The Holocaust

By Andrew Aaron

Well, a great deal has been said here tonight. Some true, some false, some plainly wrong. If there is a topic that is ambiguous, unwieldy, far-reaching and filled with awe, it is the Holocaust. However as shot through with all the above as the Holocaust is, some truth can be found. Amazingly, the comments dovetail with each other, but two really stand alone.

The history of Germany and Judaism is not a particularly positive one. Whether it was in the German inquisition or the later polemics of Martin Luther or the outbreaks of anti-Semitism during World War I, there never has been an easy relationship between the two. Yet, Jews lived in Germany and even prospered there. The anti-Semitism in Germany was not much different, in either degree or kind, from that of the rest of Europe. Pogroms were less frequent than in Eastern Europe and powerful Jews as numerous as those in England. Germany was a culturally advanced society with mixed attitudes toward Jews, not much different from other countries of the time. So where did the viciousness emerge from?

Certainly, Hitler saw a world free of Jews. He was a deep anti-Semite who attracted others like him. However, given Germany’s present-day problem with Turks, one can only assume that there may be a quirk in the culture that needs to vilify the other (like so many other cultures) but also need to act on this vilification. This quirk may manifest itself in some of the people who carried out the brutal acts of the Holocaust, others may simply have been caught up in the fervor of the moment, that bizarre sense of community that Nazism inspired. It may be that many Germans saw a Europe free of Jews or just a town free of Jews. Violence is a whirlwind that often becomes a vast choreography that many cannot dance away from. Nonetheless, the Germans (and others) killed many Jews, but not all; the plan did not succeed.

The plan did not succeed but the Holocaust happened. Or did it? Is it possible that all the photos, artwork, secret essays and diaries, all the poetry are mere exaggerations, lies even? Can it be that the reports from Patton, who would not enter, and Eisenhower, who did, so he could say "I saw all this,” are mistaken, misrepresenting the truth, overdrawing the situation? Perhaps he and others are part of some sinister conspiracy. Perhaps it involves the Russians or the Allies or the Zionists in an attempt to take power from someone else. Perhaps? But what if it is true. It certainly is easier to believe that the suffering was far less, the horror minimized and rendered just a part of war, of life in POW camps, internment sites, relocation centers. These are so easy on the tongue, so smooth. Only, if it is true what do we do with all of our new questions: What about this incredible case of inhumanity to man? What to do with the loss of faith in man, in God? Where do we put the deep unease caused by the realization that progress and science were inseparable from the breadth and skillfulness of the act? Where does the fact that Germany was civilized, cultured and capable of the most murderous rampage lead one? What to do? What to do? Of course it is easier to deny, to downgrade the spectacle of the Holocaust but in the end is still there, calling into question all that we believe of ourselves and the whole of modernity. It is better to let such "revisionist" questions go and face the repugnance and explore the camps.

The camps existed, the holocaust happened. How could so many be oppressed by so few? How did they allow themselves to go “like lambs to the slaughter?” Many did not go at all. Many fled as far and wide as they could away from Nazism. Many hid for years and came out only reluctantly when they were sure the night was over. Some went to Israel and became the forebears of those who would later (ironically) call them weak. Many became fighters, resisters, and leaders of the people. These orchestrated the uprisings (or quelled them), led the secret armies of the sewers, and gave solace and comfort when they could. For many, it was these who delayed the end and gave time to escape.

Historically, the Jews of Europe knew about pogroms, knew about deportation. Who knew about genocide? By the time the unbelievable truth was out; many were dead, ill, or "gone" inside. For those left, it took time to get one's bearings. It took time to organize oneself according to the rules and terrain of hell. When the ovens were blown up at Sobibor, when black markets were run effectively from inside the camps, when information was passed out, all of these and more were the most profound of resistances. To blame the victim is almost always wrong, to not give credit to the victims for surviving (even a short time) is always wrong.

