance is affected for the worse, but her teeth remain perfect, with
[n]ot a speck on their surface not a shade on their enamel not an indenture in their
edges (Poe 231). The contrast between the strong, healthy teeth and her diseased
appearance is therefore very sharp. The narrator is drawn to this contrast and becomes
obsessed with the teeth. But by pulling the teeth, he desexualizes the corpse by
removing this token of devouring carnality (Weekes 156). In addition, for a sexual
reading of this tale, it is necessary to observe how the teeth represent fetishist objects
for the narrator. According to de Lauretis, a fetish is a sign which both elides and
remarks that separation in describing both the object and its absence (qtd. in Kohno 40).
Using this definition, it is clear that the teeth are fetishes for the narrator. They stand
both for Berenice and her absence and by pulling the teeth, he seems to desire to
momentarily reconstruct his recollections of joyful scenes (Kohno 43).

Apart from the imagery of ideas already mentioned, we see Berenice also as the
Berenice of a dream not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such a
being (Poe 230). Before her illness, she is described as fluttering through life but when
the illness affects her gravely and she appears before the narrators eyes, there is a
gloomy atmosphere surrounding her with the uncertain twilight of the chamber and
the draperies that caused in it so vacillating and indistinct an outline (Poe 231). The
description of the ill Berenice seems to be that of a ghost in a nightmare. She is not as an
object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation
(Poe 230). Moreover, there occurs an appalling distortion of her personal identity (Poe
230), which later leads to the complete eradication of her identity, as discussed by
Dayan (see above). Blythe and Sweet also refer to this scene where the ill Berenice
occurs before the narrator, but they refer to it for another purpose. They use it to
support their vampire theory, referring to the fact that Berenice arrives at twilight and
that the misty atmosphere in which she appears may allude to the vampires well-
known ability to transform itself into a mist and back again (Blythe and Sweet 24). Yet
of course, we need to see both interpretations of this scene in the light of the narrators
mediating vision on it.

In this tale, we do not get the womans point of view. Berenice is voiceless and passive,
seemingly without a will of her own. In the beginning of the story, we get a short

50
description of her character and a hymn to her beauty but when she falls ill, we only find
references to her appearance, never to her feelings or character. We do not see how the
illness affects her inner self, only how her outer self is deteriorating and which effect this
deterioration has on the narrator. Egus cannot even bear to look at her; he is utterly
appalled and has to objectify her or parts of her to make speaking of her bearable. As
Jacqueline Doyle observes, he speaks of the teeth, the eyes and the forehead
instead of her teeth, her eyes and her forehead (14). Berenice seems to just
disappear into body parts, objectified, fragmented and with no personal identity or voice
left because not even the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice (Poe 232) at the
end of the story is specifically assigned to Berenice. As Person states, [f]rom the
beginning he [Egus] has abstracted her into the formal essence of woman (Aesthetic
Headaches 28) and, following Joan Dayan, we can summarize that the beloved is
reduced to a haunting remnant (Amorous Bondage 245).

In comparison to the other Dark Ladies tales, Berenice seems to be the least powerful
woman. We never see her as an active force since the narrative frame is drawn in such a
way that she is bereft of power. Only in the end when her nails leave a mark in the
narrators flesh do we find physical evidence of a will to escape the grave and return to
confront the living (Webb 215). However, Johanyak does make an interesting point
relating to Berenice. According to her, Madeline and Berenice represent all the
silenced, repressed, frustrated and domestically imprisoned women who were largely
ignored or misused by fathers, husbands and brothers (Johanyak 69). Indeed, Berenice
does not seem to be a very powerful woman, but Johanyak insightfully adds that
Berenice and Madeline both appear at dramatic moments, confronting their lovers at
reading-room or library door, as though threatening entrance into a traditionally male
sphere of intellectual advancement (69). As a result, the men start to objectify the
women who are then described as horrific things rather than injured women
(Johanyak 69). So even though Berenice might not actually take revenge, we still feel the
threat that she poses, both by penetrating that male atmosphere mentioned above and
by struggling and imprinting her mark on the narrator. In addition, Person ascribes to
Berenices teeth a certain powerful role as well since [a]s ideas, or knowledge, the teeth
objectify that aspect of Berenice which refuses to remain repressed (Person Aesthetic
Headaches 29). To sum up, even though Berenice may seem static and passive at first

51
sight, we can still find clues that underline her willpower and unconscious influence on
the narrator by means of her teeth.

52
 3. Morella

Morella and Ligeia (see next section) can be contrasted with Berenice in that they have
power over the narrator due to their profound knowledge. They are learned women and
the narrators are intimidated by their knowledge. Whereas Ligeia is extensively
described in physical terms, Morella is rather defined by her character than by her
appearance. She is described as intelligent; her erudition was profound and her
powers of mind were gigantic (Poe 234). The narrator even identifies himself as her
pupil, thereby defining her as the master in their relationship and him as the
subordinate (Poe 234). This image of subordination often returns throughout the story,
as Johanyak (65) sees as well: Morella places her hands on his (instead of the other way
around), he lingers by her side and dwell[s] upon the music of her voice (Poe 234).
However, he also tries to undermine Morellas dominance by stating that she attach[es]
herself to me alone (Poe 234). Still, it is obvious that Morella has the superior position
in their relationship, especially on an intellectual level.

