Poesian Feminism and Misogyny in Edgar Allan Poe's short stories

2. Poesian Feminism & Misogyny
By: Prakruti Bhatt

3. Poesian Feminism
• Feminism began in America during the 1820s
and 30s; and emerged as controversial
concerns.
• “Most in positions of political or religious
authority denounced the movement as
destructive.”
• “Edgar Allan Poe found himself ground
between the domestic and intellectual edges
of feminism.”

4. Poe’s Dark Lady
• Morella
• Ligeia
• “Poe’s intellectual heroines are first idealized
and then feared or misunderstood by men
who fail to understand or accept their quest
for knowledge.”
• “These women’s aspirations to or attainment
of supraordinary learning, threaten the
patriarchal dominance of Poe’s heroes.”

5. • “Poe’s heroines are generally considered as
femme fatales, proffering dangerous sexual
charms.”
• “However, a closer analysis of the narrators
reveal startling role exchanges that vindicate
the dark heroine and convict her lover as
destroyer or murderer, reflecting the
antifeminist views of Poe’s male
contemporaries.”

6. Misogyny
• “Dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.”
• Poe’s stories like The Black Cat, The Fall of The House of Usher, etc, are
full of misogynistic portrayal of the female identity by the narrator.
• The Black Cat: “Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the
childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at
the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it
descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my
wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I
withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She
fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.”

7. • The violence towards the wife is justified by the
psychological tension and conflict the narrator is
subject to.
• In Fall of The House of Usher, the narrator and
Roderick Usher (the narrator’s friend), bury Madeline
Usher(Roderick’s Sister) without even cross checking if
she’s actually dead.
• Thus, in both the cases in order to create a sense of
suspense and horror, accordingly, Poe makes the
female identity a victim, of a male character’s
inability to understand or comprehend her as well as
the situation.

8. So What?
• The misogynistic elements reflect Poe’s ambivalent
opinion regarding feminism.
• Poe can be considered quite patriarchal in his
approach towards women through the example of
The Black Cat and The Fall of the House of Usher.
• Poe seems quite careless in constructing the female
identity in his stories.

9. Works Cited:
• Giordano, Robert. The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe. 27 June
2005. web. 30 September 2019.
<https://poestories.com/read/blackcat>.
• Johanyak, Debra. "Poesian Feminism: Triumph or Tragedy."
CLA Journal 39.1 (1995): 9. web. 30 September 2019.
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/44322928>.