A Study of the Liberation of Physical Space in Edgar Allan Poe’s Novels

Abstract

In Edgar Allan Poe’s novels, deaths often occur at night, in narrow stairwells, and in dark, confined basements, hidden within the thickness of walls or beneath the ruins of collapsed buildings. By integrating Henry Lefebvre’s theories of social space and physical space with the plot of Poe’s stories, this paper conducts a textual analysis to interpret the author’s intentions in choosing specific social spaces. In Poe’s novels, the murderer’s use of space to commit murder and conceal the truth of death is a manifestation of the individual’s struggle for power within the society they inhabit and the deprivation of others’ power, reflecting the alienation of human nature. To counter such alienation, Poe regards the individual body as the subject of social space production in his novels. By focusing on the depiction of “resurrection from the dead” and other magical and romantic elements, and by emphasizing the liberation of bodily sensations—particularly the medium of sound—to reveal the truth of death, it is argued that Poe’s novels demonstrate the purpose of bodily resistance to the alienation of human nature through the liberation of physical space.