Whereas the narrator seems content with their arrangement in the beginning, he later
feels that Morella undermines his masculinity. Morella seems to pose an intellectual
threat to the narrators masculine superiority and leadership (Miquel-Baldellou 184).
The narrator believes that she challenge[s] his own learning and innocently usurp[s]
his spiritual authority within the marriage (Johanyak 65). Clearly, it is not normal for
a woman to be extremely intelligent, since Weekes also notes that [o]nce a woman
steps out of the narrow boundaries of the stereotypical feminine role, she is reviled
rather than revered (154) as we have seen already relating to Madame Lalande. Yet
the narrator is never able to stand up to her or challenge her on any level. Even on her
deathbed, she is the only one who speaks a considerable number of phrases; the
narrator is only able to utter her name. Hence, Morella outwits the narrator every time,
until her very last breath.

This distorted distribution of power continues when the child is born the infant being
symbolic of Lockes tabula rasa, as said by Johanyak (65). As the father regards the
child and her uncanny resemblance to Morella, both physically and intellectually, he
tries to gain a certain power over her by leaving her unnamed and thus by denying her
individuality (Johanyak 65). In this respect, there is a similarity between Morella and

53
Berenice in that Berenice is left without a personal identity as well. Yet in Morella,
the denying of individuality and identity fails just as the attempt to regain power
when the narrator succumbs and calls the child Morella. Even after her death she
returns and dominates the narrator, like a worm that would not die (Poe 237).
Interestingly, we can notice a link with the word worm here and the poem The
Conqueror Worm in Ligeia. It seems that we can connect Morella to the worm in this
poem, thus reinforcing Morellas position as conqueror. According to Halliburton (qtd. in
Carlson Tales of Psychal Conflict: Berenice, Morella, Ligeia 174), Morella has
transcended the condition of womanhood; she is an incantation, a primal and timeless
rhythm, a name. In other words, she seems to be a supernatural being that cannot be
defeated or dominated. Johanyak, in turn, claims that Morella presents a woman of
emotional intensity and determined will who threatens the narrator with complexities
which he cannot understand, let alone reciprocate (64).

Morella is seen as a powerful woman, not only in terms of her superior position in her
relationship with the narrator, but also in her own right. On this subject, Webb notes
that both Morella and Ligeia evade their own imminent deaths through rather mystical
and potentially horrifying means (215). It is indeed interesting to see that both use
another womans body to live on: Ligeia uses Rowenas body for her own revivification
and Morella lives on in the body of her daughter. As Webb states, this shows their
strength of will. In this respect, they are similar to Berenice and Madeline, who also
show a will to escape the grave and confront the living (215). In addition, her will to
educate herself should be mentioned on this subject as well. In Victorian times, it was
expected of women to stay home and look after the children. For this purpose, they did
not need an education and therefore a large number of women remained uneducated.
However, Morella completely resists the idea of the Victorian woman. Not only does she
educate herself by reading forbidden pages, she is also not available when it comes to
raising her child (Poe 234). It is the narrator who has to take over the female task of
nurturing and raising children. Exactly because she is interested in education and forms
a contrast to the typical Victorian woman, we can say that she represents a New Woman,
just like Ligeia.

When discussing a learned woman like Morella, the subjects of her studies need to be
analyzed as well. We learn that her favourite subjects are those mystical writings which

54
are usually considered the mere dross of the early German literature (Poe 234). More
specifically, she occupies herself with [t]he wild Pantheism of Fichte; the modified
of the Pythagoreans; and, above all, the doctrines of Identity as urged by
Shelling (Poe 235). In other words, she is interested in the belief that there is not one
God but that everything is divine (Fichtes Pantheism); the idea of regeneration or
rebirth (Pythagoras) and Shellings theory of Identity. It comes as no surprise then that
Morella in the end embodies her own studies by regenerating herself in the body and
mind of her own daughter, reclaiming her identity. Even though, according to Carlson,
the narrator stands for the harsh mathematical reason, abstract knowledge or
thinking, and the technical arts (technology) (Tales of Psychal Conflict: Berenice,
Morella, Ligeia 174), Morellas learning triumphs since her spiritual studies overcome
the rational studies of the narrator and she actually proves and embodies her theories
about identity and regeneration. She is without a doubt the spiritual superior, even after
her death.

Considering the supernatural elements in this tale, it is interesting to have a closer look
at the terminology that is used to describe Morella. In fact, we never get a full physical
description, only a description of her intellect and of some body parts that have a certain
effect on the narrator. Once again the dark lady is objectified and discussed in parts. The
narrator talks of the imaginative Morella (Poe 235), of her low, singular words and
the music of her voice that turned into too unearthly tones (Poe 234). It is interesting
to see how he uses abstract notions to describe her and puts so much emphasis on her
voice and language. Later he continues describing her in fragmented terms, saying that
he could no longer bear the touch of her wan fingers, nor the low tone of her musical
language, nor the luster of her melancholy eyes (Poe 2010:235, my emphasis). As is
clear, we do not obtain an image of Morella as a whole, but instead only perceive
fragments of her. What is even more interesting is that the narrator identifies Morella
first as the most beautiful or Hinnon but later as the most hideous or Ge-Henna
(Poe 234), the latter seen as an equivalent for hell in the Bible5. As in Berenice, we
are confronted with a spiritual terminology, but here the emphasis is rather on the
religious aspect. This is remarkable if we compare it to Morellas rather mystical studies,

5
Source: http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6558-gehenna [consulted on 10-02-2013]

55
which we have already discussed, since it illustrates the contrast between the narrators
religious terminology and Morellas mysticism.

