Poe & His Women
Edgar Allan Poe’s naïveté regarding love and beguilement would eventually cause him decades of pain, hysteria and heartache. He never had much luck with the gentler gender, having a number of important women he cared for die before his own premature death at 40 years of age.
Perhaps most importantly, his mother, Elizabeth died when Edgar was only two years old, leaving him to the care of a foster family. Later, as an early teen, the first woman he is really taken with, Mrs. Jane Stanard dies of suspected tuberculosis. This is the first spark for Poe’s paranoiac theory that his life involving females is cursed. Mrs. Stanard is also the main influence for one of Poe’s earliest promising poems, “To Helen”.
In this piece, “Helen” is supposedly the famous, or infamous depending on recollections, Helen of Troy: the woman whose face launched a thousand ships. In the launching of these ships, this woman’s love caused heartache and pain to countless families on both sides of the Aegean Sea. Poe seems to be attempting to compare the heartache he feels from his feelings for Mrs. Stanard to the immense pain caused by the love of Paris and Helen.
The female of “To Helen” serves no purpose as a functioning character, but rather is used to describe Poe’s ideal beauty, later to be reflected in all of his real-life love interests. This statuesque, curly-haired beauty loosely resembles nearly every significant woman in the author’s short tragic life; from Elizabeth Poe to his cousin/wife Virginia Clemm Poe, each one is a fit to this mould.
Later in his teens, Edgar was taken with a girl named Sarah Royster. They courted for nearly a year, but their time together was interrupted by Edgar’s decision to attend the University of Virginia. When Poe leaves the U of VA about nine months later, he came home to find Sarah engaged to another man. Mr. Royster did not approve of Sarah and Edgar’s relationship and arranged for his daughter to be wed to some one he deemed more appropriate. This ended another chapter in Poe’s love life, leaving him with an even more despondent attitude regarding the opposite sex and also would help influence his portrayal of women in his stories and poems later in his career.
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Over a decade later, “Ligeia” was written. The first sentence of this story already gives the reader an air of oddity. This woman, the title character of the story, is the most perfect woman the narrator has ever met, yet he cannot seem to remember when he first met her. Nor can he remember her last name, or any of her family. He seems to have no personal connection at all with the stunningly beautiful Ligeia.
The only thing narrator seems concerned about is the brilliant Ligeia’s outward appearance and manner, specifically the lady’s eyes. Poe spends a considerable amount of time focused on the beauty of the woman’s eyes. Eventually, Ligeia becomes ill, something that could have been forecasted, if the reader has read enough of EA Poe’s pieces to understand his vision regarding women such as the beautiful Ligeia. Her eyes are what indicate to the narrator that his lady is not the same as she once was. The spark of life is gone from her dark eyes. Shortly after this, the woman dies and the narrator mourns.
At this point in “Ligeia”, it has become apparent that the storyteller is a deranged opium-head. He makes numerous references to being high on the midnight oil. It’s my opinion that the narrator was in such a drug-induced stupor that he manifested the lovely Ligeia. My opinion is that his yen sleep was so deep that he completely fabricated the whole episode of Ligeia, his ideal woman.
The more realistic and perhaps blander opposite of the title character, Lady Rowena Trevanion, is the next woman in the narrator’s life. She is fair haired and blue-eyed and she is not nearly as deep as Ligeia, carrying on only “sweet conversation.” But that is what Rowena was intended to be, a sweet and perhaps dull blonde maiden. She does not compare to the narrator’s previous flawless manifestation and of course she also must die.
Rowena is described less vaguely than the seemingly perfect Ligeia. To me it seems that it is possible that neither woman is factual; that both were concocted to suit the opium-addicted narrator’s moods. The lonely dope-head was lonely and created for himself the perfect woman, and after it all seemed ideal and he began to settle with the worldly and wonderful Ligeia, she feel ill and died. To fill the void, the narrator creates for himself a kind of filler, if you will, in Rowena. She is by no means comparable to the dark and mysterious beauty, but she is bearable, and he even finds that he is fond of her. He is never really happy with Rowena, the way he was with Ligeia, and in a moment of weakness he wishes that he could have the former back. Strangely enough, Rowena then falls ill and dies. And even more bizarrely, Ligeia inhabits the dead woman’s shell and comes back to life.
