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The Construction of the Subject in the Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe Two Volumes Volume I Christopher Richard Rollason D. Phil

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The Construction of the Subject in the Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe Two Volumes Volume I Christopher Richard Rollason D. Phil THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SUBJECT IN THE SHORT FICTION OF EDGAR ALLAN POE TWO VOLUMES VOLUME I CHRISTOPHER RICHARD ROLLASON D. PHIL. THE UNIVERSITY OF YORK DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND RELATED LITERATURE JULY 1987 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements vi Abstract vii Abbreviations viii Note on Presentation ix Note on Texts Used xi VOLUME ONE INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 Theoretical, Critical and Historical Perspectives 3 Part 1 Theoretical Perspectives 4 i Model of the Text 4 ii Model of Language 9 i ii Model of Society 11 iv Model of the Subject 21 v Towards a Methodological Synthesis 32 Part 2 Theories of "Gothic" or "Fantastic" Literature 34 Part 3 Tendencies in Poe Criticism 39 i General 39 ii Traditional Criticism 41 iii Historical-Materialist Criticism 44 iv Structuralism, Nouvelle Critique and Post-Structuralism 46 v Psychoanalytic Criticism 48 J Part 4 Historical Context: the 1830s and 1840s 50 i General 50 ii Industrialisation and Urbanisation 51 iii Technology and Science 55 iv Imperialism and Expansionism 62 v Feminism 68 vi Conditions of Literary and Journalistic Production 72 CHAPTER 2 Some Models of the Subject in Poe 75 iA Psychological Project: General 76 ii Eureka: A Dialectical Model 87 iii The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket: Disintegration 90 iv 'The Man that was Used Up': Fragmentation 99 v 'William Wilson': The Double 102 vi 'The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether': Self as Other 121 CHAPTER 3 Alienation and Self-Destruction 142 Part 1 'The Man of the Crowd': "Normal" and "Abnormal" 143 i The Context: The City, the Crowd and the Flaneur 143 ii The Tale: A Refusal to Recognise 158 Part 2 The Urban Murder Tales: Homicide and Suicide 199 I The Concept of Perverseness 199 ii 'The Imp of the Perverse' 224 iii 'The Black Cat' 246 iv 'The Tell-Tale Heart' 272 v 'The Angel of the Odd': A Note 294 vi Baudelaire, Dostoyevsky and the Perverse 296 CHAPTER 4 Myths of the Full Subject 304 Part 1 The Detective: The Dupin Trilogy 305 i The'Detective Figure 305 ii 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' 348 iii 'The Mystery of Marie Roget' 359 iv 'The Purloined Letter' 366 v Precursors: Voltaire, Godwin, Hoffmann, Dickens 381 vi Successors: Dickens, Collins, Doyle 383 Part 2 The Mesmerist 392 i The Mesmeric Ideology 392 ii 'Mesmeric Revelation': Occultism 413 iii 'The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar': The Limits of Science 417 iv 'A Tale of the Ragged Mountains': Mesmerism and Power 427 VOLUME TWO CHAPTER 5 Myths of the Full Object 453 Part 1 Poe's Aesthetic Theories: A Critique 454 Part 2 The Interior 490 i Interiors in Poe's Tales 490 ii 'Philosophy of Furniture' 505 iii Phantasmagoria 516 iv Gothic 520 v Grotesque and Arabesque 524 iv vi Synaesthesia 537 vii Interiors in Baudelaire and Huysmans: A Note 542 viii 'The Assignation' 548 ix 'The Masque of the Red Death' 564 CHAPTER 6 Desire, Death and the Artist 580 Part 1 The Return of the Active Woman 581 i 'The Oval Portrait' 581 ii 'Ligeia' 615 iii 'Morelia': A Note 673 iv 'Berenice': A Note 680 Part 2 'The Fall of the House of Usher': A Building on the Edge of Collapse 689 iA Study in 'Mental Disorder' 689 ii Usher and Madeline: A Diagnosis 697 iii The Narrator: The Voice of "Normality" 750 iv The House: Psychological and Sociological Dimensions 774 v Artist, Artworks and Text 783 vi The Fissure in the Wall 826 CONCLUSION 831 Preliminary to the Notes 838 NOTES 840 BIBLIOGRAPHY 997 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my gratitude - whether for specific help on Poe's work, for help with proofreading the thesis, or for influencing my intellectual development in general - to: Dr R. T. H. Redpath, of Trinity College, Cambridge; Dr Piers Gray, formerly of the same college; Dr Linda Gillman, formerly of Girton College, Cambridge; to my super- visor, Nicole Ward-Jouve, Agregee de 1"Universite, of the Department of English and Related Literature of the University of York; to David Howard, M. A., of the same Department; to Dr Jan Todd and Dr Penny Florence, both formerly of the University of York; to Professora Doutora Maria Irene Ramalho de Sousa Santos, Prof. Dr Martin A. Kayman, Lics. Grata Abranches, Joäo Paulo Moreira and Jose Manuel Mota, Robert Chatel, M. A., Martin Earl, M. A., Jon Havelda, M. A. and Stephen Wilson, M. A., all of the Department of Anglo-American Studies of the Faculty of Letters of the University of Coimbra; to Lic. Ant6nio Sousa Ribeiro, of the Department of German Studies, Coimbra; to Lic. Ana Leonor Pereira, of the Department of