And many did survive. A miracle of will, luck, mazel, placing, fate. The Nazis did everything in their power to make camp living as horrible, as insulting, as foul as possible. It was hell, literally. Flames, smoke, unendurable, unending pain, weariness, illness, and filth were all in abundance in the camps, gleefully provided by the Germans. Dignity was taken by force, pride broken, men and women left naked to the world of the camps.

Each person was tagged like meat, all were dressed the same, so that their executioners could kill the same hated individual over and over The prisoners were expected to respond like animals, reduced passed caring to pure barbarism. Did it work? To some. They became debauched vacant, people whose souls had fled their bodies. They were musselmanns, animated skeletons.

Not all became like the musselmann, however. Dignity was found in the oddest places. Weak pseudo-coffee was used as a mouthwash. Any opportunity to wash or even sprinkle water on the skin was taken. Clothing was patched and "warmed-up.” Any act that gave proof of humanity, of taking interest in life was an act of survival, an act of hope. The Germans wanted animals, those who did these acts threw the words back onto their captors.

These acts saved lives. Inmates working together with other inmates to survive the fated that had seemingly caught them saved lives. Fate is a big word. Coincidence when it is traced back far enough becomes inevitable, and fate always plays a role. Men and women who knew how to work in groups lived. Men and women who knew how to delegate and be delegated to lived. Those who could cooperate lived. Businessmen, competitive and wary, tended not to make it. Aristocrats (as such) tended not to make it.

Daring, timing, watching, saved lives. The ability to learn enough German to understand the guards, saved lives.

Above all, cooperation saved lives. Nothing was easy in the camps. All things were geared to savagery, to the reduction of the individual to the state of the beast. So the fact that a rough form of ethics came into being, is amazing. This was an ethic of sharing what could be shared. It was an ethic of helping almost without thinking or knowing why. It was an ethic that demanded silence and punishment for traitors. One was never to steal a man's bread, but when possible, one was to share a crumb, a pinch of salt, a piece of string. It was an ethic that was group-driven and individually centered. A man could be killed by a guard that just came on duty—fate in action But a man who was tipped off that Guard A likes vodka or cigarettes or chocolate; that he is sober at 6 but not so after 8; that meat is available in the storeroom after 8:30, this was how fate was circumvented, this was how the camps were survived.

Hell is lived through, and the survivors blink in the strong sun brought by the allies. Most of the Europe they knew is gone as are most of their families. Long waits in displaced person camps and new homes far away become the lot of many of them. The depression is over, the war won. Go on, be free. Soon there is even an Israel to go to and enjoy. Hell is not a place only, it is a mindset. It becomes a part of you, a cold region few understand. Many of the survivors went onto new lives, new families.

Many did not. How does one let go of so much pain? We know how long the grieving may last when one loses a loved one to old age.  We grieve the loss of a job, a house, a friend. How does one grieve the loss of a town, a city, a people?

It may be asked, “Why should they let go of their experience? Why let go of such a powerful truth?” Unquestionably, many do let go. Or perhaps the pain is put aside, pushed down. “Never again” are only words unless we know what follows after “again.” If for no other reason, by not “getting over it,” survivors make us all wrestle with our past and our present and our future. "Look (they say), look how close the beast is to the surface. I have seen it, lived with it. I know it." We need such witnesses; need them to point out the truth to us. I do not know how many survivors do not get over "it". That they do not wail in the streets (as perhaps they should) is something.  There are no normal lives to live, but there are extraordinary lives to share.

God

By Andrew Aaron

There is an almost overpowering feeling that one gets merely from stating that "God is dead." This feeling is more than just one of "overpowerfulness,” or empowerment, it is also more than a feeling of being overpowered. Somehow, the feeling is a combination of all these feelings at once in a kind of whirlwind of ideas and emotions. When Nietzsche writes these words for the first time, a shudder must run through Europe, creating a rupture that remains to this day.

