Edgar Allan Poe: Mesmerism in the case of Mr. Valdemar

 

Hello my dears. I am the Raven who speaks to you.

“The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” is not among Poe's best works, much less among those best known and revered in the field of the arts, but it is undoubtedly one of the darkest tales of the first half of the 19th century. A great strength in Poe's writing is the pseudoscientific aspect. And I refer to it as pseudoscientific because it is not really scientific at all: in fact it takes scientific questions and mixes with supernatural elements, thus creating situations, phenomena and consequences that, although not in fact true or possible in reality, give the reader the feeling that they can really happen to someone. Poe was a studious fellow and it is important to say that, although he tried to make a living with literature without much success, his field of interest was never limited exclusively to this camp.

I believe that “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” is one of several tales that shows very well the length of Poe's interests and how they affect his fiction. In this tale we have very detailed descriptions about the body structure of a sick person, something arising from the studies that Poe was doing at the time with medical manuals. In a way, it is this effort and commitment that make his work so believable, even portraying the absurd. When Poe imagined a concept inspired by some event or something he had read, he doubled his efforts in understanding the theme, so that he would have enough basic knowledge to make a narrative with a high level of realism, something that ends up having a surprising impact.

He writes about absurd things, but with such propriety, dedication and attention that his readers are induced to believe that the tale corresponds to something that could or did happen in reality. “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” is perhaps the best example in the works of the victorian novelist. Many believe that the hoax, which is false information linked to some communication channel without further explanation in order to make people believe that it is true, is something from the end of the 20th century. With the popularization of internet the hoax became popular again, in fact. Before political fake news, people online created stories in order to convince a large audience of the veracity of strange events. But the hoax is something quite old. This tale was a hoax and one of the many curiosities about Poe’s work. In my analysis, I see dishonesty on the part of the novelist, although commentators at the time claim he just wanted to play a joke on readers. But when “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” was published, Poe didn't put much specification into it. And the level of detail was so vivid, precise and grotesque, supported by real physiological descriptions, that the reading public really believed that the tale was a real case. People were horrified. It is one of Poe's most macabre tales, without a doubt. His aesthetic work and the way he plays with the reader's imagination is disturbing. Only later did he clarify that this tale was fictitious, when he began to be questioned about it. But the damage was already done: many people lost sleep over the horrific ending and Poe obviously got what he wanted: publicity. Positive and negative. For a writer who was never very successful in his own era, something that happens a lot in literature with many ahead of their time and misunderstood by their own people, Poe craved any kind of attention he could get. And so he wrote one of the most macabre, appealing and disturbing tales of his time. But, don't misunderstand: the tale is brilliant, both from a technical, psychological and aesthetic point of view. It perfectly fulfills its purpose. And Poe's physiological approach in describing Mr. Valdemar's slow process of putrefaction is so precise that this is, in fact, what makes this tale so astonishing. I try to imagine victorians reading this and I can't - it must have been terrifying. The society was not prepared for something so shocking.

I imagine that Poe had even personal motivations to invest in a medical description as accurate as the one he presented here. When Poe published the story in 1845, it had been four years since his wife, Virginia, had been battling tuberculosis. Imagine, for a brief moment, what it is like to suffer from this cursed disease for four years without the modern treatments we have today, the level of despondency and pitiful state that this disease caused in people. If Poe was able to describe someone so sick and literally languishing on his deathbed, this is undoubtedly due to the fact that he also had very similar experiences with his own wife. The images are vivid because, literally, Poe experienced them every day. Quite possibly he found in literature a way to elaborate and alleviate this tension.

I could not fail to mention, of course, the second field of interest and resource used by the tale, which is mesmerism. Mind control and the hypnotic process is a topic that caused a lot of fascination in Victorian society. The 19th century was quite heated with regard to this topic, with constant studies and many experiments. An example of this is the later work of the austrian physician Josef Breuer, who, by teaching the hypnotic therapeutic method to Sigmund Freud, had a direct influence on the first works of psychoanalytic theory and on the notion of the unconscious. The most literate victorians with some level of education certainly had access to the subject. Something that Poe, by the way, helped to highlight even more. It is enough to reflect on how many times mesmerism appeared as a key element in his tales. Poe had a huge interest in the human mind and in phenomena not yet explained by science. And even though he was never actually a scientist, this victorian-era curiosity on the part of the lay public is extremely well represented in his work.

In “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” Poe's proposal is to act in two dimensions: first, he wants to incite the public's curiosity about this hypnosis. And second, inciting fear by moving, aiming at the depths of the unknown, of what is beyond life. That would be the supposed life after death, something that humanity has always had a lot of interest for not being able to deal very well with its own finitude. Poe glues one theme to another, making them work together. The central question is: if a person is in a hypnotic process and close to death, if the body dies, will the mind die with it? Or will it remain active until such time as the link is finally broken? It is simply macabre, disturbing, horrifying to imagine. And just as brilliant. Valdemar's hypnotic guidance, in the process of death and in the afterlife, is one of the most terrifying things I've ever read in literature. Poe spares no adjectives to describe the process. The pitiful state of Valdemar's physical structure, after death, progressively worsens. The man literally rots in bed and, even if you are not in the scene and your sensitivity is high, maybe you can even smell the stench that exudes from what we used to call a body. However, only one thing continues to move in his constitution, due to the hypnotic link that was not broken: the tongue.

Valdemar's death facial expression is horrendous. It would frighten even those who work in hospitals and have already followed the death of terminal patients. His mouth remained open and in turn the blackened tongue, with difficulty, continues to make movements in an attempt to answer the requested questions. Understand: the man is dead. Dead! His mouth doesn't move, JUST his tongue. And bizarrely, he still manages to make sounds with a different timbre. And this is an element that will certainly disturb the most sensitive ones, because it is practically impossible not to raise other questions from this frightening figure that we imagine during the reading: is it really Valdemar speaking there? Or is it something else? This is what give the fantastic and necessary ambiguous tone to the tale. Its true strength. The contact with this incredible and disturbing thing that will make the deepest fears and superstitions germinate in their minds. “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” is a powerful tale capable of continuing to haunt future generations, because at the same time that it is accurate in its physiological and medical descriptions, it works with questions and doubts that will remain in each generation.

Corvid greetings!