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By Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) A Study Guide |
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Plot Summary By Michael J. Cummings...© 2006 .......It is early July. The narrator of the story and an old man climb to the top of a crag on Helseggen Mountain on the coast of Norway in the province of Nordland and the district of Lofoden. The precipice is more than 1,500 feet above the ground. After the old man catches his breath, he seats himself on the brink of the cliff and says he is not as old as he looks. What whitened his hair and aged his body, he says, was a terrifying experience lasting six hours. Frightened by the height and unnerved by the precarious position of his companion, the narrator keeps well back from the edge of the cliff, clinging to shrubs. .......The “old man” says he brought the narrator to the precipice so that he could view the scene where the terrifying experience occurred. It is a desolate scene of black cliffs and a howling surf. About six miles in the distance is an island, called Vurrgh, and about two miles nearer  a
smaller one, called Moskoe, “hideously craggy and barren,” the narrator
says. A current churns the sea into a fury, especially the waters
between the two islands. A whirlpool more than half-a-mile wide forms,
“sending forth to the winds an appalling voice, half shriek, half roar.”
The mountain shakes. The narrator says that the whirlpool must be the Maelström,
a famous ocean phenomenon occurring off the west coast of Norway. The old
man, a Norwegian, confirms his observation but says his countrymen call
the whirlpool the Moskoe-strom.
.......Revealing his thoughts to the reader, the narrator says the sight is more magnificent and more horrible than he imagined from writer Jonas Ramus’s description of it: “The roar of its impetuous ebb to the sea is scarce equalled by the loudest and most dreadful cataracts . . . and the vortices or pits are of such an extent and depth, that if a ship comes within its attraction, it is inevitably absorbed and carried down to the bottom.” Even whales that venture into the whirlpool cannot break free, and “it is impossible to describe their howlings and bellowings.” .......On Sexagesima Sunday in 1645, Ramus wrote, the whirlpool “raged with such noise and impetuosity that the very stones of the houses on the coast fell to the ground." The narrator himself observes that the violence of the Maelström is such that the largest ship in existence could no more resist its power than a feather could resist the power of a hurricane. .......After the narrator and the old man retreat from the noise of the whirlpool, the latter recounts his experience. He and his two brothers once owned a schooner from which they fished near islands beyond Moskoe. But even there, the ocean could be violent, and no other fishermen from Lofoden ventured into them despite the teeming schools of fish in the waters. “We often got in a single day, what the more timid of the craft could not scrape together in a week,” the old man said. .......The old man and his brothers never went out or returned home without a “steady side wind” to push them along. Nor did they pass near the Maelström when the elements had whipped it into a fury. .......On the day of the old man’s terrifying experience–July 10, three years before his rendezvous with the narrator–the old man and his brothers went out to the islands at 2 p.m. and, by 7 p.m., had filled their boat with fish. After they began their return trip, with a starboard wind speeding them along, a strange “copper-colored cloud” rose on the horizon. Within minutes, a storm was upon them, the most powerful hurricane anyone in the region had ever seen. .......Although the old man and his brothers had unhitched the sails, the wind snapped the masts and swept away them and the youngest brother. He had tied himself to one of the masts to ride out the storm. The old man, meanwhile, was holding onto a ringbolt while lying on the deck and propping his feet against the upper edge of the side of the ship. .......After the old man rose to his knees to get his bearings, he felt a hand gripping his arm. He rejoiced, for he thought his older brother had also perished. A moment later, terror seized him when his brother shouted that they were headed into the Maelström. .......Waves became mountains. The sky was black, save for a circle of blue from which a full moon shone. By and by, a gigantic wave rode the boat to a height beyond imagining.“ And then,” the old man said, “down we came with a sweep, a slide, and a plunge, that made me feel sick and dizzy, as if I was falling from some lofty mountain-top in a dream.” .......About a quarter-mile ahead was the Maelström. When the schooner reached the edge of the whirlpool, a strange calm came over the old man. “I began to reflect how magnificent a thing it was to die in such a manner,” he told the narrator, “and how foolish it was in me to think of so paltry a consideration as my own individual life, in view of so wonderful a manifestation of God's power. After a little while I became possessed with the keenest curiosity about the whirl itself. I positively felt a wish to explore its depths, even at the sacrifice I was going to make; and my principal grief was that I should never be able to tell my old companions on shore about the mysteries I should see. These, no doubt, were singular fancies to occupy a man's mind in such extremity–and I have often thought since, that the revolutions of the boat around the pool might have rendered me a little light-headed.” .......As the boat whirled, the narrator continued to cling to the ringbolt while his brother held fast to a water cask lashed to the stern. Terrified, his brother lunged for the ringbolt for a surer grip. Because it was too small to secure both of them, the old man let him have it and moved to the cask. .......By this time, the