Freedom and Captivity in Bartebly and The Black Cat

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When examining themes of freedom and captivity in the American canon, one would likely adduce the slave narratives as the authoritative texts of that aspect of American literature. However, Herman Melville and Edgar Allan Poe also harbour intriguing relationships with these contrasting themes, which are implicit within "Bartleby" and "The Black Cat" respectively. By inspecting the authors' own problems and fascinations, which are woven into the texts, we can appreciate their implicit use of the dichotomy between freedom and captivity. Furthermore, by analysing the characters within the texts with these themes, we can decipher what prompts their behaviour. Poe's fascination with captivity and premature burial is well-documented; as J. Gerald Kennedy writes: "That idea of premature burial exerted a persistent hold on Poe's imagination..."1. This recurrent motif wasn't a peculiarity of Poe's literature however, as premature burial was a legitimate fear in the 19th century. In a London medical journal, William Tebb ("London Association for the Prevention of Premature Burial") and Edward Perry Vollum had to allay public fears regarding untimely entombment by revealing "...new methods for distinguishing real from apparent death."2. Poe's fixation on premature burial conflated with his "... Oedipal infatuation with his mother"3 to form the recurring motif of the interred woman in his work. This motif manifests in "The Black Cat" as the narrator's wife, who acquiesces to her husband's domestic tyranny until the lethal arc of his axe towards their cat incites her to quit captivity by arresting the blow; this expression of freedom piques the narrator "...to madness"4, resulting in her death. Considering Poe's "Oedipal infatuation with ... ... middle of paper ... ..."Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville, in Herman Melville - Billy Budd, Sailor And Other Stories, ed. Harold Beaver (Penguin Classics 1985; Penguin Books), p.70. 16. Ibid., p.94. 17. Ibid., p.69. 18. "Melville's Parable of the Walls" by Leo Marx, in Melville's Short Novels, ed. Dan McCall (A Norton Critical Edition 2002; W.W Norton & Company inc.), p.241. 19. "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville, in Herman Melville - Billy Budd, Sailor And Other Stories, ed. Harold Beaver (Penguin Classics 1985; Penguin Books), p.67. 20. "Melville's Parable of the Walls" by Leo Marx, in Melville's Short Novels, ed. Dan McCall (A Norton Critical Edition 2002; W.W Norton & Company inc.), p.245. 21. "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville, in Herman Melville - Billy Budd, Sailor And Other Stories, ed. Harold Beaver (Penguin Classics 1985; Penguin Books), p.74.

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