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Egaeus, Hop Frog, and Mr. Lackobreath all have two things in common: Edgar Allan Poe created them, and they possess physical or mental deformities that make them horrific. Poe formed his characters with disabilities in order to reveal what he believed concerned both his enthusiasts and the attitude of the public during that time. Both Bernice and Hop Frog by Edgar Allan Poe serve to demonstrate Poe’s desire to condemn the public’s view on comedy and violence, satirize popular literature and culture, and display human tendencies to overreact with trivial issues, using various symbols and memorable characters in his stories.
In the short stories of Berenice and Hop Frog the use of symbolism is central to their similarities and the analysis of the stories. In the story of Berenice the main character Egaeus is in love with his cousin, Berenice, who is slowly deteriorating from a severe disease. The only pristine thing that remains with her are her teeth and the narrator becomes obsessed with them. The teeth represent in part the only remaining life that Berenice holds (Shipp). Eventually Berenice dies, but Egaeus remains infatuated with her teeth, so much so that he disturbs her grave and pulls out her teeth to keep as souvenirs. With this act it is revealed that the teeth also represent a “divorce from sanity” of Egaeus (Shipp). Similarly in the short story of Hop Frog, the main character Hop Frog also has a break with sanity, when he decides to exact revenge on his vicious king by tar and feathering him and then setting him on fire. In Hop Frog’s drunken insanity he makes a horrible grinding noise with his teeth multiple times. The teeth once again can symbolize a break with reality and moments of mental irrationality. The use of symbolism by Poe helps represent the emotions and intensely grim nature of the world and the people living in it (Shipp).
These two short stories are similar in their symbolism, and with this use of symbolism and other literary devices employed by Poe, he reveals the motives for his whole body of works. One of the major things that Poe wanted to profess through his works is his idea that many people during his life had a warped sense of humor. Many other works during the time were written just for entertainment and revolved around violence and inhumane comedy. Poe wanted to rise above this perverse sense of humor, so he wrote even more gruesome stories that mocked the use of violence as comedy. Poe strove to create works with more sophistication that exposed the vulgarity and ludicrousness of other common works of the time. (Etter). As one critic said instead of clearing the literary streets of these obscene uses of others pain, Poe wrote fiction that was centered around this destitution in order to brings the issues into the spotlight (Jones). Hop Frog and Berenice both show how Poe took violence to the extreme in a way that condemns the use of it as a comedic relief.
Another idea that Poe tried to get across through his writing is the idea that popular literature and culture were highly ridiculous. Many critics said that Poe wrote with a high tone of criticism that “opposed the trash of popular culture”(Jones). Poe created many characters like Hop Frog and Egaeus with physical and mental abnormalities that were intended to represent an ironic vision of normality that criticize the culture and literature of Poe’s time period (Etter). Poe had a grim outlook on the grotesque views of the people during the antebellum period. Many people started to blindly follow popular trends and conform to actions and ideas of the most contemporary ideas, especially those utilized in the popular entertainment works of the time. Therefore, in his writings Poe tried to show his readers how ridiculous they were and show them that they were being absurd and crude in their ideas and in their misrepresented views of comedy (Margolis).
Poe believed that much of society during the antebellum era and in eras past had a crude sense of humor and a tendency to take something small and blow it way out of proportion. Therefore, in order to send a message to his readership Poe offered extreme examples of this vice in many of his short stories. As one critic put it Poe had a tendency to show the idea of “ludicrous heightened into the grotesque”(Pauly). For example, in Hop Frog Poe demonstrates his idea by creating a story where the king simply pushes a dwarf’s friend, and then that dwarf goes mad with rage and takes his revenge to the extreme by dressing up his victims as monkeys and setting them on fire. Similarly, in Berenice Poe takes something as simple as a nice set of teeth that belong to a sick girl and takes it to the grotesque by having the narrator rip out her teeth because he is obsessed with them. These stories and many of Poe’s other stories exemplify how Poe felt the public behaved and his opinion on how it should change.
The short stories of Berenice and Hop Frog are just two small samples of the works of Edgar Allan Poe that had a big impact on the world of literature. With the use of symbolism and characterization Poe created a theme of anti-popular culture within his works. Poe was a brilliant writer who wrote many horrific tales and stories with fatal endings, and all of his stories accomplished his goal to portray his intense views of society.
Works Cited
Another idea that Poe tried to get across through his writing is the idea that popular literature and culture were highly ridiculous. Many critics said that Poe wrote with a high tone of criticism that “opposed the trash of popular culture”(Jones). Poe created many characters like Hop Frog and Egaeus with physical and mental abnormalities that were intended to represent an ironic vision of normality that criticize the culture and literature of Poe’s time period (Etter). Poe had a grim outlook on the grotesque views of the people during the antebellum period. Many people started to blindly follow popular trends and conform to actions and ideas of the most contemporary ideas, especially those utilized in the popular entertainment works of the time. Therefore, in his writings Poe tried to show his readers how ridiculous they were and show them that they were being absurd and crude in their ideas and in their misrepresented views of comedy (Margolis).
Poe believed that much of society during the antebellum era and in eras past had a crude sense of humor and a tendency to take something small and blow it way out of proportion. Therefore, in order to send a message to his readership Poe offered extreme examples of this vice in many of his short stories. As one critic put it Poe had a tendency to show the idea of “ludicrous heightened into the grotesque”(Pauly). For example, in Hop Frog Poe demonstrates his idea by creating a story where the king simply pushes a dwarf’s friend, and then that dwarf goes mad with rage and takes his revenge to the extreme by dressing up his victims as monkeys and setting them on fire. Similarly, in Berenice Poe takes something as simple as a nice set of teeth that belong to a sick girl and takes it to the grotesque by having the narrator rip out her teeth because he is obsessed with them. These stories and many of Poe’s other stories exemplify how Poe felt the public behaved and his opinion on how it should change.
The short stories of Berenice and Hop Frog are just two small samples of the works of Edgar Allan Poe that had a big impact on the world of literature. With the use of symbolism and characterization Poe created a theme of anti-popular culture within his works. Poe was a brilliant writer who wrote many horrific tales and stories with fatal endings, and all of his stories accomplished his goal to portray his intense views of society.
Works Cited
Etter, William. ""Tawdry Physical Affrightments": The Performance of Normalizing Visions of the Body in Edgar Allan Poe's "Loss of Breath"" American Transcendental Quarterly 17.1 (2003): 5-22. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 28 Sept. 2011.
Jones, Gavin. "Poor Poe: On the Literature of Revulsion." American Literary History 23.1 (2011): 1-18. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 1 Oct. 2011.
Margolis, Stacey. "The Rise and Fall of Public Opinion: Poe to James." ELH Baltimore76.3 (2009): 713-38. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 30 Sept. 2011.
Pauly, Thomas H. ""Hop Frog-Is the Last Laugh Best?"" Studies in Short Fiction11 (1974): 307-09. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 20 Sept. 2011.
Shipp, Joann. "Symbolism and Poe: "Hop Frog"" Web log post. POEdgar Allan. June 2009. Web. 1 Oct. 2011. <http://celebratingpoe.blogspot.com/2009/06/essay-two-title-to-be-determined.html>.
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