“Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance”: The Haunting “Indians” in Edgar Allan Poe’s “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains”

WEN Yiwen

Hunan Normal University

Page 044-058

Abstract: Given its direct borrowings from and intertextual relations to other similar texts, “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains” has often been accused of flagrant plagiarism or lack of originality. Such a simple assertion ignores not only Poe’s deviation from these sources but also his rationale for such initiatives. While duly recognizing Poe’s indebtedness to his predecessors and contemporaries, this paper proposes to examine Poe’s literary re-creation and parody by concentrating on his subtle treatment of these borrowed texts, and in so doing, look also at his subversive approach to colonialist discourses. It suggests that in recounting Bedloe’s encounters with “Indians” in America and Asia, the tale actually creates a world of doubles to connect the present with the past, the imperial with the exotic, and the self with the other. In this regard, Dr. Templeton’s mesmeric treatment of Bedloe is both a reenactment and purgation of haunting colonial memories. The so-called medical accident at the end of the tale, therefore, registers Poe’s reflection on and warning against the imperial mindset.

Keywords: Edgar Allan Poe, “A Tale of the Ragged Mountains,” “Indians,” double, colonialism

DOI: 10.53397/hunnu.jflc.202502004

• 下载此 PDF 文件