History, Coimbra; to Dr Horst Engel, formerly of the Department of Zoology of the Faculty of Science and Technology, Coimbra; to Robert Grant, M. A., Mark Hayman and Nigel Hill, all-of Coimbra; to Dr Giuseppe Rocca, of Turin; to Dr Henri Justin, of the University of Paris III; to Dra Maria Asunci6n Dorau, of the University of Cadiz, for organising the conference at which I gave a first version of Chapter 6, Part 1, sections iii and iv, in 1984 (subsequently published in the proceedings); to the Revista Critica de Ciencias Sociais (Coimbra), for publishing a first version of parts of Chapter 6, Part I, section ii, in 1980; to Dr Clive Bloom, of Middlesex Polytechnic, Brian Docherty, of the W. E. A. (London), and Macmillan and Co. and Lumiere Press, for editing and publishing the volume (American Crime Fiction: Studies in the Genre) in which a shorter version of Chapter Part 1 is to appear in 1997. Finally, my thanks to Estela do Vale, of Coimbra, for her support during the last phase, and to the typist, Jean Burrows, of Coimbra, for her patience and good humour. vi ABSTRACT This study is primarily concerned with the diverse processes of con- stitution and deconstitution of subjectivity at work in the writing of Edgar Allan Poe. The analysis is largely confined to the short fiction, although some reference is made to Poe's other work; twenty- one tales are examined, in greater or lesser detail, with the aid of various theoretical perspectives - sociological, structuralist and, above all, psychoanalytic. The aim is to present a new reading of Poe's texts which rejects traditional "unity"-based interpretations. The thesis privileges the psychological dimension, but in textual, not biographical terms; it stresses the tales' often undervalued element of modernity as well as their receptiveness to emergent processes and discourses. The psychological dimensions analysed include: the explicit present- ation of mental splitting ('William Wilson') and institutionalised madness ('The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether'); the signif- ication of alienation ('The Man of the Crowd') and self-destruction ('The Imp of the Perverse', 'The Black Cat', 'The Tell-Tale Heart') as constitutive of the subject at a determinate historical moment; the simultaneous construction and subversion of mythical signifiers of an illusory "full" subject, both metonyms (the detective, the mesmerist) and metaphors (the artwork, the interior); the symbolic emergence from repression of active female desire, perceived as threatening in the male unconscious ('The Oval Portrait', 'Ligeia'); and the disintegration of the subject under the pressure of its own repressions ('The Fall of the House of Usher'). Particular stress is laid throughout on the textual undermining of the dividing-lines between "normal" and "abnormal", "sane" and "insane", "respectable" and "criminal". It is concluded that Poe's work con- stitutes a map of the vicissitudes and contradictions of subjectivity in patriarchal culture; from the study of these texts, the "I" emerges as formed out of a massive repression, and as therefore constantly liable to fragmentation and rupture. vii ABBREVIATIONS 1) The titles of certain tales are abbreviated (but only in the chapter-parts devoted to them, not elsewhere in the thesis) as follows: AO 'The Angel of the Odd' BC 'The Black Cat' IP 'The Imp of the Perverse' LD 'Life in Death' (first version of 'The Oval Portrait') MMR 'The Mystery of Marie Roget' MR 'Mesmeric Revel ation' MRM 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' OP 'The Oval Portr ait' PL 'The Purloined Letter' TRM 'A Tale of the Ragged Mountains' TTH 'The Tell-Tale Heart' In addition, the following titles are abbreviated only in the "interior tabulation" in Chapter 5, Part 2, pp. 49U-50-1'.' A 'The Assignation' B 'Berenice' L 'Ligeia' MRD 'The Masque of the Red Death' U 'The Fall of the House of Usher' 2) The abbreviations used to designate the various editions of Poe's below, in 'Note Texts Used works are explained on . 3) The abbreviations used for titles of periodicals are summarised in"-'Preliminary to the Notes' pp. 838-39). Any other abbreviations used in the text or notes are explained at the appropriate point. iii NOTE ON PRESENTATION Please note the following before reading the thesis: 1) Page references to all works of Poe are given in the body of the text, preceded where necessary by reference to the appropriate edition (for the abbreviations used to designate the various editions, see 'Note on Texts Used'). 2) Page references to all other texts, primary or secondary, are given in the Notes. 3) For certain texts subjected to particularly detailed analysis, in parts of Chapters 3 and 6, reference is to numbered paragraphs, rather than pages. This applies to: 'The Man of the Crowd' (Chapter 3, Part 1), 'The Imp of the Perverse', 'The Black Cat', 'The Tell-Tale Heart' (Chapter 3, Part 2), 'The Oval Portrait', 'Ligeia' (Chapter 6, Part 1) and 'The Fall of the House of Usher' (Chapter 6, Part 2).
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