Final Project Decision: Poe, Woolf, and, uh, Sex??

Hi, this post is to fill you in on what the next few posts are going to focus on. There are less than six posts left of this semester--wild to me that we've come so far already. I feel like this course just started that has now given me a new sense of adoration for writing blog posts as a notebook of my random thoughts and ideas.

Regardless, I want to challenge myself on my final essay in the course. I will write one more essay using my archival research and making it focus on sex--but then I will also finish off with my first paper and my last few papers--what's up with the abuse situation for Poe and Woolf--and how does sex have anything to do with it?

The answer is simply, really, to me--and that's why I think the final essay will be important. I think there's a real issue in the idea that one, we see Woolf as being abused and no one really questions that and I think it's because she's a woman. I also think that sex prejudice was involved in the entirety of the situation of Woolf being sexually abused for many years by her half brother.

I also think that sex prejudice is why Poe had issues in his childhood--being held to the standards of being a man in society and that the idea that men can be abused seems to be such a foreign concept.

I think these are two major reasons we have two major gothic writers who have similar writing styles (writing after abuse) and it almost unites the two in an odd way--although they were about 50+ years apart in writing/living.

I also think we see a sex issue on the fact that Woolf was declared "insane" or "schizophrenic" in more modern (90's) outlooks on Woolf's behavior and writing. I think there is less concern on what makes a woman freak out the way Woolf did and just focus in on how she acted.

This is usually a common theme among mental health crises in women generally, even today.

I think that's also what made Poe's life harder was just this idea that he needed a father-figure's approval and could not obtain it--therefore he chose to become a "menace" in society. A lot of his writings were to piss off publishers, abstract the norm, and also just go against the grain. Poe purposefully used larger words just because some publishers told him it would make his writing worse. I learned that in high school, so I have no idea where to cite that source.

I also think that Poe probably couldn't talk about his trauma with anyone because, well, men weren't believed that they could do such a thing. They had to be strong. Then Poe underwent a series of traumatic incidents, all similar to one another, and I think he just broke and that's why we have a "mysterious" death of Poe. He just succumbed to his unapproached trauma and no one really helped him. He couldn't ask for help because it wasn't appropriate for men.

I want to talk about this in a paper. There's issues with Poe marrying a cousin--that brings up the idea of sex as an act. There's issues with Woolf's writing that regards sexual orientation and identity as well. I feel as though I can make a fairly well-rounded paper based on the two pieces I've written.

The next few posts will either be my brainstorming about it like this one was or there will be excerpts from the essay.