Davis vs. Poe

Rebecca Harding Davis and Edgar Allen Poe both have stories full of darkness. They both use imagery that is depressing but beautiful. The beginning of Davis's Life in the Iron-Mills exemplifies that quite clearly, where she says:

"The idiosyncrasy of this town is smoke. It rolls sullenly in slow folds from the great chimneys of the iron-foundries, and settles down in black, slimy pools on the muddy streets. Smoke on the wharves, smoke on the dingy boats, on the yellow river,--clinging in a coating of greasy soot to the house-front, the two faded poplars, the faces of the passers-by. The long train of mules, dragging masses of pig-iron through the narrow street, have a foul vapor hanging to their reeking sides. Here, inside, is a little broken figure of an angel pointing upward from the mantel-shelf; but even its wings are covered with smoke, clotted and black. Smoke everywhere! A dirty canary chirps desolately in a cage beside me. Its dream of green fields and sunshine is a very old dream,--almost worn out, I think."

Other than the simple fact that the two authors both use the image of birds (Poe with the Raven) to symbolize darkness, they both write beautifully, for the eye. The beginnning of Poe's The Fall of The House of Usher is as follows:

"During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country, and at length found myself, as the shades of evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was -- but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible."

Their styles both hold a huge sense of doom and gloom. However, in Poe's stories, they usually end with death and destruction, some sort of tragedy that could not be amended in the least. At the end of Davis's story, we get a glimmer of hope. One person got out. We get the idea that if each person helps at least one person, real things can change, and good can happen. Though there is death and destruction in her story, one can pick out the optimism if they only open their eyes to it. Poe's tales are a bit more far-fetched, and offer no light. Davis is our light in the midst of tragic stories.