Whereas Morella herself is not as extensively described in physical terms as for example
Ligeia, her child is described in more specific terms as having a high forehead, ringlets
of silken hair, eyes that looked down into the depths of my soul and that same sad
musical voice as Morella had (Poe 237). In this description, we find the common
characteristics of the Dark Ladies, as discussed by Jenny Webb (above). It is curious that
the descriptions of the hair and forehead are almost exactly the same as those in
Berenice, but the eyes then again are completely different. While Berenices eyes seem
lifeless, Morellas and the childs eyes have an uncanny ability to completely see through
the narrator. Seeing that this makes the narrator rather uncomfortable, it emphasises
their spiritual strength and again refers to the submission of the narrator to a more
powerful woman even if she is just a child. Johanyak adds that the second Morella
becomes even more repulsive than the first, because she represents even more strongly
the independent strengths and talents for which her mother dies. Seeing that the
second Morella thus represents a stronger independence than the first, Johanyak links
this reinforcement to feminism, noting that each succeeding generation reinforces more
strongly and demonstrates more clearly the evolution of womens individuality and
rights (66). Consequently, we can derive that both mother and daughter represent
feminist generations, following each other and reinforcing one another.

In conclusion, we see that not only a first superficial reading, but also closer readings,
offer us an image of Morella as a powerful woman. Clearly, the narrator occupies the
inferior position in the relationship not only between him and Morella, but also in the
relationship with his child. Even though he tries to control the child by leaving her
unnamed and never speaking of her mother, he is still powerless. He sees this himself as
well, as he claims that it was impossible to speak, rendering himself completely
passive to the power of mother and daughter (Poe 237). As Leland S. Person concludes,
Poe abruptly reverses the flow of power [] as his male characters are reduced to
conditions of passivity [] in the presence of women who refuse to be repressed
(Aesthetic Headaches 175).

56
 4. Ligeia

Of the Dark Ladies, Ligeia is probably the one who has been researched most often
(Whos/Whose Ligeia by RC de Prospo, Ligeia: A Triumph over Patriarchy by Erin
Leigh Helmey, etc.). Different theories and approaches have been applied to this story,
ranging from racial theories (Joan Dayan), over gender (RC De Prospo), formalism (Brad
Howard in Erin Leigh Helmey) and myth criticism (Daryl Jones in Erin Leigh Helmey) to
feminism (Debra Johanyak) and many others. In this section we will investigate the
general representation of Ligeia, as well as the more specific terminology used to
describe her. In addition, we will discuss some interesting literary and cultural theories
that have been applied to this story and the character of Ligeia specifically.

To begin with, in Ligeias portrayal, we see that the narrator refers to her rare learning,
her singular yet placid cast of beauty, and the thrilling and enthralling eloquence of her
low musical language (Poe 256). We also learn that she is tall, somewhat slender, and,
in her latter days, even emaciated (Poe 256). Regarding her learning and low musical
voice, she very much resembles Morella, who is described with almost exactly the same
words. Later, the physical description becomes much more detailed, more than in any of
the other Dark Ladies stories. More than an entire page is dedicated to each minute
detail of her face and facial expression, analyzing the skin rivaling the purest ivory,
the gentle prominence of the regions above the temples, the raven-black, the glossy,
the luxurious, and naturally curling-tresses, the delicate outlines of the nose, the
magnificent turn of the short upper lip the soft, voluptuous slumber of the under and
the formation of the chin (Poe 257). But, as in Berenice, one specific feature receives
special attention: her eyes. Whereas Berenices eyes are lifeless, Ligeias eyes are large,
full and the most brilliant of black (Poe 257). The physical description of Ligeia leads
Joan Dayan to believe that Ligeia might be a mulatta or octoroon mistress, in other
words, the offspring of a white man with a black woman (Amorous Bondage 260).
According to Dayan, this would also explain why the narrator does not know her
paternal name, since light-colored women were prohibited from using the name of the
father (Amorous Bondage 271). However, whereas in Dayans opinion the racialist
terminology [] generated its own gods and monsters (Amorous Bondage 262), I
believe that the terminology in Ligeia can play a rather different role, as I shall explain
further on.

57
Even though the narrator of Ligeia again uses the definite article to refer to each facial
feature, as does the narrator in Berenice, I believe it is used here in a different manner
than in Berenice. In Ligeia, the narrator uses the definite article to express a certain
awe, which is underlined by his use of extremely positive adjectives and references to
the most beautiful facial features throughout history. It seems that he cannot fathom the
beauty of this woman and thus can only describe her in generalized terms and body part
for body part. We can see this as a positive form of objectification opposed to the
negative objectification in Berenice. However, an important comment must be made
regarding this physical portrayal, as not all researchers agree on the motif behind it.
According to De Prospo, the narrators loving scrutiny of the person of the live Ligeia
yields the dissected parts of a dead body (61), following his theory that Ligeia is dead
to the narrator from the outset, before she actually dies (58). Indeed, several textual
indications support this view, such as the sentence I bring before mine eyes in fancy the
image of her who is no more (Poe 256, my emphasis). This leaves us with the idea that
we are dealing with an idealized description of the deceased one, perhaps not quite
truthful also keeping in mind the substance abuse of the narrator.

