From Poe to Marrowbone : Resonance and the Legacy of American Gothic Traditions

Abstract

Edgar Allen Poe quoted “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity” and how does one’s psychological turmoil turn their minds into some eerie, uncanny, unsettling space. This paper examines the enduring legacy of American Gothic traditions, tracing their evolution from the 19^th century works of Edgar Allan Poe and others to their contemporary cinematic resonance in Sergio G. Sánchez’s 2017 film, Marrowbone. While traditional Gothic literature is often centered on decaying European castles and supernatural occurrences, Poe domesticated the genre, shifting its focus to the psychological turmoil, haunted familial spaces, and repressed traumas that define a distinctly American horror. The research employs a comparative textual analysis to explore how key thematic elements- including hereditary madness, the uncanny, and the grotesque. They are transformed and recontextualized across different media and historical periods. We argue that Marrowbone serves as a modern-day echo chamber, not merely borrowing from but actively engaging with and reinterpreting the foundational anxieties articulated by Poe, Hawthorne, Henry James, etc. The film’s isolated mansion, fractured family unit, and psychological twists resonate with Poe’s explorations of internal decay and the haunting presence of the past. The central hypothesis is that Marrowbone is a critical reinterpretation of American Gothic conventions, demonstrating how a 21^st century film uses conventions’ foundational elements to explore contemporary anxieties surrounding family, identity, and mental health. The study uses Freudian psychoanalysis and genre theory to demonstrate this thematic continuity and evolution.