Horror’s Sweet Pleasure

Horror, without a doubt, constitutes one of the most endearing genres in fiction. The real question, if anything, would be why we enjoy it, that is, why a work of fiction that reveals our own fears can become so attractive.
And just as there is a certain attraction for the Macabre in all human beings, Horror manages to transcend its own nature to become a source of pleasure.
This pleasure, which at times borders on sensory enjoyment, can be understood as an aesthetic pleasure for Horror, and the first author to understand this subtle mechanism of the psyche was Edgar Allan Poe.
Gothic literature is part of the work of Edgar Allan Poe, in the same way that it is part of the first example of the pleasure of reading. The Gothic, in E.A. Poe, manifests himself in rebellion, in the influence of the concept of original sin and the motive of the disturbed or degenerate subject that is born in the bosom of Puritanism. In fewer words: E.A. Poe expresses the repressed in ourselves.
The reading of E.A. Poe produces a kind of unspeakable horror from the bottom of our hearts, but also enjoyment, an aesthetic pleasure for what terrifies us. But what exactly is it that scares us?
In Message found in a Bottle (Ms Found in a Bottle) the horror by the supernatural is expressed; in The Premature Burial, the fear of death; in The Black Cat, the horror of the evil that underlies the human being. But among all possible fears, the fear of Nothing is the strongest of all.
We can fear tangible things, such as crimes in real life, and countless horrific things that happen on a daily basis. However, expressing them directly rarely produces the aesthetic pleasure that E.A. Poe in his works. The horror of Nothingness, on the other hand, as inherent to the human being as it is inexplicable, can acquire any form, even a particular form, according to our own fears.
But how does E.A. Poe present this fear of Nothingness, which by its own shapeless character can be perfectly adjusted to our particular fears?
First of all, E.A. Poe worked meticulously. Each tale is a clockwork mechanism where the desired effect was carefully planned. Beyond the symbolism, there is a device designed to create and maintain suspense in all its arguments. To enhance the experience, E.A. Poe uses the narrator in the first person, which also allows him to generate a more efficient integral atmosphere and a constant stimulation of the reader’s senses.
Most of Poe’s stories have a clear closure, but certainly not all. For example, in Ligeia, the tale seems to end early, as if the narrative simply stopped. Was it an illusion, a delusion of the protagonist, or did Ligeia really come back from the dead? The author does not clarify it, and this omission produces a completely new effect until then E.A. Poe has taught us that Horror produces pain, but also that it can be a source of beauty, a motive capable of making us experience inexplicable aesthetic pleasure. In this sense, Poe does not dissociate the Horror from the beautiful, but rather integrates this nuance into the true core of fear.
In the preface to Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, Poe reasons that Horror is a noble feeling, like love. After all, the darkness can be pure in its own blackness. This reasonable interpretation led him to conclude rational results in his fiction. That is why Poe’s imagination, his success and his influence on culture, come from a subtle dynamic, a state of constant cooperation between the author and his readers, where he offers us a frame, a canvas, to fill with. our own fears.