In Poe’s tales, “MS Found in a Bottle” and “A Descent into the Maelstrom” the role and power of nature is greatly underestimated, even though throughout each story it is the signal for potent supernatural events that occur in lives of each narrator. Many aspects of the natural world in these two stories by Poe are shown in their greatest extreme in terms of intensity and thus serve as markers for a journey into a world that is at once within nature but bordering on the supernatural. Common elements of the natural world such as water, wind, and the sun are taken to new levels and serve as symbolic rather than everyday elements and their concentrated manifestations designate a break from a more earthly understanding of nature as something passively present to a force that is more powerful than it is often given credit for. Furthermore, instead of being reliant on a firm understanding of nature and her power, the speaker in both stories by Edgar Allan Poe, “Maelstrom” and “MS Found in a Bottle” attempts to use reason and science to prepare for a journey and this proves to be quite a mistake as both encounter natural forces that surround supernatural (or almost so) events.  The end result of these aspects of the two similar stories is that a firm hold on principles of science and reason are traded in for a renewed understanding of the powerful role of nature and its alliance with the world of the supernatural.

One scholar notes that, “What at first seems science’s triumph may well be its defeat. At the very least, Poe shows that scientific reasoning is not always a reliable guide. The broken watch [“Maelstrom”] that causes the men to get caught in the maelstrom in the first place is an apt symbol of the unreliability of technology” (Ware 77). Although the narrators in both stories by Edgar Allan Poe try to establish their own credibility, their sentiments about reason, science, or experience are all useless in the face of an almost divine manifestation of nature and thus what happens to them is all the more mind-boggling, both for themselves and their readers. For instance, at the beginning of “MS Found in a Bottle” our narrator attempts to tell us about his past and education to make himself seem as though he is sensible and reasonable. In one of the more important quotes from “A Descent into the Maelstrom” he tells us that, “Upon the whole, no person could be less liable than myself to be led away from the severe precincts of truth by the ignes fatui of superstition” (MS). Even still, he is swept away by natural forces that propel him into the world of supernatural and thus further away from science, which by this point seems completely inadequate and even quaint. The narrator in “A Descent into the Maelstrom” feels much the same frustration at the end when he laments that no one believes his story, but in many ways he is more open to his supernatural experience within the realm of a harsh natural world when it is stated, “The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways: nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness or His works, which a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus” (Maelstrom). Each narrator grapples with the larger events that occur within the texts, not only because of the actual supernatural events that occur, but because the forces of nature that occur so strongly around them are unlike anything reason can explain. As a result of the powerful role of nature in each of these short tales, the basis of an existence reliant on the rules of reason is no longer applicable and nature itself must stand in as the only signal an even explanation for the strange events that occur.

In these two stories by Poe, there is a crossover effect between the world of the natural and that of the supernatural. Common elements of nature take on a new significance for both the reader and the narrator because they are cast into a new light through descriptions that surpass the ordinary. Representations of the moon as both a natural and supernatural symbol are prominent in each story and as one critic states, it is “under the influence of the moon, one is allowed (or perhaps, condemned) to explore one’s own psychic depths” (Clifton 217). This observation about the moon acting as a signifier for supernatural events to come as well as a symbol for one’s new ability to open up a psychic connection with the world around him is present in both stories. For example, in “MS Found in a Bottle” by Edgar Allan Poe,  the narrator’s awareness that his understanding of reason within nature is leaving coincides with his vivid realization of a slightly abnormal and more luminescent moon. At the first sign of the approach of the supernatural, one of the first things the narrator notices about the natural world is the “dusky red appearance of the moon” (MS). The fact that it is red should signify not only something out of the ordinary, but also the danger which is about to befall him. The moon plays a large role in “A Descent into the Maelstrom” by Poe as well for the same reasons Clifton suggests. For instance, the narrator’s sight of the moon allows clarity and an unnatural bright light with which to view with sudden awareness the complexity of the events surrounding him.

