Contrasting Visions in Poe, Hawthorne and Melville
             Gothic Romanticism has eight basic characteristics. All of Gothic stories carry most of these traits. These traits are hero-villain conflict; a person, place or object possessing a great power; a virtue is hidden in the story-line; personal magnetism is evident; usually includes some criminal act; "explained supernatural"; an enchanted setting such as an ancient castle; and extensive and insistent literary allusion.
             Edgar A. Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville are authors of Gothic Romanticism. All three authors' style has multiple levels of interpretation and is loaded with allegories, but each has a slightly different vision. Poe's "The Tale-Tell Heart", Hawthorne's "The Birth-Mark" and Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" each represents a different vision.
             Poe wrote tales to sell-the more fantastic the better. These tales were often graphic horror stories with madman elements and gore. "The Tale-Tell Heart" is a great example of this version of Gothic Romanticism. In this story, a madman, the narrator, kills an old man who he is the servant of. He irrationally justifies the killing of this man because he apparently has a dead or lazy eye that drove him insane. The murder scene is quite horrifying and graphic:
             Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. It grew quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment...And now, at the dead hour of night, and amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable wrath. Yet, for some minutes longer, I refrained and kept still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst! And now a new anxiety seized me-the sound would be heard by a neighbor! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked o...