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Wandering with Dreams of Men

Author: YaoLiFang
Tutor: LiuZhiLiang
School: Guizhou University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: patriarchal consciousness self the Other object discourse
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Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2008
Downloads: 130
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Abstract

In this thesis, I want to go further in reading Poe’s poems by situating them within the social and psycho-cultural context in order to interpret his patriarchal consciousness and to explore the gender identity Poe represents in his poems through feminist eyes. And the thesis will compare the images of men with the images of women portrayed in different periods of Poe’s poetic creation in order to provide an overview of Poe’s gender construction and to make us aware of the socio-political aspects of his writing.The whole thesis is composed of five chapters.The first chapter begins with the literature review, the assumptions, the research methods and this thesis’ contribution.The second chapter at first explores Poe’s patriarchal dream. For psychoanalytic biographers, Poe’s personality is deeply marked by the death of his mother before he was three years old, by the still earlier disappearance of his father, and by his childhood and adolescent years as an orphan raised but never formally adopted by the family of John Allan. Therefore, young Poe had a strong will to power and dreamed to be a self-made man. The ideologies and theories of patriarchy had already been deep-rooted in young Poe’s mind. He had a strong will to power and dreamed to be a self-made man. He brought such a dream into the world of art.Poe’s early poems feature scenes of heroic men on horseback and glorify their indomitable will. In these traditional male myths, we see that man is like the sun. Their masculinity is a gift. But their women are placed outside the battle. They just play the roles of spectators to confirm men in their sense of being. The poet dreams of an Other, not only to possess her but also to be ratified by her. The maternal image is another type of female images in Poe’s early poems. These tender and virtuous mothers open their arms to welcome their sons back. The mother is a refuge for those men who are struggling for their existence. She gives them physical and spiritual salvation. The maternal image is indeed posed as the Other to complement the male One. What the poet really asks of her is to be all that he cannot grasp inside himself. What Poe lacks in his heart is incarnated in his portrait of mother. It is in seeking to make the whole through her that Poe hopes to attain self-realization.The third chapter interprets the stronger and stronger patriarchal consciousness in his male and female portraits during Poe’s mid-term period. Although Poe was imaging a powerful, self-fulfilling form of manhood, he often ran into a blank wall. The exercise of verbal power over literary life was his only hope. From his mid-term poetry, we see a world dominated by the male discourse. The male images of this time represent the maturity of Poe’s patriarchal consciousness and masculine superiority. Israfel’s most melodious voice of all God’s creatures which causes his female admirers mute and the male speaker in "The Sleeper" who hypnotizes and wakes the beautiful sleeper at will both prove the male superiority and realize Poe’s exercise of verbal power over women. The female are aphasic under the absolute superiority of the male discourse.On the female side, Poe’s fascination with dead and beautiful women is hardly different from the traditional attitude toward women. He transforms the Angel in the House into the uncomplaining Angel in the Tomb. The common theme of his mid-term poetry is the death of a beautiful woman. Beautiful women endure the male gaze and become the objects that are being looked at. Every part of the female body is obliterated, except for one single organ. Poe’s women, then, though adored or treasured, are never quite human but objects of the poet’s experience of Beauty. Furthermore, we find that the reason why the dead woman will be adored by Poe is that she is finally doing what the poet expect of her—being silent. The dead women are easy to be looked as objects because they are deprived of speech. The description of reified organs of the female bodies and the silent women satisfies the poet’s experience of Beauty and his pleasure.The fourth chapter focuses on Poe’s struggle with his patriarchal consciousness in his last period. Since his young wife died and his literary career was descending, his dream of a self-made man in the intellectual world was almost broken. But Poe struggled to find the terms in which he could identify himself as a man even in the last period of his life. The death of beautiful Annabel Lee is also used as an object to obliterate the threat of death to the male mourner. In "To One in Paradise," the poet hopes that he can possess a woman even in paradise. It is in seeking to make the whole through this otherness that he can realize the Self.The fifth chapter concludes the main contents of this thesis, points out the limitations, and then mentions some problems related with this topic which can be further researched.After analyzing both the male and female images in Poe’s different periods of poetic creation, we can conclude that Poe is a writer with strong patriarchal consciousness. In fact, Poe’s portrait of men is a process of the construction of a male Self in a head-on way, while his portrait of women as the Other is to realize his construction of a male Self in a reverse way. The portraits of dead and beautiful women and ancient heroes enable Poe to enjoy his patriarchal power. It is in his poetic world that Poe could be "the Man."

Wandering with Dreams of Men

Abstract

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