Of Romanticism and Science Fiction (This is MY actual post)

Although it feels like the most relevant –most discussed, the ones which were given more time – novels we covered in class were Nineteen Eighty-Four and V for Vendetta, I did not want to focus on comparing those two. Instead, I felt interested in discovering which similarity or connection Nineteen Eighty-Four might have with a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Now, it has not been easy, and more than likely I have missed the most important points, as I was never really sure if what I was doing was right. But anyway, I think I found some connections which I will try to develop here.

The short story by Poe that I chose is ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’. As you may all know, Poe is considered to be a part of the Romantic movement, and as you all may probably know by now after a year of literature classes, Romanticism has to do with Idealism. But more specifically, Poe is famous for writing Gothic literature. This kind of literature is a combination of horror, fiction, death, and romance (as in Romanticism). And ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ is a great example of this.

From the first paragraphs of the story, we are able to feel this sensation of gloom:

I know not how it was – but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me – upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain – upon the bleak walls – upon the vacant eye-like windows – upon a few rank sedges – and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees – with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveller upon opium – the bitter lapse into everyday life – the hideous dropping off of the veil (1839).

The house is old, to say the least; it has cracks going from top to bottom; it has an entrance with a gothic-like arc; and it almost feels like it is alive (which is related to what actually happens later, and when we realise that the house is somehow connected to its inhabitant) with the fungus growing through the cracks and the eye-like windows (Bailey, 1964).

Now, you may be wondering: what does this have to do with Nineteen Eighty-Four?

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a dystopian novel, written by George Orwell in 1949, and it is also classified as being part of a sub-genre of science fiction: social science fiction, which does not so much deal with space and aliens as we might think when thinking about science fiction, but rather focuses on how human society and individuals are affected by something that can be or not technology. In Nineteen Eighty-Four there is some technology on the appearance of two-side televisions, but it is not the main theme; rather, it is about socio-political aspects. So, what is the relation with ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’?

            At least my answer now is related to the genres to which Nineteen Eighty-Four and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ belong to: (social) science fiction and gothic. But what is exactly their connection?

            As Corbett (2001) mentions, juxtaposing these two genres would have seemed absurd at some point in history. However, if we tried to find and put together the origin of science fiction, we could trace it back to romanticism and horror romantic stories. Corbett points out that Frankenstein – a fine example of a gothic and romantic novel –can be considered to be the mother of science fiction. He even goes as far as saying that Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe invented science fiction by mistake. Tresh (2002) explains that Poe rather discovered science fiction and adapted it to his own purposes and context (p.14). Poe does not aim to create an alternative reality in an alternative future; instead, ‘he takes the status of reality in general as a permanent question’ (Tresh, 2002, p.124).

            At the end of ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, there is a reality break-down: the house literally breaks in two and falls, as an unexpected literal preview from the title, into the tarn around it after Usher’s sister, Madeline, apparently comes back from the realm of the death (although apparently she was never really dead). The nameless narrator manages to get out and look back as it falls and disintegrates out of existence.

            But again, how is this related to Nineteen Eighty-Four? Well, we could take the concept of disintegration. The novel’s protagonist, Winston Smith, may be needless to say ends up as an empty shell, after the tortures he undergoes in the Ministry of Love. The house in ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ collapses; in here, the protagonist does. Yes, he is alive, he survived. But did he, really?

Winston’s heart stirred. That was the bulletin from the front; instinct told him that it was bad news that was coming.  All day, with little spurts of excitement, the thought

of a smashing defeat in Africa had been in and out of his mind. He seemed actually to see the Eurasian army swarming across the never-broken frontier and pouring down into the tip of Africa like a column of ants. Why had it not been possible to outflank them in some way? The outline of the West African coast stood out vividly in his mind. He picked up the white knight and moved it across the board. There was the proper spot. Even while he saw the black horde racing southward he saw another force, mysteriously assembled, suddenly planted in their rear, cutting their communications by land and sea. He felt that by willing it he was bringing that other force into existence. But it was necessary to act quickly. If they could get control of the whole of Africa, if they had airfields and submarine bases at the Cape, it would cut Oceania in two. It might mean anything: defeat, breakdown, the redivision of the world, the destruction of the Party! He drew a deep breath. An extraordinary medley of feeling—but it was not a medley, exactly; rather it was successive layers of feeling, in which one could not say which layer was undermost—struggled inside him (p.366).

            Winston is hoping the Oceania army wins; he even feel excitement over it. He has been brainwashed to the point of wanting what he previously despised to win. He lost his essence and he is thinking the exact thing the Party wants him to think –although he does remember his previous thoughts: he feels a struggle. But there is a disintegration. And if we consider how the house in Poe’s story is apparently connected to is owner and alive in its own way, we can say that in both the novel and the story there is a disintegration of life and an irreality of some sorts. 

Poe&Orwell

            In addition to all of this, Sandoval (2012) presented another possible connection: the presence of a sort of dystopia inside ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’, represented by the upper-class. The Usher family is described as an old lineage, living in this old house. But it is a decadent house and a decadent family, and Sandoval points out that this may be a representation of Poe’s times. Around the years in which he wrote the novel (it was published in 1839), there was an economic crisis going on in the United States, which of course affected most of the people in charge of the country, so Sandoval claims that the Ushers might represent the upper-class families of the United States. Taking into account that Poe was informally adopted by an upper-class family but had always problems with his step-father, it might not be too extreme to think that this had an influence on his political and economic views. Plus, slavery was a heated topic around those years.

            So the fall of the Usher family might represent the fall that society was going through nearing the middle of the nineteenth century. People around the time might have thought about a gloomy, hopeless future because of the crisis that was happening, and this may be a precursor of more modern dystopias. Now, maybe these ideas are too far-fetched, but I thought it was a good idea to take a look at what was happening in the United States when Poe was writing the story. Even though he believed that writing was all about beauty, it is impossible that current issues do not affect the writing of an author.

            Having explained all this, I can say that I might have found some points of comparison between Nineteen Eighty-Four and ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’. As Corbett mentions, I would have never though there was a connection between science fiction/dystopias and horror romanticism. But in both genres there is the presence of ideals, and romanticism could be a precursor of dystopian novels, as much as we might consider romanticism as connected only to nature and science fiction with outer space and the future. But they are so much more than that.

            I would love to read more opinions on the topic, and to see if my ideas are indeed too far-fetched (let me know if they are!). I would also add again that I had lots of trouble making connections, but I can affirm there is a connection between the two genres that I focused on. Maybe the ideas here are not totally correct, but every movement and genre borrows elements from others, and everything is a result of previous things. So there are elements present in both romanticism and science fiction.

           

           

References

Bailey, J. O. (1964). What Happens in" The Fall of the House of Usher"?. American Literature, 445-466.

Corbett, R. (2001). Romanticism and Science Fictions-A Special Issue of Romanticism On the Net. Romanticism on the Net, (21).

Orwell, G. (1990). Nineteen Eighty-Four. 1949. The Complete Novels, 743-925.

Poe, E. A. (2013). The Fall of the House of Usher. Start Classics.

Sandoval, J. (2012). Gothic Dystopia. Retrieved from: http://jessica-rising.com/2012/01/10/gothic-dystopia/

Tresch, J. (2002). Extra! Extra! Poe invents science fiction. The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, 113-132.