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Transcript

Descent into the Maelstrom

http://mythbustersresults.com/episode56

Gothic Elements

Characters

Old Man: Unnamed Norwegian fisherman who survived a descent into a raging whirlpool.

Narrator: Unnamed person who listens to the old man's survival story. The following dialogue indicates that he is non-Norwegian.

Brothers of the Old Man: Victims of the whirlpool.

  • An atmosphere of mystery and suspense - pervaded by a threatening feeling - a whirlpool sucking you to the bottom of the ocean (a complete mystery).
  • high, even overwrought emotions - the narration may be highly sentimental and the character are often overcome by anger, sorrow, surprise, and especially terror.
  • Isolated setting - the fisherman is telling you the tale, where he was the only survivor.
  • vocabulary of the Gothic - the constant use of the appropriate vocabulary creates the atmosphere. Ex. diabolical, miracle, portent, strangeness, ominous, affliction, despair, dismay, astonishment, fury, wrath, gigantic, vast, darkness, black, hopeless, terror, horror

Themes

Structure

Hooking the Reader

Allegory

“A Descent Into the Maelström” is a story within a story. The unnamed narrator begins the “outer story” by setting the scene. The old man, also unnamed, then tells the “inner story.” The structure of the story thus resembles a framed painting–the outer story being the frame and the inner story being the painting. Over the centuries, many writers have written “frame tales,” such as Geoffrey Chaucer (The Canterbury Tales), William Shakespeare (The Taming of the Shrew), Mary Shelley (Frankenstein), and Joseph Conrad ("Heart of Darkness").

One may interpret “A Descent Into the Maelström” as an allegory for every human being’s journey through the turbulent times of life. That the narrator never mentions his or the fisherman’s name suggests that they could be any men in any time. And, though the Maelström is a natural phenomenon occurring only off the northwestern coast of Norway, it could symbolize the storms of life anywhere in the world. An allegory, of course, usually teaches a lesson. In this short story, the old man identifies himself as the narrator’s guide on their climb up the mountain. Guide here could also mean that the old man is imparting a lesson about (1) the inscrutability and awesomeness of the world and nature and (2) the way to confront life’s pitfalls–namely, to face them courageously and to persevere while using intelligence and common sense to traverse them.

  • Terror: central theme. The old man says his experience was so frightening that it ruined his nerves, enfeebled his body, and turned his hair white in less than a day.
  • Man vs Nature: First, the old man and the narrator climb the steep mountain, leaving the former breathless and the latter terrified of the height. Next, in the story told by the old man, he and his brothers battle nature every day in order to catch their fish. Finally, the old man and his brothers fight for survival in the hurricane and the Maelström. The old man survives but his brothers die.
  • Doing the Impossible: Death appears certain for the old man after the Maelström sucks in his boat and claims the lives of his two brothers. But, using his wits, he survives the ordeal, though it affects him physically and mentally.
  • Nature’s Myriad Moods and Faces: Nature is tranquil and friendly one moment, then violent and inimical the next. It is also beautiful and ugly, predictable and unpredictable, wild and tame.

Early in “A Descent Into the Maelström,” the reader learns that the main character faced what appeared to be certain death–but survived. This knowledge does not ruin the story for the reader, however. Rather, it whets his curiosity with this question: How did the main character survive? Shakespeare used this approach in Romeo and Juliet, telling the reader in the prologue that the two lovers died.

The Role and Power of Nature

  • greatest extreme in terms of intensity
  • 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 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.
  • 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.
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