Secondly we have to consider the power relations that exist between the narrator and
Ligeia later also adding Rowena to this triangular relationship since Ligeia has been
repeatedly referred to as a powerful and wilful woman (for example by Miquel-
Baldellou and Webb). Just like Morella, Ligeia is an intelligent woman, her learning was
immense (Poe 259). But as is stated earlier in the tale, she became the partner of the
narrators studies (Poe 256), thereby indicating a relationship of equality, as opposed to
Morellas intellectual dominion over the narrator in the previously analyzed tale.
Johanyak discusses the feminist aspects of the relationship between Ligeia and the
narrator and notes that the narrator chooses to dwell on Ligeias maternal
characteristics (66), as we indeed see in his choice of terminology: he describes himself
as resigning himself to her guidance with child-like confidence (Poe 259), that he is
but as a child groping benighted (Poe 259). Whereas Johanyak sees these images as
dismiss[ing] the significance and influence of her learning, I believe it actually
reinforces her intellectual maturity, since it is the role of the mother to pass on her
learning to her children. Moreover, the narrator is thrown into an inferior position,
helpless without Ligeia or the mother. Kennedy recognizes her domination of the
marital relationship as well (120). Several other images are poignant in this matter, as

58
they also illustrate the superior position of Ligeia. She placed her marble hand upon
[his] shoulder (Poe 257), bent over [him] (Poe 259) in his study, a place that is
generally considered to be the sphere of mans intellect and power (Johanyak 69). Yet
here it is Ligeia who enters this sacred male place and diminishes the narrators
importance with a single powerful gesture. On her deathbed as well, she maintains her
superior position, as she puts her words into the narrators mouth by making him recite
a poem. Note also how he uses the telling phrase I obeyed her (Poe 260).

Yet a contrasting argument must be made regarding this power relationship. We

encounter yet again that same spiritual, ethereal terminology in the description of
Ligeias personality and appearance that is also used to describe both Berenice and
Morella. The marriage between the narrator and Ligeia is described as ill-omened (Poe
256). Ligeia herself is described as having an incomprehensible lightness and elasticity
of her footfall (Poe 256) and her beauty is the radiance of an opium-dream an airy
and spirit-lifting vision, the beauty of beings either above or apart from the earth (Poe
257). According to Johanyak, this use of terminology suggest[s] more a ghost than a
woman (67) and following Erin Leigh Helmey, a shadow is certainly not a description
of a powerful woman6. However, we should not conclude that this terminology is used
to lessen Ligeias power in this story. After all, she is able to return from the dead, using
another womans body to do so. I rather believe this terminology is influenced by the
narrators opium abuse which clearly affects his mental capacities. Seeing that he
cannot [] remember how, when or even precisely where [he] first became acquainted
with the lady Ligeia (Poe 256) or does not even know the paternal name of his wife, it
seems only normal that his other observations are infected with a dream-like, blurry
quality as well.

Various researchers have offered a wide range of theories regarding the relationship
between the narrator and Ligeia. D.H. Lawrence for example links vampirism to this
story, claiming that the narrator in Ligeia [is] a vampire of the mind (qtd. in Carlson
Tales of Psychal Conflict: Berenice, Morella, Ligeia177). However, I take issue with
Lawrence in that I believe it is actually Ligeia who can rather be considered a vampire of
the mind, because it is she who still haunts the narrators mind after her death, just like
Madeline in The Fall of the House of Usher. Moreover, Ligeia uses another persons

6
No page numbers available for Helmeys article since it is an online source.

59
body to regain strength and revive a quality often applied to vampires. Another theory
is that Ligeia is the creative muse of the narrator, as is argued by Catherine Carter7.
According to Carter, Ligeia represents the anima, the feminine or feminized alter ego of
the masculine self (4) and her femininity is less important than, and potentially
incidental to, her creative functions (3). Moreover, Carters most remarkable statement
is that Ligeia is not a woman (4). One of her arguments to support this assertion that
Ligeia is more a muse than a woman is the narrators description of Ligeia as
extensively explained above which presumably takes on an allegorical emphasis.
Carter also notes the strong Oriental quality in the physical description and claims that
[t]raditional portrayals of muses are implicitly Orientalist (10). Apart from her
appearance, her learning is used as an argument as well, seeing that Ligeia guides the
narrator in his studies and writing, leading him toward, as he speculates, a wisdom too
divinely precious not to be forbidden. (Works 2:311) (11). Interestingly, Carter also
analyzes the scene in the study but for different purposes than Johanyak (see above).
Whereas Johanyak sees this scene as an image of Ligeias power over the narrator,
Carter sees it as an opportunity to meet with ones muse (11). In my opinion, both
views are possible but I do not entirely agree with the way Carter treats the relationship
between the narrator and Ligeia.

Whereas Carter (see above) claims that Ligeias most important role is not to be a
woman but a muse, Johanyak argues for a feminist reading of Ligeia. The question
whether we can develop feminist readings for Poes works has been discussed in various
essays, such as Poesian Feminism: Triumph or Tragedy by Johanyak, Poes Women: A
Feminist Poe? by Dayan and A Feminist Rereading of Poes The Tell-Tale Heart by
Rajan (which we have already discussed in chapter 4). The first two essays include some
interesting arguments about Ligeia, which I will examine in this paragraph. Johanyak
(63) demonstrates that Poes dark heroines function as feminist prototypes and
indeed, we can find many arguments in the story that support this thesis. As already
mentioned, Ligeias learning is impressive and in many ways she is the narrators
superior. That is to say, she is not connected to traditionally domestic occupations or
pastimes and this

7
I only had access to this paper in a Word document, so the page numbers do not correspond to the original
article as it appeared in Poe Studies / Dark Romanticism. The page numbers used refer to those in the Word
document, as it is found here: http://paws.wcu.edu/ccarter/cv/notawoman.doc

60
 posed threats to a male-dominated society, because female independent selfhood was
and still is defined by the traditional patriarchy as theologically evil, biologically
unnatural, psychologically unhealthy, and socially in bad taste (Johanyak 63, quote
within quote comes from Pearson and Pope 6).

