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Louise Andreeff
Mrs. Kirschner
English II Block II
8 October 2015
The Dark Side
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity once said by Dark Romantic
writer Edgar Allan Poe. Dark Romanticism explores humans inner thoughts and portrays the
idea that evil prevails against all goodness. Dark Romanticism discovers the psychology behind
actions and captures the effects and consequences of these same actions. The only way for Poe to
write this intense type of literature was to trick himself into being insane, allowing his mind to
escape him so he could travel to an immoral world, to apply his insanity into his work. In Spirits
of the Dead and The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe and The Haunted Mind
by Nathanial Hawthorne multiple symbols, vivid imagery, different varieties of form, and the
theme of the inevitability of death display Dark Romanticism.
In The Masque of the Red Death and The Haunted Mind symbolism is used to
investigate how time is a reminder of nearing death, the anxiety that time causes, and how colors
contain an underlying meaning. In The Masque of the Red Death, the different color rooms in
Prince Prosperos palace are placed from east to west, representing each specific stage in lifes
cycle. The most western room symbolizes the end of lifes cycle with its, black velvet tapestries
that hung all over the ceiling and down the wall, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same
material and hue unlike the first room with joyful, bright blue hugging the walls (Poe 2).
Additionally, Poe uses an Ebony clock that booms hourly to symbolize at any moment the guests
at the Princes masquerade could be the plagues next victims. When a man seemingly with the

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plague creeps in the Princes exclusive gathering, he physically leads the Prince and his
supporters to the room symbolizing death where their lives end. Poe uses the unnerving symbols
of the colored rooms and the Ebony clock to highlight the overt actions of the Prince to avoid the
plague, even as he and his guests were constantly reminded of its harm. In Dark Romanticism,
the subject of the literary piece is most likely an antihero, like Prince Prospero, to easily capture
the basic concepts of Dark Romanticism. Hawthorne also uses symbolism in his short story The
Haunted Mind.
Comparable to The Masque of the Red Death, The Haunted Mind uses a clock to
represent how time is continuous and will only cease until death. When the subject of the short
story is asleep, the clock strikes with a booming sound, with so full and distinct a sound, and
such a long murmur in the neighboring air, which reminds the character that the world keeps
moving even as he sleeps, making the main character uneasy over the time he has been wasting
while sleeping (Hawthorne 1). When the person reaches the intermediate stage between being
half asleep and half awake, it is described as, a spot where Father Time, when he thinks nobody
is watching him, sits down by the way side to take breath, seeming as if the clock stops ticking
because the person feels as if he has no worries with their mind on mute (Hawthorne 1). The
person dies in his sleep, and the clocks clicking becomes a distant noise, symbolizing his life is
slowing down. When the character dies, he feels undisturbed by the irritating clock and the
nervousness that time has on him. The clock represents not only the unit of time in ones life but
also the circle of life and the effects of the idea that time will stop. The symbolism of the clock
adds to the overall spookiness of the story and helps develop insight of the characters mind.
Moreover, Hawthorne uses imagery in The Haunted Mind to enrich these elements of Dark
Romanticism as well.

