Alexander Diaz

Capstone

Rah ‘17

Count:

    The Study Of The Similarities Of Demonology Between Edgar Allan Poe’s Black Cat And HopFrog

    Temperance was a time of reform from what people thought was a sinful thing. Some would call for moderation while some would call for complete abstinence. And even though alcohol had affected men the most, it was still a woman’s problem too because men’s drunkenness would eventually come around to hurting innocent women and children. We can even see this exemplified today where alcohol is strictly enforced when trying to do certain tasks such as operate one’s vehicle. During this time people  fought the distribution and use of alcohol in many ways, to include literature, poems, and even songs. Through their writings and poems, temperance writers created stories of life and how better it would be if it were a life of temperance. They were stories of how evil drunkenness manifested itself through a bottle and how the sunshine in that bottle that so many people enjoyed was merely just darkness waiting to take over. These temperance stories usually showed the consequences of drinking, showing that change could only be for the better for all parties. The American Temperance Encyclopedia gives a story of a man that is persuaded by his wife to stop drinking. The story, named a Remedy for Drunkenness goes:

A man went home so drunk one night that he had immediately went to go to bed

His wife was a strong woman and she sewed him up in a blanket then took a cowhide and with all her strength commenced beating the dust out of the blanket and the rum out of her husband Yells and screams came from the blanket but had no effect till the husband was thoroughly sobered

The result was good he never got drunk again

This was the general mood for most temperance stories. They tried to show how the abstinence from alcohol would be better for everyone, and they could do it all while having some fun with it. Before 1830, temperance literature had been produced by two sides, the protestant clergyman who preached that God himself would not visit the inebriated and the rationalists, who emphasised the harmful effects on both the mind and body if one were to drink in excess. (Pg 65) Either way, the idea of human perfectibility characterized the end goals of temperance societies such as The Sons of Temperance, Temperance Cadets, and the American Temperance Society. This idea set well with people, because numbers grew within these organizations from 1826 to 1832 to have membership of these societies from 100,000 to over a million. Temperance had rapidly become one of the most influential and most broadly based reform movement in America. (Pg 66)

    It was not until 1833 where temperance writing started to take a turn to the darker side of the spectrum. Writers would no longer write about what remedies would come from abstaining from alcohol, but instead they would talk about the repercussions of becoming drunk. No longer was the motive of these writings to show people how good life would be without alcohol. Now it had turned to how tormented one could become with the constant use of alcohol. Whitman says that “Temperance writing had so many sides to it: noble or devilish. As it grew, temperance writing went from a conventional genre and assumed a notably “devilish”, subversive aspect as it fell into the hands of immoral reformers and opportunistic publishers.” (Pg 65-66) Whitman went on to explain how the writing of these authors began to posses post-Calvinist universality and Gothic savagery. He brings up one story from McDonald Clark, called “The Rum Hole” which went as such:

Ha!– see where the wild blazing Grog-Shop appears,

As the red waves of wretchedness swell,

How it burns on the edge of tempestuous years–

The horrible Light-House of Hell.

‘Tis built on a ledge of human bones,

Whose cement is of human blood,

And dark winds swell’d with memory’s groans,

Are dashing tears there, for its flood. (Pg 66-67)

This story greatly differs from the former temperance writing above. Before temperance writers used humor in order to bring about their message saying that there is a remedy that can be found in order to abstain from alcohol. But in this story we can see that fear and intimidation is the main method in order to get the message across. This type of gothic savagery is evident in the second story. It was these authors who had influenced Edgar Allan Poe in joining the temperance writing movement. David Reynolds states that “All of the major American Renaissance authors were influenced by the temperance movement. Poe, who had close friends in the movement and actually joined it before he died, and used the devices of dark temperance in his tales as a means of getting his message across.”  

Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, and critic for his tales of horror and mystery. Poe was born on January 19th, 1809. He was known for his uncanny short stories and poems that captured the reader and used their imagination in order to depict a picture within their heads that would last. Some even called his stories the modern detective tale because of how he left his readers in suspense, hurrying to turn the page in order to know who was killed or what they were killed by. Poe’s stories seem to always have an underlying message under them. Whether it was about depression, alcohol, or anxiety, the sense of what Poe was living was always prevalent in his works. This was more concretely seen during the years of temperance, where temperance writing became the norm. But it is clear, when looking at Poe’s stories, that he was not interested in the normal way of writing temperance stories that aimed to change a person’s mind on what alcohol really is. No, Poe took a more uncanny route to writing, a more sinister route. Kenneth Silverman states “Poe was influenced by the temperance movement which produced a body of literature and lectures filled with the kinds of horrifying images that fascinated him.” Everyone knows that Edgar Allan Poe had an uncanny way of writing stories, so much so that we classify them as gothic or horror. But why did Poe choose to write like this? Where did this sense of the uncanny and the sinister come from? It is my belief that Edgar Allan Poe produced such horrific stories, stories that made the skin crawl and the mind wander, by drawing from the studies of demons and their abilities in order to create his own temperance stories, ones that would surely engrain itself within a person’s head and have them thinking twice on whether or not to take that next sip of rum. This use of demonology can be traced back to two stories specifically, them being: The Black Cat and Hop Frog. In both stories, the reader can see resemblances back to one demon in particular; Ba’al, the prince of hell.