'During the whole dull, dark, silent day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the sky. . . [I] at last found myself, as the evening shadows drew near, within sight of the melancholy House of Usher” (317). Edgar Allan Poe's opening line in "The Fall of the House of Usher" captures a dark, brooding, mysterious, and desolate aura that characterizes Gothic literature. In Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe chooses to incorporate similar gothic imagery into her novel by portraying Simon Legree as a devilish character and associating him with grotesque imagery. Her descriptions of Simon and his plantation reflect themes often depicted in Gothic novels such as disorder, decay, and darkness. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay When we first meet Simon Legree, his features paint him as a monster. Stowe describes him as "short, broad, and muscular" with a "bullet-shaped head," "shaggy," "hairy," "very dirty," and "trimmed with long nails, in very poor condition" (334). Here Stowe does not paint a picture of a human being, but describes a beast. Stowe's portrayal of Simon as a dirty, claw-like beast becomes very appropriate as the novel continues, and the reader is introduced to Legree as a corrupt and cruel master of his slaves. In his novel, Stowe chooses to progress into Legree's gothic realm rather than immediately flood the pages with dark imagery. It begins with Legree's bestial characterization, then concludes its introduction to Simon Legree with a passage that foreshadows the next chapter, "Dark Places." Stowe writes: 'The boat went on, laden with its weight of sorrow, up the red, muddy, turbid current, through the sharp and tortuous bends of the Red River. . .' (342). Here, Legree and his newly purchased slaves are traveling along this river and Stowe chooses to associate their journey with the color red. Red symbolizes the ruin that the newly purchased slaves will face while living with Simon Legree. Flooding the passage with the image of a red river, it becomes clear that Stowe's writing was influenced by Dante Alighieri's Inferno. Here a red river of blood surrounds the seventh circle, the place where violent sinners are kept. Stowe seems to suggest that Legree himself, surrounded by the Red River, is a violent sinner. Furthermore, it could be argued that Stowe's Red River contains the blood of slaves who died at the hands of their cruel masters. By making an allusion to Dante's Inferno, Stowe associates Simon Legree with both the devil and hell. To enhance the Gothic imagery of death, ruin, and evil, Stowe also uses words such as “turbid current,” “sudden,” and “torturous winding” to foreshadow the hell he will present to the reader in the next chapter. In the next chapter, Stowe's use of Gothic imagery becomes extremely vivid. Stowe opens the chapter with a quote that states, “The dark places of the earth are full of abodes of cruelty” (343). Here Stowe makes his first connection between Gothic imagery and slavery. The "dwellings of cruelty" refer to all the plantations in America run by slave owners like Legree, and the cruelty, combined with the darkness, contributes to Stowe's definition of Gothic. He then chooses to focus on Legree's plantation and how his plantation lives up to the quote that opens the chapter. Stowe describes the road to Legree's house as "winding through bleak stands of pine, where the wind whispered sadly." . .' (343). The choiceof Stowe's words, like the whispering wind and winding streets, paints an eerie Gothic picture much like the openings of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" and Alighieri's Inferno. Furthermore, it is plausible to associate this dark image with Simon Legree, considering that he has this dark, winding road he is traveling to his plantation. When we reach Simon Legree's house, Stowe presents us with a once neatly mown lawn that has been overgrown with "ornamental shrubs," "leafy, tangled grass," a "ground strewn with broken buckets," and "other sloppy remnants." (345). Here Stowe evokes disorder, a fairly common theme in Gothic novels. In Wuthering Heights, a well-known Gothic novel, Emily Bronte's villain, Heathcliff, lives in an old castle-like house, filled with cobwebs, cluttered with utensils and characterized by broken shutters. The disorder described in Uncle Tom's Cabin not only reflects the meadow, but also symbolizes the disorder within Legree's plantation. Furthermore, the fact that "there was once a neatly mowed lawn" and that "what was once a large garden was now all overgrown with weeds", shows that Legree's plantation was not always Gothic in style, but it grew into an abandoned place once Legree took control of the plantation. The description of the plantation, overgrown with weeds and shrubs that continue to grow throughout Legrée's reign, makes me imagine dark clouds slowly casting shadows over a place of doom. To contribute to this gloomy picture, Stowe also writes of flowerpots “with sticks in them, whose dried leaves showed that they had once been plants” (345). Along with invasive weeds and shrubs, leafless canes represent deterioration and decay. Stowe furthers the dark description of the landscape when he introduces the reader to Legree's castle-like house. He writes, “some windows boarded up, some with repaired glass and shutters hung on a single hinge, all tell of gross abandonment and distress” (345). Here, Stowe paints a picture of an abandoned ghost house. The disorder introduced to the reader in Legree's description of the landscape remains vivid in the shattered window glass and broken shutters. Summarizing these characteristics as “gross negligence and inconvenience” implies ambiguity. It seems to suggest that these conditions apply not only to Legree's house, but also to Legree's relationship with his slaves on the plantation. For example, Cassy's character, like the leaves on the plants outside, loses her beauty and liveliness while in the rain. reign of Legrée. Cassy, ​​once an extremely attractive young woman, has a "dark, wild face" with traces of wrinkles and heavy black eyes. Cassy, ​​like the plantation landscape, became the product of Legrée's cruelty and neglect. In Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher", the House of Usher possesses Roderick Usher causing him a tremendous amount of mental imbalance and eventually swallowing him into the "crack" of the house. Roderick and Cassy have become objects of decadence and their features resemble those of a gothic character. In describing the interior of Legree's house, Stowe once again focuses on disorder and decay. He writes, “it had once been hung with gaudy, expensive paper, which now hung moldy, torn, and discolored, from the damp walls” (370). Like Cassy and the plantation landscape, the interior of Legree's house is deteriorating. To contribute to the Gothic descriptions of the house, Stowe describes the odor that pervades Legree's plantation as a "peculiar, disgusting, and unhealthy odor, composed of a mixture of dampness, filth, and decay." The smell of Legrée's house clearly evokes death. Stowe describes a.