Paranormal Pajama Party

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Episode 21: “The Fall of the House of Usher” (part 1)

Stephanie Summar

Beautiful Dead Women

Virginia Clemm Poe

When we think of horror, we think of Edgar Allan Poe. His stories go hard on the eerie atmosphere, intricate plots, and unhinged characters. But it’s important to note that most of those characters are men. And among Poe’s female characters, two traits stand out prominently, appearing again and again: they’re usually beautiful, and they’re usually dead.

The motif of the beautiful dead woman is recurrent throughout Poe’s poems and stories, often serving as a catalyst for the emotional and psychological turmoil of his male protagonists. But why was he fixated on them?

To understand this, we need to talk about Poe’s tumultuous life and the experiences that shaped his dark literary themes and made the beautiful dead woman a staple of the horror genre.

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Poe’s tragic losses

Edgar Allan Poe was born in 1809 to actors Eliza and David Poe. His father abandoned the family when Poe was just two years old, and his mother succumbed to tuberculosis a year later. These early experiences of abandonment and loss left an indelible mark on Poe’s psyche.

He was split up from his siblings and taken in by John Allan, a wealthy merchant, and his wife, Frances, in Richmond, Virginia. Although Frances nurtured Poe’s artistic talents, his relationship with John was strained and turbulent.

Poe’s foster mother, Frances, also died at a young age, further cementing his association of beauty with untimely death. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be the last time he lost a beloved woman to illness and death.

His life was marked by continuous personal and financial struggles, exacerbated by his alcoholism and erratic behaviour.

When he was 27, he married his 13-year-old cousin, Virginia, a move that was very not OK even by the standards of the time (yeah, this episode is going to make you feel weird about Edgar). Unfortunately, Virginia, too, developed tuberculosis and died after a long struggle with it when she was only 24. Her illness and death, along with his mother’s from the same disease, profoundly affected Poe.

The allure and horror of tuberculosis

Tuberculosis, or consumption as it was then known, had a peculiar cultural impact in Poe’s time. The disease often left its victims emaciated, with pale skin, rosy cheeks, and bright eyes—a look that aligned with the beauty standards of the time and sparked artistic inspiration.

A “flattering malady,” as Charlotte Brontë once called it, that enhanced its victim’s appearance as it killed them slowly, it was a highly romanticised disease. Poe’s frequent depiction of beautiful dead women, who only become more beautiful as they approach the end, can be partly attributed to this macabre glamorisation of tuberculosis victims.

beautiful dead woman in Poe’s works

Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, was published in 1839.

⚠️ Spoilers ahead for a 185-year-old story ⚠️: Madeline Usher is accidentally entombed alive by her unstable twin brother Roderick, only to return from the grave with a vengeance.

Madeline is a reflection of Roderick—literally, as his twin, and symbolically, but we’ll talk more about that next week in Part 2 of this series. She’s also yet another beautiful dead woman, and in fact, her symptoms line up with some of the classic symptoms of tuberculosis.

Poe’s fixation on beautiful dead women also appears in his poem “The Raven,” where the narrator mourns the loss of his beloved Lenore, a “rare and radiant maiden.” In total, Poe included a beautiful dead woman in seven of his poems and 11 of his short stories.

The monstrous-feminine and society’s fears

Poe’s beautiful dead women tap into the concept of the monstrous feminine (you knew I was going to say that, didn’t you?), embodying society’s subconscious fears about female beauty, sexuality, and close associations with life and death. To Poe and his male characters, these women represent the peak of beauty, as well as the horror of decay and death.

In many of his works, the death of a beautiful woman also symbolises the loss of hope and the inevitable decline into madness and despair for the male protagonists. These women exist primarily to enhance the tragic atmosphere and emotional depth of the stories, rather than as fully fleshed-out characters in their own right – something we’ll explore more in next week’s episode.

Poe’s fascination with beautiful dead women is a reflection of his own life experiences and the broader societal attitudes towards beauty, illness, and death. Although the ladies of Poe’s stories are never allowed to say much, they invite us to confront our deepest fears about the inevitable decay that awaits us all.

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