GNED 1201: Death in Literature - Relationships with the Dead and Literary Madness

Taxonomy of Relationships with the Dead

• Healthy Relationships:

  • Methods of maintaining connection: Visiting tombstones, observing holidays like Remembrance Day or Day of the Dead.

  • Physical/Mental keepsakes: Photographs, memories, songs, and memorial statues.

  • Nature: Utilizing the natural world as a point of connection.

• Unhealthy Relationships:

  • Manifestations in literature: Hauntings, madness, and obsession.

  • Consequences: These behaviors result in a distortion of reality and direct interference with the character’s current life.

• Imaginal Relationships:

  • Definition: Continuous relationships with the dead characterized by reciprocity.

  • Nature: Characters treat the relationship as ongoing and active, as if nothing has changed despite the death.

• Parasocial Relationships:

  • Definition: One-sided relationships constructed entirely within a character’s mind.

  • Examples: A castaway speaking to a volleyball; a child believing her doll talks back to her.

  • Context: These are often symbolic of loss and do not exist in the "real" world.

Literary Madness: Theory and Mechanics

• Foundations of Madness:

  • Madness usually emerges from extreme circumstances, particularly grief and the inability to "let go."

  • Literary treatment of madness often reflects the innate human denial of death.

  • Anger is considered a microcosm or a primary catalyst for a descent into madness.

  • Literature uses madness as a tool to gain insight into how humans relate to mortality.

• Three Modes of the "Mad" Character:

  1. Post-Death Descent: A character is initially sane but goes mad after confronting death or losing a loved one.

  2. Exacerbated Aberration: A character exhibits psychological issues before a confrontation with death, and the death serves to emphasize or accelerate their condition.

  3. Societal Backlash: Grief is combined with society’s negative reaction to the grieving process; the resulting isolation drives the character to madness.

Edgar Allan Poe: Biographical Context

• Biography: Born in Boston in $1809$. Poe was a short story writer, poet, editor, and critic.

• Legacy: Famous for cultivating mystery and the macabre; he is a primary inspiration for modern detective stories.

• Notable Works: "The Raven" (one of the most renowned English poems) and "The Tell-Tale Heart."

Analysis of "The Tell-Tale Heart" ($1843$)

• Narrative Structure: Often categorized as a Gothic confession. It features an unreliable narrator—specifically a deranged murderer—who proudly recounts his crime to prove his sanity.

• Verbatim Opening: "True! — nervous — very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses — not destroyed — not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily — how calmly I can tell you the whole story."

• The Body as a Site of Power:

  • The narrative focuses on the human body, specifically the eye and the heart, which become detached from the whole and acquire individual lives.

  • The Eye: The narrator is obsessed with the old man’s "pale blue" eye (the "vulture eye"). He attempts to separate the man from the "evil eye," eventually dehumanizing and dismembering him. The eye symbolizes death for the narrator.

  • The Heart: Traditionally a symbol of love or life, here it symbolizes paranoia and madness. The heartbeat grows louder as the narrator’s madness peaks.

• Symbolism of Destructive Temporality:

  • Elements including the ticking clock, the "death-watches" in the wall, and the rhythm of the heart function as markers of impending doom, tension, and guilt.

Analysis of "The Raven"

• Theme of Grief: The poem personifies grief and loss. Madness is the result of "melancholic madness"—knowing who is lost but not understanding what has been lost within the self.

• Setting and Atmosphere: Set in "bleak December" at "midnight dreary" with "dying embers" casting ghosts. This setting is essential to the theme of literary madness.

• Auditory and Structural Elements:

  • Repeated tapping/rapping at the chamber door (a threshold symbol).

  • Repetition of the phrase "nothing more" and the Raven's refrain "Nevermore."

• The Descent into Madness:

  • Stanza $12$: The narrator’s view shifts from bemusement to fear. He casts his own madness onto the bird, describing its "fiery eyes."

  • Stanza $14$: Visceral hallucinations occur (perfumed air from an "unseen censer," "tinkling" foot-falls of angels). The speaker has crossed the threshold of sanity.

  • The Resolution: The speaker asks the Raven specific questions about forgetting Lenore, her resurrection, and seeing her in heaven. The Raven’s constant response of "Nevermore" signifies the speaker's regression into madness and failure to thrive through grief.

The Phenomenology of Hauntings in Literature

• Theoretical Foundations:

  • "The absent it only ever moved along and is never fully gotten rid of."

  • "Haunted places are the only ones that people can live in."

  • Haunting is the "unexpected presence of absence."

• Impact on the Character:

  • Affect: The experience of haunting is always affective, marking a transformation of the self in space. It is a passing of a threshold (past to present, absent to present).

  • Tempo and Identity: Hauntings disarticulate and dislodge time. The spectre disrupts boundaries between past, present, future, and the live/dead. This destabilizes a character's beliefs.

• Categories of Impact: Hauntings can affect a character’s:

  1. Sense of time.

  2. Sense of self.

  3. Sense of reality.

  4. Sense of place/space.

  5. Sense of control.

  6. Body/Physicality.

• Common Tropes:

  • Country house settings where domesticity is invaded.

  • Self-conscious narrative framing.

  • Rationalism vs. supernatural psychological disturbance.

  • Doubling and repetition.

• Unheimlich (The Uncanny): Literally "not from the home." It refers to something familiar turning unfamiliar, sinister, or exposing something hidden that was not meant to come to light.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

• Shirley Jackson: American writer (born $1916$), best known for "The Lottery." The Haunting of Hill House is critically regarded as one of the best ghost stories ever written.

• Gender and Ghost Stories: The genre has historically been dominated by women. It often emphasizes "inward imaginings" (terror) over physical manifestation (horror), reflecting social issues and personal anxieties.

• Spiritualism Perspective: The Spiritualist movement (begun in $1848$ by Kate and Maggie Fox) allowed women social independence and an escape from strict moral codes via the séance.

• Character Study: Eleanor (Nell):

  • Nell enters Hill House already haunted by the death of her father and abuse from her mother.

  • The Uncanny Pre-House Event: A month after her father's death, stones fell on her house without reason, drawing crowds.

  • Trauma: Her reality is unhinged from causality due to persistent guilt, weariness, and despair.

  • The Car: Traveling to Hill House, the car represents a liminal space where she feels a manic joy and freedom vs. the structured conformity she expects at the house.

  • The "Cup of Stars": A mobile signifier of identity. She uses this and a fictional apartment to perform a "normal" identity to seek social safety.

• Dr. Montague’s View on Ghosts: "No physical danger exists… No ghost… has ever hurt anyone physically. The only damage is done by the victim to himself."

• Key Scenes (First Half):

  • The First Haunting: Characterized by a "mad rising laugh." Nell grafts the ghost of her mother onto Theo. The ghostly voices invoke both the Crain sisters and Nell's own past.

  • The Message: "HELP ELEANOR COME HOME" is written in chalk. This ruptures the social fantasy Nell has built, creating paranoia and distrust among the group.

  • Hill House’s Nature: It entraps inhabitants with fantasies of domestic bliss while simultaneously forcing them to see those fantasies as delusions.