Sara Rheintgen

Shrieking shrills from young blondes, blustering birds burble, the murderer in the last frame watching you; women rising from the dead, doppelgangers lurking, screaming mad men with no knowledge of what to do: once one has watched a film by Alfred Hitchcock or read a story by Edgar Allan Poe one does not forget it.

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Although there are plenty of artists who instill terror and employ suspense, not all artists use similar techniques in engendering that terror and suspense. However, Hitchcock’s perspective is slightly different. Hitchcock describes suspense in the following manner: “The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it . . . The bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. . . The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: ‘You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb  . . . about to explode!’ . . . The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed.” In essence, Hitchcock’s definition addresses the mental uncertainty of a situation or the state of being doubtful. Like Poe, Hitchcock examines the mental uncertainty that not only the audience feels when experiencing the art, but also what the characters feel. In other words, in addition to suspense, Hitchcock and Poe use psychologically tormented characters to torment the audience. As Hitchcock stated himself, “Very likely [I read Poe] because I was so taken with the Poe stories that I later made suspense films . . . a completely unbelievable story you get the impression that the same thing could happen to you tomorrow” (“Imps of the Perverse: Discovering the Poe/Hitchcock Connection”).

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    Although some experts on Hitchcock and Poe, such as Denis Perry, believe that there is a connection between the two artists in mastering suspense, there has been a certain similarity that has gone unnoticed, and that is the gothic motifs that both artists employ (“Hitchcock and Poe: The Legacy of Delight and Terror”). This is an important distinction to make because gothic motifs are nearly the essence of both artists’ works, from Vertigo to “Fall of the House of Usher.” The examination of these two works--in addition to Rebecca and “William Wilson,” display suspense and gothic motifs, such as houses, powerful loves or romances, and death and decay.   

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    These gothic motifs come from Gothic Literature--a genre that emerged from the evilest, darkest form of Dark Romanticism; these Dark Romanticists claim that even good-hearted people can turn to sin. Therefore, a large component of both Dark Romanticism and Gothic Literature is sin, specifically the psychological torment of sin, the madness (“Dark Romanticism”). These gothic motifs (houses, powerful relationships, and death and decay) exemplify Gothic Literature and its roots to Romanticism (“Gothic Literature”). Specifically in accordance to Hitchcock, Florence Jacobowitz states: “In the gothic or Freudian melodrama, one expects a dreamscape, where meaning is concentrated and condensed through a meticulous use of gesture, detail, dramatic space and location, potent symbolization and a tone of latent hysteria.”  

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    Hitchcock’s first Hollywood film, Rebecca, was based on the book by Daphne du Maurier where a young lady in Monte Carlo is casted under the shadow of her new husband’s previous wife, Rebecca; and while the plot of “Fall of the House of Usher” is very different compared to Rebecca, Poe’s short story displays similar gothic motifs to Rebecca, particularly the gothic motif of houses (Stovall). In other words, the house in each story, as Gabriel Miller names, are “reflections of their inhabitants”; both houses in the stories not only are important physically in the stories, but also the houses showcase the minds of the dwellers. For example, in the “Fall of the House of Usher,” Roderick Usher, the inhabitant of the Usher home, writes a worrisome letter to his friend describing his mental instability. His unnamed companion, the narrator, describes to the audience his experience once traveling to the house of Usher to aid his friend. As the narrator, and thus the audience, learns more and more about the growing of the instability of Roderick, the house deteriorates more and more; by the end of the short story, the house collapses as does Roderick Usher. Thus, the house of Usher is drawn to the conclusion that the house mimics the mind of Roderick Usher, the “reflections of the inhabitants.” Rather, the “Fall of the House of Usher” is in reality the fall of the mind of Usher (“Imps of the Perverse: Discovering the Poe/Hitchcock Connection”).

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    Rebecca maintains the similar importance of the gothic motif, the house, to “Fall of the House of Usher” and maintains the similarity to this “reflection of the inhabitant” idea by Gabriel Miller because the De Winter’s mansion, Manderley, is draped and overcasted by Rebecca, as is the second wife of Mr. Maxim De Winter. There are portraits of Rebecca in every wing of the mansion, her office was exactly as it were the day she died, and an entire shed with all of its furniture literally drape to hide, to cover the impact that Rebecca has on Manderlery. While the second wife struggles to lead a life as the new wife, she finds herself quickly judged in comparison to Rebecca--craving a way to cast the shadow off of her. As the plot progresses and as Maxim aids his new wife to rid the shadow of Rebecca, the final scene of the film concludes with Manderley ablazed--destroying the shadow, the inhabitant, Rebecca.

