Keywords
ecohorror, eco-horror, ecocriticism, gender, posthumanism, post-humanism, Poe, Berenice, The Fall of the House of Usher
Abstract
This article argues that Poe uses female characters to express ecohorrific anxieties and imagine posthumanist ways of being. In "The Fall of the House of Usher," Poe associates Madeline with nature's terrors by describing Madeline's disease as distinctly physical and coordinating her exit from her tomb with a raging storm. In "Berenice," Poe uses the violations of the titular character's body to enter into conversations about the rapid extraction of natural resources and the possibility of sentience beyond material existence. An ecohorrific reading of Poe’s texts reveals how Poe dismisses women as merely corporeal beings; however, ecohorror also reveals how this same corporeality gives women a unique authority in Poe’s texts, as it renders women particularly capable of adapting to a posthumanist way of being.
Issue and Volume
19.1
BYU ScholarsArchive Citation
Dana, Ellie
(2026)
"The Intersection of Gender and Ecohorror in Poe’s Short Fiction,"
Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism: Vol. 19:
Iss.
1, Article 6.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/criterion/vol19/iss1/6