Edgar Allen Poe Deconstructionist Critical Analysis
For centuries Edgar Allan Poe’s works have attracted a multitude of critical interpretations in response to contradicting literary elements. A lack of existence contrasted with extreme states of being exist as perhaps the most prominent themes amidst his works.“The Fall of the House of Usher,” for example, may be classified as “Grotesque” in that it encompasses a clash of antithetical beings and ideas while undermining certainties of the reader. “The Angel of the Odd” also epitomizes the disharmonious incompatibility of illusion and reality, which ultimately forces the story’s meaning into ambiguity. An intense mourning for the dead is also prominent among Poe’s works. Through poems such as “The Raven,” Poe exacerbates the thematic question of death, how such an inevitability affects the living, and the manner in which one’s lack of existence creates an omnipresence in one who does exist. Through minute, calculated composition, Poe induces questions concerning the poetic discourse with which his works are approached, be it romantic artistry or reflections of personal rationalist understandings.
Perhaps Poe’s most notable work in terms of structure is “The Raven,” which he followed with an essay titled “The Philosophy of Composition,” wherein his methodical logic to appeal to popular taste was elaborated upon. “The Raven” is poetic in nature and trochaic in rhythm, alternating between octameter acatalectic with heptameter catalectic, which is repeated in the refrain of the fifth verse. In total, the poem consists of eighteen six-line stanzas, each possessing a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. With this, Poe is limited in expression. He is inhibited in his assertions by not only the miniscule amount of rhyming words in the English language but an additional desire for a calculated poem for which he strove to be conveyed in its entirety, ultimately epitomizing the ‘unity effect.’. In “The Philosophy of Composition,” Poe stresses the importance of “The Raven’s” ability to be read in one sitting, thus resulting in a one hundred and eight line work.
Of the most reputable theories is the overwhelming ‘notion of limitation’, which feeds into Poe’s tendency to conform to deconstructionist methods. Unlike many poets who struggle beneath the precincts of language, Poe strives to acclimatize within its boundaries, ultimately strengthening its intensity. With this, Poe convinces the reader of the idea that his writing is not restricted within its confines, but rather enhanced by them and “the extent of a poem may be made to bear mathematical relation to its merit–in other words, to the excitement or elevation… to the degree of the true poetical effect which it is capable of inducing; for it is clear that the brevity [and all the other limits that Poe imposes] must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect…" (Dennis). Although Poe succeeds in convincing the reader of his intentional use of strict poetic structure, romantic imagery, passion, and feelings of intense longing constructed in “The Ravcn” contradict his seemingly scientific poetic process.
“The Fall of the House of Usher,” on the other hand, employs symbolism and analogy as a primary means of expressive conveyance. In accordance with Poe’s views, an analogy is defined as “a similarity of structure perceived by intuition, a similarity that helps us to get at the truth about the physical universe, or at the beauty of the artistic universe” (Buranelli 60). This principle is utilized extensively when finding patterns emerge among relationships between both animate and inanimate objects. Occurrences in the novel read by the Narrator and Usher in the story mirror those in actuality. Roderick Usher and the Usher house, for example, are analogous of each other in that time has worn both to the extent of collapse. Such analogy is redoubled via the introduction of Madeline Usher, who many argue acts with her brother as “two faculties of the same soul…of which their mansion is the body” (Hutchinson 97). An analysis by G.R. Thompson suggests that "The sinking of the house into the reflecting pool dramatizes the sinking of the rational part of the mind, which has unsuccessfully attempted to maintain some contact with a stable structure of reality outside the self, into the nothingness within" (Timmerman 160).
With this, one is able to investigate the tale’s meaning within the context of Romanticism, indicated by the unity, symmetry, and harmony present mainly in descriptions of characters and situations, as well as Enlightenment ideologies of the previous century. Despite attempts to create a harmonious balance between the two, Poe’s pursuit of order – as present largely in “The Raven” – fails in the principle that order assumes expression and disorderly expression “assumes an agency of order” (Timmerman 161). Through these ideas, one is able to ratiocinate that Poe’s literary statements rely solely on aesthetic symmetry and rather the structure of language opposed to its content. Thematic mirror images in “The Fall of the House of Usher” are perhaps most reflective of the story’s central patterns. Both the House and the Ushers dilapidate slowly, simultaneously, creating an interdependency and vital strength drawn from instability. Usher’s house is marked by a devolution in its governed structure, hence mirroring both twins’ mental states and establishing consonance through destruction.
Poe’s structural intent in “The Angel of the Odd,” unlike that of many of his other stories, relies mainly on “the serendipities of language” (Richard) through the process of automatic writing opposed to formulated configuration. Instead of revelling in the processes and outcome of mathematical construction, “The Angel of the Odd” exacerbates Poe’s distaste with rationality, therefore contradicting “The Raven” and “The Fall of the House of Usher’s” central principle that “a writer should carefully calculate every sentiment and idea” (Poe). If, according to Poe himself, a work of art may be derived only from the confines of literary structure, does “The Angel of the Odd” warrant consideration of a masterpiece or simply a tedious story impetuously contrived by Poe almost randomly? Upon examining the poem’s common features, one is able to see that his work strays almost entirely from his often intended artistic ‘unity,’ thus producing “a case of intellectual indigestion” (Richard).
In addition to a lack of carefully construed architecture, Poe’s construction of “The Angel of the Odd” lacks depth. A succession of artificially connected events provides readers with an irony regarding Poe’s deeply valued narrative technique regarding “the time it [takes] to impress [its] effect or by the amount of ‘sustained effort’ which has been found necessary in effecting the impression” (Poe). Moreover, several occurrences within “The Angel of the Odd” parody genres pejoratively referred to in the story’s beginning. A plague of endless events and exceedingly obscure narrative techniques annihilate his highly sought sense of unity. The story’s fault lays not in its length or tediousness, but rather the catachresis of poetry for narrative. To the reader, “The Angel of the Odd” is unable to achieve the effect of unity in that its disordered nature conveys itself as a succession of unrelated events, ultimately causing one to feel as though it possesses an uncertainty of purpose via a hodgepodge of disjointed ideas.
When defined as the instability of expression caused by metaphysical constructs of language, deconstructionist ideologies clearly define Poe’s compositions in that they strive to conform to no literary boundaries which he establishes. In this, Poe is ultimately inhibited in communication by the confines with which he binds himself. By openly discrediting didacticism and allegory under the principle that “works with obvious meanings cease to be art,” Poe validates the paradox of deconstructionism: that which does not possess one ‘obvious’ meaning must also be self-revelatory. Concrete structure must enhance abstract significance.