For thousands, if not millions of years, humanity has looked outside itself, beyond itself to find the "answer". Entire cultures are founded on, fueled by, churned by, and sometimes overthrown by the notion that there is somewhere else a way and a power. European history has been dominated by this notion. Whether it is the divine rights of kings that allowed for the most drastic and horrendous kinds of abuses or the taking (and losing) of property and treasure and population (almost always the last consideration), the power of the word "God" has given power of a different kind to many believers and nonbelievers alike.

The Vikings and the Norsemen, ancestors of both Heidegger and Nietzsche, had dark gods that were wrathful, wild, and lovers of battle. Other Europeans had gods of love and compassion (gentle Jesus) or stern and unforgiving (the Father of the Inquisition). Yet, in the end, the results were much the same. Wars of religion, like the Crusades, were engaged in by all sides. Wars of plunder, imperial wars, were engaged in by all. Wars of persecution and wars of hate were engaged in by all. The "answer(s)" always was pushing the combatants onward to greater gory glory.

On the other hand, art, poetry, and science flourished as well at times. The Norse (and their relatives) created the Eddas and the oldest piece of literature in Northern Europe, the saga of Beowulf. Monks preserved the wisdom of Greece and Rome in manuscripts that still are marvels for beauty and craftsmanship of penwork and drawing. The crusades made connections between the Islamic world and Christendom. Both sides benefited from trading of foods and technical knowledge. The "answer(s)" drove men (and some few women) on to discover as much of God's world as possible.

God's world and God's word. These are the common threads that run through both the good and the bad, the order and chaos of Western history. Whether one believed in a Calvinist manner or venerated the Ikons of Eastern Orthodoxy, whether the Pope was one's guide or one looked to the Archbishop of Canterbury, it didn't really matter. The answer was outside of man, separate from man, beyond man save by the intercession of intermediaries like Jesus and his saints and martyrs (or Moses and legions of rabbis and Talmudists or Mohammed and imams and scholars, to be fair). One could gain insight into the world only by leaving off looking at the ground and gazing into the heavens. It is not odd that both Nietzsche and Heidegger dislike Socrates. After all, it was Socrates who taught that men of understanding could by discernment see the signs in heaven for themselves and know to act accordingly. The common thread, the thing that ties so many centuries of European history together is this other-centered universe, this mindset that is directed outward away from the world to the supernatural world, the world beyond.

Yet the slow movement1 from gazing at earth to gazing inside does not occur all at once. Man moves from the earth-centered universe to that of a sun-centered one. This does two things at once, humanity is free now to move beyond either Aristotelian science or church dominated intellectual striving, but it also means that man is no longer the center of the universe, a problem that will come up more for Heidegger and the Existentialists than for Nietzsche. Over the centuries, man will be freed from certain moorings that seemed strong and sure. Humanity loosens and loosens again the ties that bind philosophy and science and art as well to dogma and belief. Through it all, though, no one stands up and says, "God is dead" the way that Nietzsche does. Thomas Jefferson is a "deist." Marx, while having little truck with traditional religion, has his own invisible Gods, who look not unlike the Gods of Adam Smith. The hidden is still lurking about, waiting to guide humanity if it wishes. What to do, what to do?

What can one do but come crashing into the marketplace and announce that "God is dead" to all those standing around jabbering and yammering away. With a prescience that is almost eerie, Nietzsche has the madman do the work of shouldering this enormous burden, these brazen shouting of a new truth. I spoke of power, the power of this new phrase, this new thought. The madman sees this, knows that the world is not ready for his truth. The question is whether Heidegger is ready and are we ready for this madman's truth. The further questions are whether we can truly grasp what Nietzsche is really saying, what he means by having a madman deliver his lines,

For Nietzsche, the death of God is both a freeing, optimistic thing, but also a dark omen of a change in the world and the way that world is seen. Heidegger in his essay touches on both these seemingly contradictory themes.  It is important to tease both out and then try to come back to Heidegger's final point about philosophy and its supposed end.

