Nineteenth century American literature is pervaded by a late Romantic current promoted by a few very original writers. Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne are two of the most representative writers of the first half of the nineteenth century. The authors' names often appear together in criticism, since their works share primarily in the laden atmosphere and grotesque style of the period. Their novels and short stories are imbued with a grim mood and their heroes are tragic personages who undergo transcendental and all-together transforming experiences. While Poe is more concerned with what he calls the psyche and the intellect however, Hawthorne investigates the realms of spirituality and religious experience. At a first glance, The Fall of the House of Usher and The Scarlet Letter seem to share little in common in terms of subject or style. Nevertheless, a closer analysis can draw important interconnections related to the main characters of the texts: Roderick Usher in Poe's tale and Arthur Dimmesdale in Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter. The focus of both stories is notably on the state of utter and progressive dilapidation of the aforementioned characters. In both cases, the state of their characters is closely followed and analyzed by their authors. The mastery with which the authors manage to portray the phases of gradual mental and spiritual decline suffered by the two characters is impressive. The protagonists seem to suffer from a peculiar type of mental wasting which consumes their beings until they are completely exhausted. These spiritual throes make the two characters lose their balance and their resistance and they ultimately meet the same fate: both die in the end. The mystery which veils their gradual destruction is the crux of both stories. The anatomy of their spiritual wasting is the main interest of the two writings as it reveals the reveals the existence of a mysterious and transcendental reality whic...