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Throughout The Haunted Mind, Hawthorne uses imagery to describe the fantastical in
an uncanny way such as: In the depths of every heart there is a tomb and a dungeon, though the
lights, the music and revelry above may cause us to forget their existence, and the buried ones, or
prisoners whom they hide (2). Hawthorne is expressing that deep inside all of the wonderful
things a person may appear to be; everyone is covertly hiding their wrongdoings with evil
bubbling within them all. This one example of imagery showcases the element of Dark
Romanticism that is linked to the fantastical. Likewise, Poe uses imagery with colors to
emphasize Dark Romanticism being noticeably less optimistic than traditional Romanticism.
Throughout Spirits of the Dead, Poe uses imagery, mainly through colors, to show the
narrators change of emotions. He paints the picture that the narrator is depressed through the
line, Mid dark thoughts of the gray tombstone (Poe 2). Poe similarly describes the narrator
as being angry by using imagery through words like red, burning, and fever rather than the
alternative of simply stating the narrators emotions (15-18). Furthermore, as Poe uses imagery
through colors to reveal the subject characters feelings, main ideas from Dark Romanticism can
be apparent from the form of a literary piece.
Hawthorne uses a particular form in The Haunted Mind as the subject of the story
moves between the stages of dreaming and being awake in an attempt to explore the time in
between. When the person awakes, he is gasping for air with fear, thinking that his nightmare
came true. As the person is asleep, he knows that time is passing by, but when he enters the
intermediate stage, he feels as if life does not intrude. During this stage, the mind has a passive
sensibility, but no active strength; when the imagination is a mirror, imparting vividness to all
ideas, without the power of selecting or controlling them but merely adapts his dreams to
whatever is happening while he is half awake (Hawthorne 2). The form is significant because

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Hawthorne does not directly state what he thinks the intermediate stage of sleeping may
resemble, but instead describes what he does know about sleeping and being awake to
investigate the middle stage. Because Dark Romanticism explores the human psyche,
Hawthornes form follows the confused man attempting to wrap his mind around the unknown,
causing him slowly to drift towards insanity. Like Hawthorne, Poe has a structure to his poem,
Spirits of the Dead, to accentuate the spirits intentions.
Spirits of the Dead has a sporadic end-rhyme scheme, which is intermittent depending
on what Poe is trying to convey in each stanza about the supernatural beings, for example:
Be silent in that solitude,
Which is not lonelinessfor then
The spirits of the dead who stood
In life before thee are again
In death around theeand their will
Shall overshadow thee: be still. (Poe 5-10)
In this stanza, Poe is trying to explain the spirits of those who have died are among us. He
rhymes solitude with stood to stress this concept (Poe 5, 7). In addition, he mentions that
patience is key to understanding the spirits plans, emphasizing this idea by rhyming will with
still (Poe 9-10). Not only are supernatural beings appearing again in Poes literary piece, but he
wants his form to accent the importance of the spookiness that spirits exist in the natural world, a
characteristic of Dark Romanticism.
The theme of The Masque of the Red Death is that death is inevitable. Prince Prospero
attempted to separate himself from the plague with his wealth, When his dominions were half
depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among

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the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his
castellated abbeys (Poe 1). He does not realize that earthly possessions and boundaries cannot
spare him from death. The Prince does not understand that it is impossible to beat the powerful
plague, and death will prevail. The distractions of mans creations will not make the plague and
death that follows disappear; it is crucial for the Prince to take action to end the plague, not to
selfishly avoid it. Dark Romanticism includes individuals to be prone to sin and self-destruction,
not as inherently possessing divinity and wisdom.
Dark Romanticism cannot solely be expressed by a simple story or poem; it hollows out a
characters soul and mind to discover the thoughts that are buried inside them. Dark
Romanticism includes eye-lifting symbols that question the readers original interpretation of the
everyday object or idea under concentration, imagery to help make sense of the mysterious ideas,
form to structure the literary piece in a way that will carve out another interpretation of the text,
and a horrific theme mold around the concept of the world is filled with evil. Edgar Allan Poe
and Nathaniel Hawthorne incorporate these literary devices into their work to create a sinister
atmosphere that showcases the rotten core of Dark Romanticism.

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Works Cited
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Haunted Mind." About Education. About.com, n.d. Web. 5 Oct.
2015. <http://grammar.about.com/od/classicessays/a/hauntedmind.htm>.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Masque of the Red Death." East of the Web. East of the Web, n.d. Web. 5
Oct. 2015. <http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/MasRed.shtml>.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "Spirits of the Dead." PoeStories.com. Design215, n.d. Web. 5 Oct. 2015.
<http://poestories.com/read/spiritsofthedead>.