Early on, Heidegger refers to "We Fearless Ones.” He specifically refers to the piece that begins "The greatest recent event--that 'God is dead,' that the belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable--is already beginning to cast its first shadows over Europe." This comes from a section called "The meaning of our cheerfulness," from “The Gay Science.” I do not think that Nietzsche is being ironic or sarcastic when he uses this word "cheerfulness.” I think that Nietzsche sees the revaluing of all values as a good thing. It is the throwing off of the veil, the beginning of seeing that which is truly there. In this sense, man freed of the limiting suprasensory world view, is now allowed to seek out from inside himself, from his being that truth which comes from this world without reference to some other world beyond. As Heidegger writes:

“The pronouncement "God is dead" means: The suprasensory world is without effective power. It bestows no life. Metaphysics, i.e, for Nietzsche Western philosophy understood as Platonism, is at an end.”

This does not mean nothing can bestow life. It means that although religion often speaks of "the world being impossible without God, man is nothing without God. etc.," such equations were never valid to start with. This is why Heidegger makes a point of saying that Nietzsche is no atheist. The men in the marketplace who do not believe in God are not the audience for the madman. Because they are atheists in that they no longer believe in God and no longer know how to look for God. They are without thought, for them God has become a mere concept, a repository for old ideas and beliefs, an excuse in a way for how to see the world. Hence, the optimism of the concept "God is dead". The person who can say this, who can free him or herself from a belief that never was valid to start with is now free to start to look for beliefs and concepts that are valid. The void yawns, Nihilism opens its mouth, and the man for whom "God is dead" can laugh aloud at Nihilism and really begin to think as opposed to merely reason.

That is the optimistic view. It is with the darker view, that Heidegger really begins to locate and then go beyond the mere surface of the phrase, "God is dead". If "God" the concept and all the concepts that go along with this overarching one are gone, then what? Where does man then go for answers?

Metaphysics as Nietzsche and the West understands the term, is at an end. It can no longer cast light on anything. In fact, as Heidegger develops his theme, metaphysics has never really cast light on anything at all.2 It is the love of rational, platonic thought that has most blinded men to truth. Truth, however, being a somewhat shady character, truth as the West has understood it, is shortsighted and may be wrong to be looked for in the first place. The darker view that runs through the "God is dead" theme is not just that the West's search for truth is misguided nor is it nearly the existentialist crisis I have just described.

Beyond this, the darker view is that Western metaphysics has trapped humanity, has kept humanity from achieving all that humanity can achieve. Whether it is because of the scientistic way of philosophizing, Baconsim, or because it has led to mistaken ideas such as the reactive method of Western retribution and justice, metaphysics has been a continuous vehicle for nihilism. This nihilism is the life denying life-destroying disease that the West has carried, bred, and is finally dying. 

Where Nietzsche is anti-metaphysics and seemingly develops something against it through his new take on philosophy and religion, Heidegger goes beyond metaphysics completely. In effect as the essay develops, Heidegger makes an extraordinary case that Nietzsche is just playing a new game but under metaphysics’ old rules. Heidegger points out this paradox, himself, in the one of the more important passages in the essay:

“Nevertheless, as a mere countermovement it necessarily remains, as does everything "anti," held fast in the essence of that over against which it moves. Nietzsche's countermovement against metaphysics is, as the mere turning upside down of metaphysics, an inextricable entanglement in metaphysics, in such a way, indeed, that metaphysics is cut off from its essence and, as metaphysics, is never able to think its own essence. Therefore, what actually happens in metaphysics and as metaphysics itself remains hidden by metaphysics and for metaphysics.”

So even with Nietzsche's insights, we still have not traveled as far we thought. At best, Nietzsche provides a window, albeit large and dramatic, into where the West has gone wrong philosophically, but perhaps he does.

For Nietzsche, the death of god is both a freeing, optimistic thing but also a dark omen of a change in the world and the way that world is seen. Heidegger in his essay touches on both these seemingly contradictory themes. It is important to tease both out and then try to come back to Heidegger's final point about philosophy and its supposed end.