Poe uses his narrator’s addiction combined with the compatible capricious nature and runs with that dependence. My opinion is that Poe’s intention was to have his character’s mood to influence life and death with his female characters. The women of “Ligeia” serve as pawns to the disposition of the unhinged storyteller.
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“The Fall of the House of Usher” is another ostensibly common use of female characters by Edgar Allan Poe. He seems fascinated with the theory of men and women both having “masculine” and “feminine” sides to their personalities and brains. I believe that in this particular story, he goes to an exceptional extreme to portray this long-held hypothesis.
The narrator’s acquaintance, Roderick Usher lived in a dreary and dark estate with his twin sister Madeline. In this particular tale, I believe that Roderick represents the idyllic portion of this single person’s personality whereas Madeline represents the flawed and materialistic section. Once Madeline falls ill and dies, she leaves the House of Usher, both figuratively and realistically, unstable, leading to its collapse. With this implication, perhaps Poe was trying to point out the importance of the female perspective and influence upon Victorian society; and especially within the family structure.
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Another example of Poe’s use of women in his work is that of the critically acclaimed “Annabel Lee.” In this poem, the narrator describes his perfect life with his perfect love, the lovely Annabel Lee. But as is the case with most female Poe characters, the woman only takes on a corporeal form, never developing any deeper than the skin. Annabel Lee serves only to be loved and lost, just as the loved and lost Ligeia. She is present in the piece to live briefly, be loved and die in order to break the heart and fracture the sanity of the narrator.
Annabel Lee is obviously a literary version of the shortly deceased Virginia, who passed only 2 years before this poem was published. His description of Annabel as a “maiden” gives the reader and impression of purity and innocence; as he himself viewed his dead wife/cousin. The female character of this poem is used as a tool to express the author’s long-lasting grief at the loss of his wife of eleven years.
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Poe used female characters in a number of different ways, having them represent women of his own life as well as purely fictional ones. He mostly focused on pain and grief, as is typical with his writing. A couple of his female persons have psychological symbolism; representing theories of contemporary psychology. Whatever their function within Poe’s writings, the female characters are always the most complex and compelling of the tales.
Perhaps most importantly, his mother, Elizabeth died when Edgar was only two years old, leaving him to the care of a foster family. Later, as an early teen, the first woman he is really taken with, Mrs. Jane Stanard dies of suspected tuberculosis. This is the first spark for Poe’s paranoiac theory that his life involving females is cursed. Mrs. Stanard is also the main influence for one of Poe’s earliest promising poems, “To Helen”.
In this piece, “Helen” is supposedly the famous, or infamous depending on recollections, Helen of Troy: the woman whose face launched a thousand ships. In the launching of these ships, this woman’s love caused heartache and pain to countless families on both sides of the Aegean Sea. Poe seems to be attempting to compare the heartache he feels from his feelings for Mrs. Stanard to the immense pain caused by the love of Paris and Helen.
The female of “To Helen” serves no purpose as a functioning character, but rather is used to describe Poe’s ideal beauty, later to be reflected in all of his real-life love interests. This statuesque, curly-haired beauty loosely resembles nearly every significant woman in the author’s short tragic life; from Elizabeth Poe to his cousin/wife Virginia Clemm Poe, each one is a fit to this mould.
Later in his teens, Edgar was taken with a girl named Sarah Royster. They courted for nearly a year, but their time together was interrupted by Edgar’s decision to attend the University of Virginia. When Poe leaves the U of VA about nine months later, he came home to find Sarah engaged to another man. Mr. Royster did not approve of Sarah and Edgar’s relationship and arranged for his daughter to be wed to some one he deemed more appropriate. This ended another chapter in Poe’s love life, leaving him with an even more despondent attitude regarding the opposite sex and also would help influence his portrayal of women in his stories and poems later in his career.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Over a decade later, “Ligeia” was written. The first sentence of this story already gives the reader an air of oddity. This woman, the title character of the story, is the most perfect woman the narrator has ever met, yet he cannot seem to remember when he first met her. Nor can he remember her last name, or any of her family. He seems to have no personal connection at all with the stunningly beautiful Ligeia.
