Stereotypical Female Features in Poems Edgar Allan Poe: Annabel Lee
Edgar Allan Poe frequently reduces women to stereotyped traits such as being beautiful, 'self-sacrificing' victims who are devoted to men. Women feature prominently in the work of Edgar Allan Poe, but they are often assigned to certain archetypal roles. The assignment of these roles and their related stereotypical traits to fictional women was highly prevalent in the work of male authors during that era.
One of the traits that have been most commonly assigned to women throughout all of history is beauty. Among the many hurdles that feminists face is the societal barrier that implies that a woman's worth or ‘goodness’ is equal only to her physical beauty and attractiveness (specifically, her attractiveness to a male gaze). Poe's work frequently falls under this trope, often through the emphasis of physical descriptions of the women in his poetry. A clear example of this is the way the phrase ‘beautiful Annabel Lee’ appears four times in Annabel Lee - her name is accompanied by her epithet more often than it isn't. The phrase is also emphasized through the use of anaphora, bringing the idea to the forefront of the reader's mind. Women in Poe's work are often reduced to their beauty. This is seen very evidently in Helen, a passionate, allusion-rich poem dedicated to his friend's mother and her beauty, with which Poe seems infatuated to the point of hyperbolically comparing her to Helen of Troy (the famous ‘face that could launch a thousand ships’) and other mythological figures known primarily for their looks. In it, we see something common to Poe: lines of elaborate imagery solely describing a woman's physical appearance. A further example of this is in Lenore, where the mourners do not shy away from commenting on the eponymous deceased's looks, even in death, with such phrases as ‘the queenliest dead’ being used.
Lenore is not the only one of Poe's female characters to receive such shallow post-mortem treatment, especially since the death of women (and therefore, their helplessness and victimhood) is a highly recurring theme in his work. This is seen in Annabel Lee and Lenore, but also in Poe's most famous poem, The Raven, which recounts the tale of a man going insane with grief due to losing the woman he loved (who is interestingly also named Lenore).
Many theorize that this morbid pattern was influenced by Poe's own personal grief. He lost multiple feminine figures in his life, including his mother (who died when he was an infant) and his wife and cousin, Virginia. In The Philosophy of Composition, Poe wrote the following:
‘I asked myself. Of all melancholy topics, what’ is the most melancholy? 'Death' was the obvious reply. And when is the most melancholy of topics most poetical? The answer, here also, is obvious ‘When it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman, is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.’
Though Poe was specifically referring to The Raven in this passage, it is clear that he applied this philosophy to a large portion of his work. The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world this idea haunts almost every beautiful woman that Poe has ever included in his poetry.
Some feminist critics might argue that this fixation manifested itself almost perversely due to its high prevalence in his work. The repeated killing of women for the sake of being poetical or to create something beautiful, fictional though these crimes may be, could be seen as a sort of misogynistic sadism. It could be likened to a more poetic, less crude analog to another highly common form of misogyny: objectification. One could accuse Poe of objectifying women through his use, exploitation, and romanticization of their deaths for artistic gratification. Though this could all be viewed through a more sympathetic lens (as nothing more than a coping mechanism for the trauma of grief), a feminist critic may not be satisfied by this conclusion. Others who opt to look through the aforementioned sympathetic lens may find this analysis too harsh, or an unnecessary accusation of a grieving man. Princess Marie Bonaparte, a student of Sigmund Freud, published a psychobiography of Poe titled The life and works of Edgar Allan Poe, a psychoanalytic interpretation in 1933. In this, Bonaparte suggests that as a result of his childhood, Poe had developed an Oedipus complex and ‘necrophilist’ tendencies. The death of his mother for whom Bonaparte suggests Poe had Oedipal, sexual desire, therefore, resulted in a fixation with dying women.
Indeed, the theme of the ‘death of a beautiful woman’ is present in many of Poe's poems. These women are typically tragically dead at an early age (seen in how Lenore is repeatedly proclaimed to have ‘died so young’) usually, they are dead for the entirety of the poem, with no chance at life or action - and are often described as being devoted to their male lovers.
In Annabel Lee, the poem's titular subject is described by her widower (whether they were actually married is unclear, as they are described as having been children, but the narrator refers to her as his bride although it is worth noting that Poe married his cousin when she was 13, and so age may not have been a barrier for love in his eyes) as having lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me. In these lines the narrator completely reduces Annabel Lee to her relationship, stripping her of any identity beyond that. This relationship, described as stronger by far than the love of those who were older and wiser than them, is apparently responsible for Annabel Lee's death. The narrator claims that the reason (as all men know) behind her death was that the angels in Heaven above were not half so happy, and in their jealousy towards the young lover's relationship, they decided to kill her. A modern feminist critic might comment on the implicit arrogance in the narrator's assertions: to claim that your love is so perfect that it surpasses the divine, and even causes the latter to sin through envy, is very bold; some might deem it to be typical masculine hubris. The fact that Annabel Lee was killed but her male lover was left living could also be considered sexist on Poe's part. Men in literature are often spared the same horrible fate as their female counterparts: in fact, these women's unfortunate ends are frequently used as plot devices to deepen the male hero's tragic suffering. Once more, women are used as tools to serve a male-oriented purpose.
The early age at which many of Poe's women pass away ties into another sexist stereotype that abounds within the literature of that era: innocence. Not only is the structure of Annabel Lee set up like a fairytale or nursery rhyme (It was many and many a year ago in a kingdom by the sea), creating a childlike atmosphere that is rendered unsettling in contrast to the morbidity of the poem, but the ‘maiden’ Annabel Lee herself is emphasized to be 'a child'. This childishness is somewhat contradicted later on the narrator goes on to describe her as his ‘bride’, offering the notion that their love went beyond a childish affair but it still lends a sense of purity and innocence that is so commonly found in fictional women.
Despite Poe's treatment of women in his work, it is impossible to deny that when they are featured, they are featured very prominently, and some may argue that this prominence is inherently feminist (or at least progressive for the time in which it was written). In many of Poe's poems and other works, women - no matter their fate - is portrayed as the central character other than the (usually male) narrator. This is clearly seen in the way a large number of his works are named after the most notable female character within them: Annabel Lee, Lenore, To Helena this eponymic trend in titles showcases the importance that women hold in Poe's literature. Additionally, as well as a self-sacrificing streak and feminine fragility, Poe's women are sometimes bestowed with intelligence and mental fortitude. This is seen in the short story Ligeia. This proves that Poe was not incapable of allowing his female characters to have agency and depth beyond their ethereal looks.
In conclusion, it must be said that regardless of Poe's intentions behind every woman he wrote into his work, a majority of these female characters have been forced into rigid - and (possibly perversely) morbid - archetypes. This practice is certainly not unique to Poe: in fact, it would be considerably more surprising to find a writer from that era who did not employ these misogynistic stereotypes. Women in literature have often unfortunately been limited to a small number of possible portrayals, and Poe's women are no exception. The representation of women in phallocentric literature frequently amounts to ‘beautiful’ young women; innocent and self-sacrificing creatures who live with no other purpose than to be their husbands' brides. These types of representation are undeniably abundant in Edgar Allan Poe's poetry. It can be argued that compared to other male writers of that time, Poe admittedly strove to provide more depth to his female characters, but he still fell into those same sexist patterns time and time again.