I ask this question because Heidegger seems to be without hope, where Nietzsche seems full of hope. I locate this hope in Nietzsche's quest to describe, in effect to bring about the Overman. This Overman will transcend our old dichotomies, our old foolish pride and our prideful shame. The madman is not this Overman, I do believe. The madman is the forerunner, a kind of prophet, but a wholly different magnitude and kind than the old Biblical prophets. The fact that Nietzsche creates the character of the madman fact that while he subjects this character that he cares for to the jeers of the marketplace and yet doesn't allow him to fall into self-pity or Jonah-like self- exile, is a sign that Nietzsche believes that the future is yet to be made. This seems to be the definition of hope to me. Yet, to Heidegger this does not seem.

Is the “end of philosophy” of Heidegger a sign of giving up? Heidegger ends by somewhat quietly asking if we will wake up to what nihilism has done to us, wake up to what we need to understand the world as it is now and what will be in the future. I say quietly because it comes so quickly at the end of the essay and so belatedly, as it were. It follows on so much of "the wrong" and how we got here.

Being is constantly losing in the quest to become known, constantly submerged under the weight of false-Being. How do we stop this process? In other places, Heidegger embraces a kind of listening silence that may yield new answers. It is almost as if after so much reasoning, so much rational thinking, talking, and more talking, that Heidegger wants the West to be quiet for a moment. I am tempted to say that literally, Heidegger is asking for silence for God's sake. Maybe he is doing just that in fact.

The whole point behind the "end of philosophy” is that our kind of philosophy (although Heidegger may mean all philosophy) is no longer capable of doing any of the things that it was meant to do. It can no longer free us from the marketplace. It is no match for technology. It has sold out to both and been dealt with poorly in the transaction. Liberal humanism, Marxism and fascism all are dead ends of one kind or another. The end of philosophy is really shorthand for saying "Western metaphysics, which is really metaphysics, is finished as a place to find solutions to problems. Man is alone in a cold universe and philosophy can not warm humanity any further." If "God is dead," then heaven, hell, ideal forms, platonic signs, "natural" law, inalienable rights, all the touchstones of Western thought no longer function. More, they no longer even exist; they have been effectively erased for all time. Nausea, in Sartre's meaning, becomes the normal state of man and he must deal with its symptoms all by himself.

I do not know if Heidegger is right or not. It may be that such a question is invalid at this point in history. However, I am certain that the madman is right when he says "I come too early ... my time has not come yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering-it has not reached the ears of man."

I look around and see that the supersensory world still exists in all its forms. Religious fundamentalism sweeps the globe with talk of millennial (and other forms of) redemption. Men everyday speak in glowing terms about the market as if it was some force beyond human control or creation. The world is filled with vast and secret conspiracies that are unseen and super potent. Books, movies, and television preach that he world that you know is not the real world, there is another, true world underneath the surface. How far are we, in short, from the ancient beliefs in old Demiurges in malicious Gods and demons who use us for their sport? How far are we from the idea that this entire world is but a reflection of the true world above, soon to become visible? Heidegger goes beyond Nietzsche. I do not think we are ready to move quite yet.

·        * *

11)  I do not use the word progression, although this may be so, given both Heidegger’s downward ladder of philosophy and the postmodern trend to dislike “progression” because of what it entails.

22) There are contradictions in this, I know. However problematic as these may be, I just don’t have the background to develop them. Suffice it to say, Nietzsche and Heidegger are not self-created men. They come out of this tradition, raised on Western thought and now pulling the roof on everybody inside. Rorty refers to this.

