These short stories represent U.S. Writing and Culture explore ways in which the violent and traumatic nature of America has come to generate its unique forms of literary and cultural haunting in the nineteenth century.
“The Black Cat” follows the narrator’s descent into madness after he proclaims his sanity in the tale’s opening paragraph. Even the narrator acknowledges the “wild” nature of the tale, attempting thereby to separate his mental condition from the events of the plot. The nature of the narrator’s madness differs from that of the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart.” “The Black Cat” does not concern itself only with the self-contained nature of the narrator’s mind. Rather, the narrator confesses an alcoholism that interferes with his grasp on reality and produces mood swings. Alcohol is, like the cat, an external agent that intrudes on the dynamics of the plot. The introduction of alcohol as a plot device is also significant because Edgar Allan Poe was an reputedly uncontrollable drunk throughout his lifetime. For many years, his biographers asserted that he died of alcohol poisoning in a gutter in Baltimore. More recent biographies insist that the exact cause of Poe’s death cannot be determined. Regardless, it is certain that Poe suffered from the deleterious effects of alcohol consumption throughout his life.
One of the fantastic elements in “The Black Cat” is the existence of the second cat—with the changing shape of its white fur and its appearance on the corpse behind the wall. These plot twists challenge reality, but they do not completely substitute a supernatural explanation for a logical one. It is possible that the plot twists derive only from the insanity of the narrator. As a result, the plot twists, like the fantastic, hover between the real and the supernatural. The resolution of the story is both rationally possible and tremendously unlikely; the cat could inhabit the basement walls, but it is difficult to believe that it would remain silently in the wall for a long time or go unnoticed by the overly meticulous narrator.
In “Young Goodman Brown,” Hawthorne references three dark events from the Puritans’ history: the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, the Puritan intolerance of the Quakers, and King Philip’s War. During the Salem Witch Trials, one of the most nightmarish episodes in Puritan history, the villagers of Salem killed twenty-five innocent people who were accused of being witches. The witch hunts often involved accusations based on revenge, jealousy, botched child delivery, and other reasons that had little to do with perceived witchcraft. The Puritan intolerance of Quakers occurred during the second half of the seventeenth century. Puritans and Quakers both settled in America, hoping to find religious freedom and start their own colonies where they could believe what they wanted to. However, Puritans began forbidding Quakers from settling in their towns and made it illegal to be a Quaker; their intolerance soon led to imprisonments and hangings.
Hawthorne reminds the reader of the dubious history of Salem Village and the legacy of the Puritans and emphasizes the historical roots of Goodman Brown’s fascination with the devil and the dark side.
Irving’s humorous short story “Rip Van Winkle” helped launch his literary career and brought him international fame. The titular character, Rip, is a lethargic but good-natured man who is perpetually “henpecked” by his wife. While his domestic affairs are always in disarray, he is ever the helpful neighbor and beloved by all the townspeople. One day, on his usual route to go squirrel hunting on the mountains, Rip encounters a stranger who leads him to a mysterious ravine occupied by unusual beings. Against his better judgement, Rip drinks with the group and falls asleep. Later, when he finally wakes up and makes his way down to his village, his life is forever changed. Through Rip’s tale, Irving explores the history of the Catskill Mountains while intermingling it with the traditions of the old world and European myth. By creating his own folklore through Rip’s adventure, Irving characterizes the inevitability of change and the consequences of evading one’s responsibilities.