Yet interestingly, the narrator does not rebel against this not so prototypical woman. In
opposition to the other Dark Ladies tales narrators, he seems to be content with being
in the subordinate position, considering himself a pupil. Since the narrator does not try
to suppress his intelligent and more powerful wife, I do not believe that the narrator in
this tale is an antifeminist (Johanyak 63) as opposed to the narrators in Morella and
Berenice.

The more interesting relationship in terms of feminism is therefore the relationship

between Ligeia and Lady Rowena, Ligeias complete opposite. Rowena is fair-haired
and blue-eyed (Poe 262) and in Joan Dayans opinion, married off for money
(Amorous Bondage 259), not love, as we see in their statements: the narrator loathed
her with a hatred belonging more to demon than to man and she shunned [him] and
loved [him] but little (Poe 264). Rowena does not possess any great intellectual
capacity (that we know of), she speaks only through the narrators indirect speech and
dies as a powerless means to revivification for Ligeia. Even the description of the bridal
chamber is more extensive than Rowenas physical description, so we clearly
understand that she plays no powerful role in the story whatsoever. Rowena is thus
introduced mainly as a bride and a wife (Helmey), not a real woman with a
personality of her own or as Kennedy says, Rowena remains a nonentity (123). She is
a representative of the old, passive and submissive female, while Ligeia is a
representative of the new, independent female (Helmey). In other words, Ligeia, the
intelligent and powerful woman, has conquered the powerless bride and therefore
represents the new woman (Helmey), illustrating how Ligeia is a successful feminist
tale.

To conclude, it is clear that various roles have been ascribed to the character of Ligeia.
We see her as a mother, a teacher, a muse and a strong, powerful new woman.
However, in all of these roles it is important to note the influence Ligeia has over the
narrator. The narrator seems to have surrendered himself to Ligeias power and realizes

61
that she is actually his superior. In my opinion, Ligeia recounts how the modern
woman vindicates and subdues the old woman and even the narrator in some ways.

62
 5. Madeline Usher

The Fall of the House of Usher is perhaps the odd one out of the Dark Ladies stories.
Madeline Usher is the only Dark Lady who does not have a tale named after her
specifically. She has to share the title and the spotlight with her brother, Roderick Usher.
Another difference with the previous Dark Ladies tales is that the narrator is not the
husband nor the lover, but an outsider. Throughout the tale, it seems that Madeline only
plays a secondary role. She herself is not seen or heard very often, it is only towards the
end that her character gains importance. In the rest of the tale, the emphasis is rather on
the narrators experiences in the house and with Roderick. But I agree with Spitzer that
[t]he fact that she is on stage only for a short time and has no lines to speak [] should
not lead us to underrate her importance, given her impact in the story and the interest
which is aroused precisely by her mysterious appearances (352).

Of Madeline, we do not get a direct full physical description, such as is the case with
Berenice, Morella or Ligeia. However, Roderick, her brother, is described in full detail a
description that bears an uncanny resemblance to the physical portrayal of Ligeia, as
D.H. Lawrence already recognized (qtd. in Jordan 9). We see some of the same features
in the eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison, a nose of a delicate Hebrew
model, a finely molded chin (Poe 302) etc. But given that Poe claims that there is a
striking similitude between the brother and sister (Poe 309), we can assume that the
same physical characteristics apply to her. Still, we are dealing with an indirect
description as opposed to the direct description in the other tales. The use of the
impersonalized and reiterated it used by Roderick at the end of the story to describe
his sister (as Joan Dayan notes as well in Amorous Bondage) also supports this
indirectness. In addition, just as Berenice, Madeline is not given a voice in this tale. In
other words, the textual evidence troubles the womans existence as a fully separate
character (Keetley 8) and diminishes Madelines own personal identity as we have
seen happening in the other Dark Ladies tales as well.

In addition, a side note should be made regarding Madeline and Roderick being twins.
Even though some researchers all too readily assume that Madeline and Roderick are
identical twins - which Poe indeed makes us believe with various textual references,
such as the striking similitude already quoted (Poe 309) Poe does not explicitly

63
mention that they are indeed identical. In fact, identical (or the now preferred term
monozygotic) twins are only in extremely rare cases of different sex and if they do
happen to be a boy-girl twin, the girl most likely suffers from Turner syndrome (Machin
15). However, the symptoms of Turner syndrome 8 do not correspond to Madelines
symptoms, also because we do not know the true nature of her disease. The only
symptom that might be argued to apply to Madeline is infertility, which could explain
why they are the last descendants of the House of Usher. However, there is no reference
at all to an attempt to conceive or to any sexual intercourse in general, so this is merely
an assumption. Nevertheless, Poe presumably did not possess this medical knowledge
and therefore did not shy away from making us believe that they are identical twins
instead of fraternal (or the preferred term dizygotic) twins, which is the most probable
scenario if we are dealing with boy-girl twins. Fraternal twins, however, do not
necessarily look alike since they stem from two eggs and two sperm cells. They share
around 50% of their DNA and therefore have as much or as few physical characteristics
in common as any other normal brother and sister9. To conclude this side note,
Madeline and Roderick are most likely fraternal twins that coincidentally happen to look
a lot alike.

