Gothic Romanticism: Hawthorne, Poe, Baudelaire

There are different interpretations of the short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher," by Edgar Allen Poe. One states that Roderick Usher's nervousness and weakness are what causes his sister Madeline to be a vampire. One way of explaining this interpretation is by understanding vampires. Original vampires are known for feeding off people, particularly their blood. Looking at Madeline Usher, her and Roderick are twins, and the last of the Ushers in their family. Their old family house has an eerie presence, that the narrator first noticed approaching the house, saying, "...but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit." This "gloom" or presence, the narrator later on suggests, could be making Roderick sick. This presence is also most likely partly Madeline, and some of it possibly their family tree who may have also had this familiar "illness." Perhaps Madeline is not feeding off Roderick's blood, but rather just his spirit, and Roderick becomes mentally and physically ill because his sister is draining him. Roderick and Madeline being twins is important to this part of the story, their special bond allowing them to be closer than regular relatives, and allowing their closeness to be used against Roderick; his twin sister able to have a special controlling effect over him. When Madeline escapes from her coffin and falls on Roderick, he dies of shock. He may have known she was a vampire, thus most likely the reason he knowingly buried her alive. As he says to the narrator that stormy night, "Not hear it?—yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long—long—long—many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it—yet I dared not—oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I dared not— I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them—many, many days ago—yet I dared not—I dared not speak! And now—to-night—Ethelred—ha! ha!—the breaking of the hermit's door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangour of the shield!—say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!” here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul—“Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!” " Madeline knew Roderick was weak and nervous after burying her, and this allowed her the opportunity to come back with somewhat of an advantage over him.
 The Gothic Romanticism authors, Hawthorne, Poe, and Baudelaire express criticism of human nature in some of their short stories. In Hawthorne's story, " Dr. Heidegger's Experiment," he explains the old Dr.'s experiment of the fountain of youth. When the doctor gives some of the water to his aged friends, they grow young again, and when the water gets spilled, they are ashamed to be back in their old state. This story criticises the human nature of every human's longing to stay young forever by allowing the repeat of youth and taking it away right after. Hawthorne communicates this through the storyline, and by making the old people become old again, withholding the very true theme that nothing can completely overcome the stages and ways of life. Poe also does this in his story, "The Masque of Red Death." In this story takes place a masquerade, in which the specially painted rooms and the grand clock that chimes every hour symbolize the passing of life, and the time that is left until everyone dies at the end from the Red Death. It criticises Human nature by setting up the plot to correspond with the horrific ending. The human nature of wanting to live forever and never die is criticised when the prince thinks his city is hiding from the Red Death when really it makes it's way into their party and kills everyone. This ending is also what communicates the criticism to the reader, by holding true a similar theme of Hawthorne's story, that no one can escape death; the final stage of life. Lastly, Baudelaire does this in his poem, "Spleen."  The author communicates this criticism through the title, and how it compares to the poem.  A spleen is a disease cleanser, making the audience think there may be a cure for all the evil surrounding them as described in the poem.The poem states all the bad parts of the world, and reading the poem acts as a sort of escape. This criticises human nature by giving readers a feeling of hope, when reality reminds that there is none.
  All three of these authors have a similar attitude towards human nature, as shown in their common themes and criticism towards it. They all explain a story with a sense of hope, whether becoming young again, a celebrtion for escaping the Red Death, or naming a dark reminder of the world "Spleen," when in the end that sense of hope is shattered; the story ending in the way every reader was wishing the opposite of. They criticise human nature by giving the readers that twisted sort of pleasure that is found within the Gothic genre.