Edgar Allen Poe

By Andrew Aaron

"Unity of effect was what he strove after in his stories, and he stressed the importance of craftsmanship in the construction of a story no less than Hoffman. But, unlike the German writer, there is nothing whimsical in his work, no different levels of intensity, no trace of romantic irony."1

This is the commonly accepted view of Poe's work. He is a dark, brooding writer, who takes the reader on fearsome journeys that almost invariably end in gruesome circumstances (for the narrator at least). The photographs that we have the writer do not help matters. The lank hair, the heavy bags under the eyes, the somber mouth, the wide forehead all lead one to conclude that this is no dashing dandy of the writing life. The biography put together by Rufus W. Griswold made Poe into a monster of excess, with few if any redeeming qualities. It is perhaps ironic that the writer who so feared forced entombment, had his reputation buried for many years under a hateful biography, that reputation being resurrected well after its owner was long gone.

Yet, Poe was not a happy man, the biography was not wrong on all accounts. He did drink. He did not always make the best use of himself. In short, he was human. Unfortunately, between the accepted view of the man, the success of his tales of terror, and the occasionally difficult writing style have all combined to make the quotation from above all too frequently accurate in the minds of readers.

As to the notions (from the quotation above) that there are "no different levels of intensity, no trace of romantic irony," well this seems to be simply wrong. Poe would be a very boring writer if he did not change the level of his writing voice.

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is clearly a serious story as it details the explanation of the two violent deaths of the mother and daughter, Esplanade. Yet, early on in the story, there is an example given by the narrator as to Duping’s mental acuity, in a somewhat wry, somewhat smile-invoking manner. The phrase "he is a little fellow" is not without its comic overtones. Poe loves language. He loves the way words and feelings go together. If this is not the case, how to explain the third paragraph, from "Thou Art the Man" that begins on page 728 and concludes on page 729. This paragraph is nothing more than a meditation on the name Charley Goodfellow. It is somewhat sarcastic and somewhat caustic, and a little witty. Everywhere in this story, Poe slyly plays with the reader.

If Poe wishes to make the reader ponder on the merits or demerits of Mr. Goodfellow, he does not write that Mr. Goodfellow was a bad man or a user but rather states some little observation and follows it with a corollary: "for 'Old Charley' never let a day pass without stepping in three or four times to see how his neighbor came on, and very often he would stay to breakfast or tea, and almost always to dinner;" (pg. 729). The reader has already been informed that the neighbor never steps over the other way, so that by slyly constructing the sentence so, Poe wittily gives us an insight into "old Charley's" makeup. Poe will do this throughout the story. At every instance, Poe's narrator will by careful modulation of his voice use sarcasm to reveal old Charley's character. Charley will speak and unaccountably the opposite of his entreaties will happen. He will act and his action's go unaccountably awry but always Poe is making the reader wonder if this is truly the case. Finally, Poe will in this story, give us fine examples of his delight in rhyming, in playful onomatopoeia as in the wine merchants that deliver Chateau-Margeau to old Charley: Hoggs, Froggs, Boggs, & Co.

Rhyming and sarcasm are not the only tools of Poe. He has a vast store of philosophical knowledge, it is only reasonable to think that occasionally he uses this to poke fun at himself and other "philosophes.” "Bon-Bon" is just such a story. Poe begins the story with his usual bit of quotation, in this case from French vaudeville. It is a quote on wine's power to make one think oneself wise than one truly maybe. It prefigures the whole story. Bon-Bon is a cook and a philosopher. He is a restaurateur who stores books in frying pans and treatises in mixing bowls. He is also "barely three feet in height" and very round. Between his dress and his physical attributes, he looks to me like a Christmas tree ornament, multi- colored and sparkling. Of course, being round, small, and French, he may look very much like his name, a bon-bon. Our hero is ridiculous then, it is only fitting that his meeting with the Devil is equally ridiculous.

Although there are sinister undertones to the meeting, as when the Devil's book cover changes titles from “Rituel Catholique” to “Regitre des Condamnes,” on the whole this is a witty meditation by Poe on philosophy and its discontents. The devil dismisses the Romans and is contemptuous of the metaphysical notions of our drunken hero (pg. 176). The story also seems to provide information about the dark side of Poe's philosophy of religion and the afterlife. The human soul seems fit only for consumption by those beyond this world. It is dangerous, I think, to speculate this way too much but this does give another example of why reading the lighter-seeming pieces is important.