The only thing narrator seems concerned about is the brilliant Ligeia’s outward appearance and manner, specifically the lady’s eyes. Poe spends a considerable amount of time focused on the beauty of the woman’s eyes. Eventually, Ligeia becomes ill, something that could have been forecasted, if the reader has read enough of EA Poe’s pieces to understand his vision regarding women such as the beautiful Ligeia. Her eyes are what indicate to the narrator that his lady is not the same as she once was. The spark of life is gone from her dark eyes. Shortly after this, the woman dies and the narrator mourns.
At this point in “Ligeia”, it has become apparent that the storyteller is a deranged opium-head. He makes numerous references to being high on the midnight oil. It’s my opinion that the narrator was in such a drug-induced stupor that he manifested the lovely Ligeia. My opinion is that his yen sleep was so deep that he completely fabricated the whole episode of Ligeia, his ideal woman.
The more realistic and perhaps blander opposite of the title character, Lady Rowena Trevanion, is the next woman in the narrator’s life. She is fair haired and blue-eyed and she is not nearly as deep as Ligeia, carrying on only “sweet conversation.” But that is what Rowena was intended to be, a sweet and perhaps dull blonde maiden. She does not compare to the narrator’s previous flawless manifestation and of course she also must die.
Rowena is described less vaguely than the seemingly perfect Ligeia. To me it seems that it is possible that neither woman is factual; that both were concocted to suit the opium-addicted narrator’s moods. The lonely dope-head was lonely and created for himself the perfect woman, and after it all seemed ideal and he began to settle with the worldly and wonderful Ligeia, she feel ill and died. To fill the void, the narrator creates for himself a kind of filler, if you will, in Rowena. She is by no means comparable to the dark and mysterious beauty, but she is bearable, and he even finds that he is fond of her. He is never really happy with Rowena, the way he was with Ligeia, and in a moment of weakness he wishes that he could have the former back. Strangely enough, Rowena then falls ill and dies. And even more bizarrely, Ligeia inhabits the dead woman’s shell and comes back to life.
Poe uses his narrator’s addiction combined with the compatible capricious nature and runs with that dependence. My opinion is that Poe’s intention was to have his character’s mood to influence life and death with his female characters. The women of “Ligeia” serve as pawns to the disposition of the unhinged storyteller.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
“The Fall of the House of Usher” is another ostensibly common use of female characters by Edgar Allan Poe. He seems fascinated with the theory of men and women both having “masculine” and “feminine” sides to their personalities and brains. I believe that in this particular story, he goes to an exceptional extreme to portray this long-held hypothesis.
The narrator’s acquaintance, Roderick Usher lived in a dreary and dark estate with his twin sister Madeline. In this particular tale, I believe that Roderick represents the idyllic portion of this single person’s personality whereas Madeline represents the flawed and materialistic section. Once Madeline falls ill and dies, she leaves the House of Usher, both figuratively and realistically, unstable, leading to its collapse. With this implication, perhaps Poe was trying to point out the importance of the female perspective and influence upon Victorian society; and especially within the family structure.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Another example of Poe’s use of women in his work is that of the critically acclaimed “Annabel Lee.” In this poem, the narrator describes his perfect life with his perfect love, the lovely Annabel Lee. But as is the case with most female Poe characters, the woman only takes on a corporeal form, never developing any deeper than the skin. Annabel Lee serves only to be loved and lost, just as the loved and lost Ligeia. She is present in the piece to live briefly, be loved and die in order to break the heart and fracture the sanity of the narrator.
Annabel Lee is obviously a literary version of the shortly deceased Virginia, who passed only 2 years before this poem was published. His description of Annabel as a “maiden” gives the reader and impression of purity and innocence; as he himself viewed his dead wife/cousin. The female character of this poem is used as a tool to express the author’s long-lasting grief at the loss of his wife of eleven years.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Poe used female characters in a number of different ways, having them represent women of his own life as well as purely fictional ones. He mostly focused on pain and grief, as is typical with his writing. A couple of his female persons have psychological symbolism; representing theories of contemporary psychology. Whatever their function within Poe’s writings, the female characters are always the most complex and compelling of the tales.
posted by Brian at 12:56 a.m.
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