At one point, when the storm seems to subside it is stated in one of the important quotes from “A Descent into the Maelstrom” by Edgar Allan Poe, “there blazed forth the full moon with a luster I never before knew her to wear. She lit up everything about us with the greatest distinctness—but, oh God, what a scene it was to light up” (Maelstrom). Again, just as Clifton suggests, this sudden clarity provided by the eerie light of the moon allows for a deep realization of the depth of the supernatural events that have just occurred. This is even more clearly stated near the end of the story when the narrator states that “The rays of the moon seemed to search the very bottom of the profound gulf” (Maelstrom). These moon rays are, metaphorically and symbolically speaking, the tentacles of understanding the narrator stretches forth to “see” what is occurring, both in terms of actual sight and of spiritual sight as well. Through the light of the moon, which is described in terms that are far from ordinary (“gleaming and ghastly radiance” … “in a flood of golden glory”) the narrator can fully grasp the psychic and spiritual force of nature that no longer can be connected to mortal understandings based in reason, rationality, or science. It is even more significant that at the end of the tale, when the narrator has had this spiritual and supernatural experience in the natural world, he states, “The sky was clear, the winds has gone down, and the full moon was setting radiantly in the west” (Maelstrom). At this point, the moon and other elements of the natural world such as the sky and the wind are returned to normal, signifying that the time for the supernatural has passed and nature is no longer revealing her secrets.

While according to Clifton’s view the moon serves as a signifier for supernatural to come or that are occurring, the whirlpools in both stories are the supernatural events themselves. Although the event of a whirlpool itself is certainly founded in nature and occurs rather frequently, in both of these tales there is little about the event that seems natural, partly because of the other natural signs of something different and slightly unnatural and also because of each narrator’s descriptions of the whirlpools. For example, in “A Descent into the Maelstrom” the whirlpool with its many brilliant natural phenomena such as the rainbow and the sudden moonlit moments of clarity has been transformed into a spiritual and transforming event. The narrator at first discusses common weather and fishing patterns but while in the midst of the storm and his subsequent coming to terms with God within nature, the whirlpool represents his rebirth. He comes out of this vast swirling water renewed and literally baptized, thus the natural and supernatural worlds are shown to interact. In “MS Found in a Bottle” the narrator also begins to realize the importance of the whirlpool as a passage to new worlds and modes of existence. In his own he is also baptized as he was at first, “struck with the idea of our being among breakers; so terrific, beyond the wildest imagination, was the whirlpool of mountains and foaming ocean within which we were engulfed” (MS). This whirlpool is somewhere in the realm of not the nautical and scientific world of weather and marine phenomenon, but instead belongs to the world of “wild imagination” and thus spiritual recognition. By the end, instead of trying to escape with his life, the once scientific and rational narrator allows himself to be carried along as he tells the reader, “we are plunging madly within the grasp of the whirlpool—and amid a roaring, and bellowing, and thundering of ocean and of tempest, the ship is quivering” (MS). The power of this whirlpool is out of the ordinary and it is clear that it is the supernatural event—not just because of its might and vastness but because of its baptizing and spiritual effect.

Each of these stories by Poe begins with a narrator who seems to be clearly rooted in the world of reason and rationality. They are each conducting some sort of business that puts them out at sea and thus exposes them to the elements of chance that are part of seafaring. It seems as though these could both be tales about an adventurous time at sea if not for the supernatural aspects which are signaled by a vivid realization of the natural world through such symbols as the moon, the wind, and the behavior of the sea. After each narrator recognizes the potency of these things in the natural world, his journey toward spiritual or supernatural realization begins. The world of reason and science that might have suited either of these men is as useless and meaningless as the stopped watch the narrator in “A Descent into the Maelstrom” carries and thus after being disarmed of these “human” barriers to understanding, each narrator can be allowed to witness the whirlpool and become, in essence, baptized by it.  In sum, the role of nature in each of these stories is enhanced through vivid descriptions and through such narrative tactics, the reader can see the supernatural aspects to the everyday natural world and predict the arrival of the supernatural through them.

Other essays and articles in the Literature Archives related to this topic include : Gothic Qualities in the Works of Poe  •Language and Suspense in The Cask of Amontillado by Poe

Sources

Clifton, Michael. “Down Hecate’s Chain: Infernal Inspiration in Three of Poe’s Tales.” Nineteenth-Century Literature 41.2 (1986): 217.

Ware, Tracy. “‘A Descent into the Maelström’: The Status of Scientific Rhetoric in a Perverse Romance.”Studies in Short Fiction 29.1 (1992): 77.