When Poe is not attempting to give psychological underpinnings to his serious work, as in the story "The Imp of the Perverse", his guard may be lowered in the lighter ones making his asides all the more revealing of the man and his thinking. We leave Monsieur Bon-Bon trapped under a lamp, drunk but not dead, perhaps a little wiser probably not, though, the devil departing for regions unknown. This Devil is the forerunner of Shaw's; of "Oh God, You Devil"; and the many gentlemen "of wealth and taste" that have seduced, offended, charmed and frightened readers, theatergoers and movie watchers in the last hundred years. His tail is tastefully hidden, his horns absent, and his eyes nowhere to be found. This devil tutored Plato and was Epicurus. He is a gourmet when he has the means to eat well. This story is not serious but it is certainly vaudevillian.

A life of tragedy was Poe's with few triumphs and many heartbreaking defeats. He died in poverty and was impoverished a great deal of the time. It is easy for those defenders of the thesis that real horror begot literary horror and that the drug-induced dreams of Poe found their way to paper to become the all-too real nightmares of his narrators and characters. This is all probably true. Yet, Poe could also write things where darkness was nowhere to be found. He could write pieces that are full of word play, puns, and the tricks that late would make Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, and Ogden Nash so widely read and enjoyed.

My favorite of these "word-play plays" is "The Devil in the Clocktower.” In this story that details the fall of what was once "the finest place in the world,” Poe uses all his tricks but calls on word-play more often than not. The paragraph that deals with the town's name "Vondervotteimittis" (pp. 298-299) is as effective a satirical piece on philology, place name origins, and stuffed-shirtism as one can find. It is a joy of children to divide and cram together words. Who did not either trick someone or was tricked into saying "O Wha Ta Goo Si Am" five times fast? Here, Poe uses the stuff of childhood to elicit a very laughable town name for a very laughable town. A town made up, as far as I could tell, of Dutch versions of yard gnomes. Everything goes well in town, so much so that Poe is able to get off a few cracks about complacent town-councils. Like the perfect clock-work of the town clock, perfect is the life of the people of the town. Between the breeziness of the devil who ruins things, the startled exclamations of the people, and the confusion of the clocks, Poe has given us a story that could almost be described as cute. It is not surprising that Poe quotes a piece of vaudeville, French though it maybe, since he uses tricks borrowed from vaudeville to make this story work. High-sounding rhetoric (shades of Irwin Corey), a fake foreign language with a funny accent, and punning are brought together to make the reader smile. I think of Thurber, I think of Benchley, I think of Joyce when I read this story. In the end, I wonder if Twain read this before he wrote "The man who corrupted Hadleysville”?

But should not we use "The Devil in the Clocktower" as the exception that proves the rule? There is only a handful of these humorous pieces to hold against the many tales and stories of death, despair, destruction, and the final dropping into the Maelstrom. Ligeia, William Wilson, Usher, the Red Death, each has taken their proper place in the halls of what is called" great literature.” Poe’s influence on Doyle is quite clear. Bierce and Lovecraft owe him a great debt as well.  Poe is, and hopefully will be, remembered for his contribution to the short story, horror and otherwise. However, a case can and must be made for remembering Mr. Lackobreath and Mr. Windenough, for remembering Mr. Touch-and-go Bullet-head and his city of Alexander-the-Great-onopolis, for Poe’s Scheherezade and her last tale. The richness of his writing and the vividness of his depictions are excellent for highlighting the shadows of humanity, but they are also made to do yeoman’s work in showing us the sunnier, the funnier side of humanity.

1 Franz Rottensteiner, the Fantasy Book (Great Britain: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1978) 37.

3 Rottensteiner, pp. 72, 80.