A Comparative Study Of Edgar Allan Poe's Tales Of Mystery And Imagination And Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects

Edgar Allan Poe is a controversial writer in the 19 th century of the United States.Some critics regard Allan Poe as a genius while others disapprove of his overemphasis on aesthetics.But whatever critics say,credit must be given to him for exploring the deep recesses of the human psyche through symbolic use of the Gothic elements.Numerous scholars have studied Allan Poe's Gothic short stories from various perspectives,such as Gothic elements,narrative features,theme of death and so on,but not many have compared Allan Poe's Gothic short stories with the contemporary Gothic novels.Gillian Flynn is a contemporary American woman writer.Her debut Sharp Objects is a typical novel of the Female Gothic,which is a combination of the Gothic mode and feminist viewpoint.So far no research has been conducted comparing Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination and Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects.Therefore,the current thesis sets out to compare the two books published more than 100 years apart to pin down the similarities and differences.Through analyzing,the similarities between Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic short stories in Tales of Mystery and Imagination and Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects are showed in two aspects.The first aspect is the establishment of Gothic setting such as old castle,dungeon,abbey and so on.While the second aspect is embodiment of Gothic themes such as imprisonment,abuse,murder and so on.Except for the similarities,what is more important in this thesis is the discovery of main differences in Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic short stories in Tales of Mystery and Imagination and Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects,which includes two aspects.The first difference is found to be different internal worlds of characters.Allan Poe's protagonists show terror of the soul facing a deadly crisis.While the terror of the female characters in Sharp Objects comes from the suppression of the patriarchal society,making their lives full of anxiety and depression.The second major difference is that the two writers create different female images.Female characters are silenced and marginalized in the male-dominant world Allan Poe creates whereas Flynn's female characters dominate the scene with different reactions to patriarchy such asconformity,defiance and ambivalence toward patriarchal ideology.Tracing back to the reasons,these differences are mainly caused by two factors.The first factor is the Allan Poe's pursuit of unity of effect.Allan Poe disregards all thematic concerns and centers everything around the ambience of Gothic horror,which forms a contrast to Flynn,to whom themes are primary and Gothic atmosphere secondary.The second factor is the growth of the feminist movement,which inspired women's demand for equal rights and the female Gothic in literature.Through the comparative study,the similarities between Edgar Allan Poe's Gothic short stories in Tales of Mystery and Imagination and Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects show the continuity of literary and ideological traditions whereas the differences indicate contemporary reactions to and mutations in the development of American literature and social values.