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Dawson Sharp
Pritchard
English II
8 October 2015
The Dark People
There are many dark romantic novels with symbols, images, poetic language, and great
themes in Dark Romantics. The two short stories and poem I will be talking about are The
ambitious guest, The Celestial Railroad, and the poem Gettysburg.The subject of Dark
romanticism or form of writing is supposed to keep the reader on their edge and ready for
anything to happen. It does this by grabbing the readers attention and throwing something
unexpected at them. Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne are the authors of the works I
will be focusing on.
The poem Gettysburg written by Herman Melville is a story of honor and bravery, as
we learn the feelings of the soldiers that fought in the heroic battle. The imagery that Melville
uses in this poem puts us in the eyes of a soldier on the battlefield. He mentions the battlefield
looks as if it is a beach in front of the enemy line. The author gives us vivid images of the horror
that is going on but puts a bright side to honoring the soldiers. Dagon is an illusion, as well as an
image in the poem, that symbolizes a great god that has fallen and the last soldier charges with
his might, giving his last effort until death.

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The author of this poem (Melville) gives peace and serenity to the battlefield by bringing
out the beauty of the land that the soldiers have fought on. Melville also puts a metaphor in the
story when he compares the army to Dagon, which is a god, but in the text has fallen. Then army
gives their last effort against the opposing army. He gives honor to the fallen soldiers by saying
that angels had blessed the battlefield and they shall rest with peace and honor. Similarly, in the
celestial railroad (the name of the short story) Hawthorne puts the idea of optimism and more of
a fantasy mystical look on his short story. This brings mystery to the readers mind and keeps
them interested.
The common among the three stories would be the death of the characters at an
unexpected or expected time. In the Ambitious guest the characters lives are taken from them
when the reader doesnt expect it. The reader knew of the danger of the mountain and the threat
it caused but had no idea that it would end up a killer. Gettysburg takes a different
approach of telling the imagery of the death because of the fact that death in this story is much
more common due to the war that the soldiers are in. the celestial railroad does not talk much of
the death in its story, but does mention from the people of the past that have tried to take the
journey and have failed dying. This gives a common theme among the three stories that unite
them as dark romantics.
In all poems or short stories, there are symbols and items or characters in a story that
represent something bigger than itself. In the poem Gettysburg symbols roll out when he starts
to talk about his thoughts of the unlikely tranquility on the battlefield Before our lines it seemed
a beach, which wild September gales have strewn (lines 19-20). Melville mentions Dagon in
(lines 4-5) meaning a Greek god and it symbolizes one of the armies that fought at Gettysburg. In
the poem he has fallen and there is only a little left of what he had started. In the ambitious guest

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by Nathaniel Hawthorne, there are many imbedded symbols that are challenging to find
throughout the story. From what I found the house on the side of the mountain symbolizes
warmth and destination for the young traveler that comes to the house and asks to stay the night.
Another symbol found in this story is the cliff or rockslide that the house is settled by. This
scenario symbolizes the trust and reliance in nature, but it also symbolizes the irony of how the
serenity can change very quickly. In the Celestial Railroad, a symbol of renewal or a new
begging comes into mind when the narrator mentions that the main character Christian will be
traveling from the city of destruction to the celestial city. The pilgrims did the same journey in
the past that Christian will be taking. Like a journey to relief and goodness, the boy learns and is
troubled with things along the way.
The vivid images and great imagery in a short story or poem is what sets them apart from
a regular old book with context and boring explanations of something in that story. In
Gettysburg Melville mentions the sounds of the artillery and he says that it sounds like taunts
and yells (lines 13-14). The site of the battle is nothing other than a peaceful beach in front of
their lines as he mentions in line 19. The Ambitious Guest puts me in a feeling of snow and
quietness in the woods of New England next to a side of a mountain for some reason. I think this
is a sign that Hawthorne used good imagery in his story.
The theme of the three stories is different as any stories would be if you were to read and
compare them. The ambitious guest has a warmth and welcoming theme bringing the reader
closer to the characters and what they are feeling in the story. Different from the Ambitious
Guest Gettysburg brings more real life situations, and it gets down to reality. The theme that
gets into the readers mind as he or she reviews the poem is a heroic one, thinking about the

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soldiers on the battlefield. In my opinion, The Celestial Railroad puts the reader in a mysterious
state of mind and provokes curiosity about what is going on.
The dark romantic subject in literature can give the reader an inside look at what goes on
in the mind of some of these writers that write these stories. Nathaniel Hawthorne, Poe, and
Melville are some of the three best writers of this kind. Dark Romantics produced many great
short stories and poems that impress readers to this day.

http://americanliterature.com/author/nathaniel-hawthorne/bio-books-stories
http://www.readbookonline.net/stories/hawthorne/12/
http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/123/
http://www.poemhunter.com/herman-melville/