boat was descending into the Maelström. The old man said a prayer, believing the end was near. However, the headlong plunge into the deep ceased, and the boat “appeared to be hanging, as if by magic, midway down, upon the interior surface of a funnel vast in circumference” while the water reflected the light of the moon. Apparently, centrifugal force had held the vessel in place on the steep incline of the wall of the whirlpool. In the moonlight, a rainbow formed on a mist formed by water spray. The old man saw storm debris–tree trunks, boards, furniture, and a wrecked ship–also spinning in the Maelström. But the sight heartened him, for it reminded him that he had previously seen such debris along the Lofoden coast. It had been sucked into the whirlpool, then spewed out with the rise and fall of the sea. .......The old man then noticed that cylindrical objects such as barrels rode high on the walls of the whirlpool, suggesting that their shape buoyed them against suction. So he decided to tie himself to the water cask to which he was clinging, cut it loose, and throw himself and the cask overboard. Before hurling himself into the whirlpool, he signaled to his brother to grab one of the barrels floating by and similarly lash himself to it and take his chances in the sea. But the latter refused to let go the ringbolt. After the old man was in the water, the Maelström swallowed the boat–and his brother. .......By and by, the whirlpool spent itself, the winds died, the rainbow vanished, and the old man found himself on the ocean surface. A boat rescued him. His hair, pitch black the day before, was now white. The story begins in July on a mountain crag in northwestern Norway along the coast of the Norwegian Sea at 68 degrees latitude in the Arctic Circle. The crag overlooks a group of islands and a treacherous tidal channel called Moskenstraumen. In “A Descent Into the Maelström,” Poe refers to this channel by a Norwegian name, Moskoe-strom, and a Dutch name, Maelström. Poe’s use of the latter term popularized it among speakers of English, and it entered English dictionaries as a synonym for whirlpool. In 1851, author Herman Melville refers to the Maelström in his great sea novel, Moby Dick, when Captain Ahab says he will chase the white whale (Moby Dick) around the world, including "round the Norway Maelström." In 1870, author Jules Verne mentioned the Maelström in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, calling it a "whirlpool from which no vessel ever escapes." The Maelström is a real phenomenon occurring off the coast of Norway. However, in the story, Poe greatly exaggerates the danger it poses to seafarers. Old Man: Unnamed Norwegian
fisherman who survived a descent into a raging whirlpool.
Narrator: "This," said I at length, to the old man–"this can be nothing else than the great whirlpool of the Maelström."The words we Norwegians imply that the old man's listener is not Norwegian. He could be Dutch, for he identified the whirlpool with a word of Dutch derivation, Maelström (from maalstrom, meaning whirling stream). Brothers of the Old Man: Victims of the whirlpool. Type of Work and Publication Date “A Descent Into the Maelstrom" is a horror story in which nature is the menace. It was first published in 1841 in a magazine. Terror: As in many
other Poe stories, terror is a 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.
The climax of “A Descent Into the Maelström” occurs when the old man recounts the moment when he escaped the whirlpool. 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. What Shakespeare centered his play on was why they died and under what circumstances. Writers of the TV program Columbo always informed viewers of the identity of the murderer at the beginning of each episode. But the program was still entertaining. Viewers wanted to find out what tripped up the murderer while Columbo was holding his Sherlock glass to the clues. In real life, the deaths of America’s President Kennedy and Britain’s Princess Diana continue to command headlines because of unanswered questions. There is more to a story than how it ends. 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. “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"). In “A Descent Into the Maelström,”
Poe’s prose occasionally becomes musical, like his poetry, thanks to frequent
use of alliteration, as in the following passages:
We saw the whole horizon covered with a singular copper-colored cloud that rose with the most amazing velocity.Vocabulary, Allusions Aft: Rear of a ship.
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809, in Boston. After being orphaned at age two, he was taken into the home of a childless couple–John Allan, a successful businessman in Richmond, Va., and his wife. Allan was believed to be Poe’s godfather. At age six, Poe went to England with the Allans and was enrolled in schools there. After he returned with the Allans to the U.S. in 1820, he studied at private schools, then attended the University of Virginia and the U.S. Military Academy, but did not complete studies at either school. After beginning his literary career as a poet and prose writer, he married his young cousin, Virginia Clemm. He worked for several magazines and joined the staff of the New York Mirror newspaper in 1844. All the while, he was battling a drinking problem. After the Mirror published his poem “The Raven” in January 1845, Poe achieved national and international fame. Besides pioneering the development of the short story, Poe invented the format for the detective story as we know it today. He also was an outstanding literary critic. Despite the acclaim he received, he was never really happy because of his drinking and because of the deaths of several people close to him, including his wife in 1847. He frequently had trouble paying his debts. It is believed that heavy drinking was a contributing cause of his death in Baltimore on October 7, 1849.  .. |