To continue the analysis of Madelines role in The Fall of the House of Usher, it is
important to note that even though we only find meagre references to the appearance
and personality of Lady Madeline, there are a lot of things we can derive regarding the
power relationship in this story. First of all, we learn that there was some sort of
incestuous relationship or, more delicately put, sympathies of a scarcely intelligible
nature (Poe 309) between Madeline and Roderick a tradition in the family, as the
entire family lay in the direct line of descent (Poe 300). According to Carlson (Tales of
Psychal Conflict: William Wilson and The Fall of the House of Usher 191), D.H.
Lawrence probably was one of the first to see this incestuous relationship and to
speculate on the consequences it had on both Roderick and Madeline. This incest could
explain the diseases that both siblings suffer from, but it also refers to the equality in
that relationship. As Marsh notes, she no less than he is a participant [in the incestuous
relationship] that is hastening them down the road to mutual destruction (8)
8
Information about Turner syndrome comes from
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000379.htm [consulted on 22-02-2013]
9
Information about fraternal twins comes from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-fraternal-twins.htm
[consulted on 08-03-2013]

64
although there is some disagreement on this equality among certain critics. And whereas
Roderick may have entombed Madeline prematurely, she still haunts him in his mind
and finally physically as well, again illustrating that they are well matched. However, in
the end it is she who bore him to the floor a corpse, ending the mutual struggles (Poe
313). Although it is possible to argue whether we find an outcome to the power struggle
since both of them end up dead, I would say it is Madeline who conquers. It is she who
controls her brothers thoughts while in the coffin, it is she who returns from being
entombed and it is she who in the end falls upon her brother, pinning him to the floor
and killing him, playing an active role. Thereby, she is also the only Dark Lady who
actually avenges the other by taking his life. Spitzer additionally states that Roderick is
the representative of death-in-life and of the death wish, [while] Madeline becomes in
the end the embodiment of life-in-death, of the will to live (353). Following this line of
thought, we can conclude that Madeline, even though not appearing very often in the
story, in fact has the more active role. She opposes her passive brother and dominates
him physically in the end, successfully counterfeiting his attempt to entomb her forever.

Apart from the aforementioned references to Madelines superior power, it is also

possible to link the inset story from the Mad Trist to Madeline to find additional
evidence towards her superiority. Since the events in this story especially on an
auditive level sync up with Madelines actions, as Roderick himself also confirms (Poe
313), we cannot oversee the link between Madeline and Ethelred. Spitzer even calls
Madeline the female Ethelred and the true male and last hero of the House of Usher
(353). Whereas I agree that Madeline is indeed a female Ethelred, I find the statement
that she is the true male and last hero (my emphasis) a bit inappropriate. In my
opinion, the Mad Trist represents a typical chivalric romance where the male is the hero.
But I do not agree that likening Madeline to Ethelred means turning into a male hero; I
rather believe that it reinforces Madelines feminine power, inverting the typical gender
roles of the chivalric romance by making the woman the heroine of the story,
successfully killing the evil one, here Roderick. In the Mad Trist, Ethelred is continually
referred to as the good champion or the hero (Poe 311), thus making Madeline good
and a heroine as well. Ethelred, like Madeline, conquers all obstacles to get to the
maliceful hermit (Poe 311), whom we can then similarly compare to Roderick, as
Leland S. Person notes as well (Aesthetic Headaches 39). To conclude the link between
the Usher story and the Mad Trist, it is also interesting to note the assonance between

65
Madeline (when it is pronounced as mad Lynn) and the Mad Trist. Since Poe uses
assonance in various poems, for example The Raven, it might have been a conscious
choice to connect Madeline to the Mad Trist by way of rhyming.

Another connection inside the story can be made with the inset poem The Haunted
Palace. This poem has already been linked to the house of the Usher family (Spitzer,
Robinson) and to Roderick Usher (Allison, Robinson), but to my knowledge never to
Madeline Usher. Perhaps the link to the Usher House (both the genealogic and the estate
meaning) is the most obvious and of course a strong case can be made to connect it to
Roderick Usher, who would then be the king mentioned in the poem. However, it can
also be interesting to connect this poem to Madeline Usher, especially when we consider
the power relationship previously mentioned. Consider for example the banners
yellow, glorious, golden that floated on the roof (Poe 306). According to Robinson, the
yellow banners on the roof correspond to Ushers uncut silken hair (72) but since
Madeline looks strikingly like Roderick, I believe this statement applies to Madeline as
well. The two luminous windows can refer to Madelines eyes, just as the pearl and
ruby of the palace door then refer to her red lips and white teeth (Poe 306). Even
though male terminology is used (king instead of queen, the male possessive article
instead of the female etc.) and arguing that Madeline is the king is perhaps a bit dubious,
I do think there is a place for her in this poem. The second stanza can refer to her disease
that alters her appearance; the third stanza to the incestuous relationship between
Roderick and Madeline, where Madelines spirits can be seen moving around Rodericks
throne; the fourth stanza then shows Madeline singing and praising her brother, the
king, referring to a time when they were happy together. But most importantly, the fifth
stanza then refers to Madeline in robes of sorrow who assailed the monarchs high
estate (Poe 306). And is that not exactly what Madeline does in the final scene? The
robes of sorrow seem to resemble the white robes besmeared with blood that she is
wearing in the final death scene (Poe 313). The choice of words is very remarkable here,
since Madeline indeed assails Roderick in the end and thereby undermines his high
estate.