    As some critics, such as Don Spotto, claim Vertigo is Hitchcock’s best film because there are important details in nearly every frame--as Hitchcock describes to Spoto: “I deliberately chose a hotel that had a vertical green sign outside. I wanted her to emerge from the bathroom as a ghost,” the film particularly observes gothic motifs--especially that of doppelgangers and the intimate love between them; this powerful relationship is of course similar to “William Wilson” because this short story by Poe describes a man followed by another make of himself, and an intimate bond between the doppelgangers is discovered. In other words, in Hitchcock’s Vertigo and Poe’s “William Wilson” the doppelgangers are actually a misconception that both beings are actually one. For example in Vertigo, Scottie Ferguson is asked if he could track down Galvin Elster’s wife, Madeleine, because she had been acting oddly. As Scottie studies her, Scottie falls in love with Madeleine. Unfortunately, Madeleine dies. Months later, Scottie runs into a young woman, named Judy, who looks exactly like Madeleine. He introduces himself, and tells her to dress like Madeleine. He makes her eventually become Madeleine all over again. The phrase “all over again” is because the original plot is a ploy of “Madeleine” and Galvin--or as Spoto names the phrase “an Elster-concocted fraud.” In reality, Galvin killed his actual wife, Madeleine Elster, and this Judy--Scottie and the audience came to know as Madeleine--is actually a struggling woman who acted like Madeleine so Galvin would not be charged with murder.  

This doppelganger effect--that was in reality not two identical, separate people but one--comments on the different sides people can become. In other words, as Floyd Stovall states on a similar situation in “William Wilson”: “the obsession [of the doppelganger] grows upon him so that at intervals afterward he imagines his namesake intervenes to prevent some dishonorable action. Eventually William Wilson imagines he kills his personified conscience and thereafter acts without restraint.” Judy does not kill her personified conscience but Scottie does by recreating the original death of Madeleine. In essence, this psychological mimic of the mind itself creates a much more suspenseful terror because of the absence of knowledge of reality (Spoto).

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    Now Hitchcock and Poe are both noted as writers of death and decay, and this is accurately so because most--if not all--of their stories involve this sentiment, particularly Rebecca, Vertigo, “Fall of the House of Usher,” and “William Wilson.” The knowledge of Rebecca’s death begins the decay of the relationship between Mr. De Winter and his second wife. As the second wife of Mr. Maxim De Winter learns more information about Rebecca, she soon realizes that Rebecca was glorified by the staff of the household, and she decides to replicate her. However, this time without knowledge of the replication, Mrs. Danvers (the housekeeper and head main of Rebecca) tricks the second wife into wearing the dress that Rebecca wore the night before her death. This emerges Mr. De Winter, and the relationship between his wife and him is badly damaged (Campbell and Mander). Thus, there is the relationship begins to decay.

There is a mental decay of Scottie in Vertigo, along with the decay of  the narrator in “William Wilson, and ”Roderick Usher in the “Fall of the House of Usher.” One argument that Stovall makes is that not only does Roderick decay but the narrator as well; Stovall says: “Roderick Usher is so sure of his identity with his twin sister that he will not believe that she can be dead while he himself still lives. The story [that the narrator reads in the end] induces in both Roderick and the narrator the hallucination of Madeleine’s escape from the tomb and appearance before them.” This decay instills “a mental uncertainty” or suspense of the progression of the character’s sanity, and even Donald Spoto finds the link between “Hitchcock’s theme of the dead’s influence over the living reminiscent of Poe” (“Imps of the Perverse: Discovering the Poe/Hitchcock Connection”).  Thus this suspense from death and decay terrifies the audience, rendering both Hitchcock and Poe similar masters of suspense (Stovall).

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    Although there a multitudes of ways to engender suspense as many writers and directors find, Alfred Hitchcock and Edgar Allan Poe exceptionally and continually display suspense using gothic motifs, such as houses, powerful loves or romances, and death and decay. As Hitchcock even says himself: “I cannot help but compare what I try to put in my films with what Poe put in his stories.” Reviewing Hitchcock’s films Rebecca and Vertigo in comparison to Poe’s short stories “Fall of the House of Usher” and “William Wilson” not only do these pieces of art generate terrifying suspense but also serve and entertain the audience with psychological delight.