The novel “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” by Edgar Allan Poe was published for the first time in a partial version in 1837, serialized in the “Southern Literary Messenger” and in its entirety as a book in 1838.
Arthur Gordon Pym grew up on Nuntucket Island and was deeply attached to the sea. Despite a negative experience, in June 1827, he secretly boarded the brig Grampus, commanded by the father of his best friend Augustus Barnard, who helped him find a hiding place aboard.
What was supposed to be an exciting sea adventure soon turns into a nightmare for Arthur Gordon Pym. Trapped in his hideout, he nearly dies of thirst. Augustus rescues him after several days of agony and Pym discovers that there was a mutiny on the Grampus. More misadventures await Arthur.
“The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” was the only novel written by Edgar Allan Poe, and its story was almost as troubled as its protagonist’s. It was published only partially in serial form in the periodical “Southern Literary Messenger” and only later was it published as a book in its complete form. The first edition didn’t mention the author’s name, passing the story off as a true diary of the protagonist’s adventures. The mixed reviews, mostly negative, had a negative impact on Poe’s literary career.
The novel begins as a sea adventure, like many others of its time. It includes detailed descriptions of the voyage, including references to real explorations, such as that of James Cook. The details also include the coordinates of various areas Arthur Gordon Pym visits during his troubled journey.
But Arthur Gordon Pym’s misadventures soon begin to reveal Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre side. The protagonist starts finding himself in situations that can push him to the limits of human endurance. These are situations that sometimes require extreme choices to survive. For this reason, it’s considered one of the founders of the psychological horror genre.
Some horror elements of the novel are similar to those of the author’s gothic tales, although the setting is decidedly atypical for that genre. Poe interpreted genres and subgenres in his own way, and this is one of the cases where labels are reductive for a story that blends elements that are quite heterogeneous from a literary perspective.
The blend of narrative elements that may seem very heterogeneous is one of the reasons why this novel has been the subject of so many interpretations over the course of nearly two centuries. Critics and readers have been debating all these elements since its publication.
Rather than the realistic ones, interest has focused on the autobiographical ones, mainly connected to a ship voyage Edgar Allan Poe took as a child, and on the allegorical ones, especially regarding the final pages of Arthur Gordon Pym’s tale. Over time, controversy has increasingly centered on the fact that the novel’s villains are black.
Edgar Allan Poe has never been an easy author to define: his stories labeled as gothic horror are his most famous, but throughout his life, he wrote stories of a variety of genres and was well-known as a literary critic in his time. It’s inevitable that “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket,” with its length, reflects the author’s diverse interests, both literary and otherwise.
Despite everything, “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” has grown in fame to become a classic that has influenced generations of writers. More or less explicit homages are included in many subsequent stories and testify to the importance of the only novel written by a unique author.
