said to myself --Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain....” Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 604
After the murder, the black cat disappears mysteriously. He searches it everywhere but he could not find it. He feels very still about it and he can
sleep very well at night. We can see it from the quotation below: “... It did not make its appearance during the night --and
thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with
the burden of murder upon my soul ...”
Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 605 The last and the craziest thing that he does is he attracts policemen’s
attention to the new wall that he made to hide his wife. He also does not know why he does so. But for the reader, it is absolutely a crazy action to do
in front of police. We can see it from the quotation below: “...--I may say an excellently well constructed house.
These walls --are you going, gentlemen? --these walls are solidly put together; and here, through the mere phrenzy
of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind
which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom. ...”
Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 605
3.3.3. Berenice
The narrator of this story is a melancholic type of person, which looks life in a pessimist, negative and pathetic way. This is described at the
beginning of the story. It gives the readers feeling of question mark about his life and makes the readers wonder about what has happened to him. As
we can see from the quotation below: “MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is
multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch - as distinct
Universitas Sumatera Utara
too, yet as intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow How is it that from beauty I have
derived a type of unloveliness? - from the covenant of peace, a simile of sorrow? But as, in ethics, evil is a
consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or
the agonies which are, have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.”
Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 225 The name of the narrator is Egaeus which is not the real name of his,
but is his baptismal name. He doesn’t want to tell his family name because he is embarrassed of his family. We can see it from the quotation below:
“My baptismal name is Egaeus; that of my family I will not mention. “ Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 225
He was a well educated person because he learnt much when he was a boy and he started to reverie since he was teenager. He enjoyed it very much
until it changed him into a strange person- a double personality person, which in one condition, he has clear visions, but on the other hand, he has
another world for himself within him. We can see it from the quotation below:
“…that I loitered away my boyhood in books, and dissipated my youth in reverie; but it is singular that as
years rolled away, and the noon of manhood found me still in the mansion of my fathers — it is wonderful what
stagnation there fell upon the springs of my life — wonderful how total an inversion took place in the
character of my common thoughts. The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the
wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn, not the material of my every-day existence, but in very deed that
existence utterly and solely in itself….”
Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 226 Besides, his intelligence is shown from quotations of the books that he
read. All of them are written in French and he connects them with his thought and description of his reveries. He also likes to think about death;
Universitas Sumatera Utara
even the condition of Berenice also makes him think about death that Poe uses the word morbid meditation.
The reason he wants to marry Berenice is very strange. He says that he never loves her before, when she was healthy and very beautiful. It is
strange, isn’t it? There is no man who doesn’t love or like a beautiful girl at all. So this proves that Egaues has psychological disorder. As we can see
from the quotation below: “During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most
surely I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, had never been of the heart,
and my passions always were of the mind....”
Patrick. F.Quinn, 1984 : 229 The reason that he wants to marry her is also not because of love but
he wants to analyze her as an object. He has changed into a person who has got no feeling at all. We can see it form the quotation below:
“...Through the gray of the early morning — among the trellised shadows of the forest at noonday — and in the
silence of my library at night — she had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her — not as the living and breathing
Berenice, but as the Berenice of a dream; not as a being of the earth — earthly — but as the abstraction of such a
being; not as a thing to admire, but to analyze; not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse
although desultory speculation....” Patrick. F. Quinn, 1984 : 229
Overall, the madness that Egaues has is caused by his disease. His
monomania disease makes him obsessed in everything, makes him drown into his reverie and think about everything in detail. But the peak of his
madness shows when he is obsessed on Berenice’s teeth. Obsessions which take control over him and make him even dare to pull out her teeth from her
dead body. But he doesn’t even realize it. He does it just like a sleep walking person.
Universitas Sumatera Utara
CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
4.1. Conclusion
Having analyzed the short stories from the beginning to the end, I conclude that the Gothic elements can be found clearly in Edgar Allan Poe’s short
stories, The Oval Portrait, The Black Cat, Berenice. In
The Oval Portrait, we can see the element of mystery from the portrait that the narrator finds in the house where he stays for the night when he gets hurt.
The other mystery element that we can find from this story is the wounded narrator and the house. Because we do not know why and how the narrator gets
hurt; and why there is an abandoned mansion in the middle of the mountain. We can also see the element of horror from the setting of the mansion. Once again, it
is in the middle of the mountain, abandoned and old. Usually an abandoned and old mansion has mystery and sense of horror. Moreover, the interior setting of the
mansion is very unique and strange. The setting of the time also gives the sense of horror towards the reader. It is in the middle of the night and in the middle of the
mountain. It is eerie enough for a traveller to go through the mountain at this kind of time. The way of the painter does towards his wife also give the sense of
horror. When he paints her, he seems like being controlled by a spiritual thing that makes him forget about everything including his basic needs. Another Gothic
element that we can find here is the madness of the character. In my opinion, both of them are having a little bit of psychological disorder, which can be seen from
the way the painter treats the art and his own wife. He could forget about everything except his art and his wife also could do everything including her own
life to get her husband’s attention. It is crazy enough to be classified as madness. In
The Black Cat, we can also find the element of mystery from the black cat itself, either the first black cat or the second black cat. Black cat itself is being
considered as a big mystery as the superstitious belief, while we have no clues about where the second black cat comes from. Other mysterious events are the fire
that happens after the murder of the first black cat, the relief that formed on the wall of the narrator’s bedroom, the white fur on its chest that changes into the
Universitas Sumatera Utara