One last theory that some researchers (Kendall Jr., Robinson and Lawrence (qtd. in
Robinson)) apply to The Fall of the House of Usher is vampirism, even though they do
not all agree as to who exactly is the vampire in the story. According to D.H. Lawrence

66
Roderick is the vampire, as he explains that Madelines brother is sucking her life like a
vampire in his anguish of extreme love and she is asking to be sucked (qtd. in
Robinson 76). It seems that Lawrence does not dig deeper into the vampire motif but
just uses it to illustrate his point about the incestuous relationship that is going on
between Madeline and Roderick. Kendall Jr., conversely, sees Madeline as the vampire
and vampirism as the hereditary Usher curse (450). According to Kendall Jr., we can
find various textual references that support his thesis, such as the sensation of stupor
that oppresses the narrator when he sees Madeline, which is a characteristic reaction to
the succubus (451). Other evidence is found in her disease of cataleptic character,
which supposedly means that she has the common ability of witches to enter at will
upon a trance-like, death-like state of suspended animation (Kendall Jr. 451) and in the
heavy and horrible beating of her heart (Poe 313) that is traditionally characteristic of
preternatural creatures (Kendall Jr. 452). In my opinion, this vampire theory is a bit far-
fetched, although it is fascinating to see that even this vampiric theory supports
Madelines powerful role (at least in Kendall Jr.s version, not D.H. Lawrences).

To conclude this part about Madeline Usher, I believe that although Madeline at first
sight may not seem the main character in the story, her role is actually a lot more
important than is initially generally believed. To me, she is the powerful one in the story
and I believe that the various points of textual evidence that I have provided support my
thesis.

67
 6. Conclusions about the Dark Ladies

Although the women of the Dark Ladies tales may at first sight seem to be Poes typical
beautiful, but dying women, it is now clear that there is more to them than meets the
eye. In fact, they prove to be more powerful than one would have thought in a first
reading of the tales. Even though there is a certain consistency in characteristics
between the Dark Ladies, it is also important to see that each one is powerful and unique
in her own way. As Miquel-Baldellou states, the womens ethereal appearance betrays a
decidedly, and repulsive, strong will (180). The narrator may try to silence them, as
Jordan saw, by for example the forcible removal of Berenices teeth by her professed
lover; the premature shroud that lay heavily about the mouth of Ligeia and of
Madeline Usher (2), but in the end, it is usually the women who claim their power and
vindicate by returning from the dead (Ligeia, Morella) or even by killing the lover
(Madeline Usher).

When we draw in feminist theories, it is interesting to have a closer look at Johanyaks

conclusion. She claims that

the unspeaking, unmarried heroines merely simulate death, at least initially, while the
two wives actually experience death and in their husbands minds if not in actuality
return in another females body, determined to persevere. Feminism evidently causes
more problems for married women than single ladies (Johanyak 69).

An interesting argument to make is that Ligeia and Morella are indeed represented as
New Women and consequently prove to be better representatives of feminism than
Berenice and Madeline. The latter are not represented as intellectual women and do not
even receive a speaking role in the story. Furthermore, since Ligeia and Morella both
show an immense willpower to survive not being afraid to use another womans body
for this end we can thus conclude that in relation to each other, Ligeia and Morella are
seemingly the most powerful of the Dark Ladies. Whereas Berenice and Madeline
manifest their power as well, Ligeia and Morella do this in a more noticeable and
spectacular way and are therefore perhaps better representatives of Poes powerful
woman.

68
 CHAPTER 7: GENERAL CONCLUSIONS

To claim that there are diverse opinions about Poes women is an understatement. Some
see his fictional women as excuses for this continued fascination with himself (Dayan
Poes Women 2), others then again link them to his biographical women (as Sova notes
as well in her A to Z reference book) or only include the more popular and better-known
women in the definition of Poes women (Kot, Miquel-Baldellou). Dayan additionally
asks herself quite eloquently

But what are we to do with Poes bleeding, raped, decapitated, dead, and resurrected
women, brutalized, buried, cemented in cellars, and stuffed up chimneys? (Poes
Women 10).

Indeed, with this visual question in mind, it becomes rather hard to form a positive
image of Poes women - especially when we also keep in mind that the womens image
that is offered throughout his poetry is a rather monotonous, too often repeated
stereotype. However, throughout this paper, we have attempted to argue that there is no
such thing as one Poesque woman. In fact, Poe offers us a variety of female characters
throughout his short stories. The most famous are of course the Dark Ladies, terrifying
creatures who return from the dead to haunt past lovers or to suppress the female rival.
As Paula Kot and other critics argue, Poes preoccupation with the death of a beautiful
woman in his poems and tales concerning women actually reflects his interest in
recovering womens stories (400). The male characters might seem to be the
protagonists in these tales, seeing that they are the narrators and the view on the female
characters is mediated through them. They might seem the more powerful ones, for the
most part surviving while the female characters die or appear to die. Yet it is in fact the
women in these tales who occupy the superior position. They deserve their title role,
even though Madeline has to share the title with her brother. Ligeia is not only superior
to the narrator in that the narrator places himself in the inferior position by referring to
himself as a child, thereby placing Ligeia in the superior position of mother. She is also
superior to the other woman in the tale, Lady Rowena Trevanion. Thereby, Ligeia places
herself in the most powerful position of all the Dark Ladies. Exactly because of this

69
strong position, she is also the one who has been most researched of all Poes women.
Morella, then again, is the narrators superior in that he appears to be her pupil. Morella
is more successful in her studies than the narrator, who continuously has to walk in
Morellas footsteps. Moreover, the narrator even succumbs to the child by at length
naming her after her mother, thus admitting the strong bond between both and the fact
that he can never reach a higher position than both of them. Berenice and Madeline
might seem the weaker women of the Dark Ladies, but they too must be acknowledged
as powerful women. Madeline is important because even though we hardly see her in
the story, she in the end falls upon her brother and thereby murders him. She therefore
literally occupies the superior position. Berenice, on her part, shows marks of struggle
when the narrator violated her still living body. In other words, whereas the majority of
the narrators of the Dark Ladies tales try to objectify these women and represent them
in fragmented terms to emphasize this objectification even more, each Dark Lady
illustrates her strength and superiority in her own way. Even the two ladies who do not
seem superior are in fact a lot more powerful and important than they might appear to
be.

Whereas the Dark Ladies are here represented in a different light that underlines their
superiority, the intelligent women of the fifth chapter have not often been placed in
much light at all. Therefore, it is important to consider these women as well when
discussing the representation of women in the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Even though
the Dark Ladies are now placed in a more positive, powerful position throughout this
paper, they were already known and popular before. This was not the case for Kate and
Madame Lalande, the intelligent women. Hardly any research had been done on the
subject of these tales; especially Three Sundays in a Week had not yet received critical
attention for its positive representation of the female character. The Spectacles has
received more critical attention over the years but it has not always been positive. Poes
more comical tales are not always seen as very good ones but they still deserve to be
analyzed for their positive image of women. Especially because these intelligent women
seem to be rather rare in Poes works, we have to pay attention to them. They may be
lesser known but they are definitely not less important.

70
Both the Dark Ladies and the intelligent women offer a positive alternative to the image
of the helpless maiden that is typical for the genre of Gothic fiction and for Poes
detective stories. Whereas the Dark Ladies may seem to belong to the Gothic genre, they
do not correspond to the figure of the helpless maiden. In this respect, Poe offers
variation where he does not offer variation on other levels. His rare female narrator is a
true disappointment. She is likened to a stereotype of the gossiping, vain, naive and
unintelligent nineteenth-century middle class woman. Even if we consider the narrator
in The Tell-Tale Heart to be female, we are still confronted with a failed attempt to
obtain a more powerful position for women. Therefore, regarding the combination of the
helpless maiden and the unintelligent female narrator, it is all the more important to
place the intelligent women in the spotlight and to demonstrate that the Dark Ladies are
imperative in terms of superiority as well. Poes women can no longer be reduced to that
one stereotype of the beautiful, dead maiden. Instead, there is a whole variety of women
and each of them deserves to be acknowledged especially since this brings up a more
positive image of the Poesque woman.

71
 APPENDICES

1. Prose

No women at all Only small Women Female

mention(s) narrator
- The Duc De - Metzengerstein - Loss of Breath - How to Write
LOmelette - Four Beasts in One - The Assignation a Blackwood
- A Tale of The Homo- - Lionizing Article (& A
Jerusalem Cameleopard - Berenice Predicament)
- Bon-Bon - The Unparalleled - Morella - Mellonta
- Ms. Found in a Adventure of One - King Pest Tauta
Bottle Hans Pfaall - Ligeia - The Tell-Tale
- Shadow A - The Devil in the - The Man that Heart?
Parable Belfry Was Used Up
- Silence A Fable - William Wilson - The Fall of the
- Mystification - Never Bet the Devil House of Usher
- Some Account of Your Head - The Conversation
Stonehenge, the - Morning on the of Eiros and
Giants Dance Wissahiccon Charmion
- Instinct vs. Reason - The Gold Bug - Why the Little
A Black Cat - A Tale of the Frenchman
- The Philosophy of Ragged Mountains Wears His Hand
Furniture - Thou Art the Man in a Sling
- A Descent into the - The Literary Life of - The Business
Maelstrm Thingum Bob, Esq. Man
- The Pit and the - Some Words with a - The Man of the
Pendulum Mummy Crowd
- The Tell-Tale - The Imp of the - The Island of the
Heart Perverse Fay
- Mesmeric - The Facts in the - The Murders in
Revelation Case of M. the Rue Morgue

72
- The Balloon-Hoax Valdemar - The Colloquy of
- The Power of - The Cask of Monos and Una
Words Amontillado - Eleonora
- The Sphinx - The Domain of - Three Sundays in
- Von Kempelen Arnheim a Week
and His Discovery - Landors Cottage - The Oval Portrait
- X-ing a Paragrab - The Masque of
the Red Death
- The Mystery of
Marie Rogt
- The Black Cat
- Diddling
Considered as
One of the Exact
Sciences
- Byron and Miss
Chaworth
- The Spectacles
- The Oblong Box
- The Premature
Burial
- The Purloined
Letter
- The System of
Doctor Tarr and
Professor Fether
- The Angel of the
Odd
- The Thousand-
and-Second Tale
of Scheherazade
- Hop-Frog

73
 2. Poetry

No (specific) Mention of About/for a woman Female poetic

women women voice
- Dreams - O, Tempora! O, - To Margaret - Bridal Ballad
- Spirits of the Mores! - To Octavia
Dead - An Enigma - Tamerlane
- Evening Star - Song
- Imitation - Al Araaf
- Stanzas - To ---
- A Dream - To the River ---
- The Happiest - To ---
Day The - Fairy Land
Happiest Hour - Elizabeth
- The Lake: To --- - From an Album
- Sonnet To - To Helen
Science - The Sleeper
- Mysterious - Lenore
Star! - To One in
- Romance Paradise
- Introduction - Hymn
- Fairy-Land - Serenade
- Alone - To F--s S. O--D
- To Isaac Lea - To F--
- Lines on Joe - Eulalie A Song
Locke - The Raven
- Israfel - A Valentine
- The Valley of - To Miss Louise
Unrest Olivia Hunter
- The City in the - To M.L.S---
Sea - To ---
- Deep in Earth - Ulalume A
- Enigma Ballad

74
- The Coliseum - To Helen
- Sonnet To - For Annie
Zante - Sonnet To My
- The Haunted Mother
Palace - Annabel Lee
- Sonnet Silence
- The Conqueror
Worm
- Dream-Land
- The Bells
- A Dream within a
Dream
- Eldorado

75
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