Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Berenice, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Mental Illness and Physical Disease
Death and Resurrection
Repressed Sexuality
Summary
Analysis
The narrator begins with the statement: “Misery is manifold.” He describes “misery” and “wretchedness” as capable of coming in a number of different forms and in a number of different “hues.” The narrator questions how he had managed to create “unloveliness” from something beautiful and, instead of bringing “peace,” brought “sorrow.” However, he asserts that “evil is a consequence of good” and that some of the worst emotional pain comes from the remembrance of better, happier times.
Egaeus’s opening statement prepares the reader for some kind of tragedy—specifically, a tragedy of which he is the author. It is, after all, Egaeus himself who creates “unloveliness” out of something beautiful. By portraying himself upfront as the villain of the story, Egaeus also suggests that he may be an unreliable narrator. It’s clear from the start that readers perhaps shouldn’t trust everything Egaeus says.
Themes
Literary Devices
The narrator shares that his “baptismal name” is Egaeus, but he does not share his family name. Egaeus does note that his ancestral home is very old and “time-honored.” However, it is also “gloomy” and “gray.” His family has the reputation and long history of being “visionaries,” which is reflected in the “character of the family mansion,” which is full of antique books, paintings, and tapestries.
Egaeus’s refusal to share his family name further indicates his guilt in the story he’s about to tell; it seems as if he could do irrevocable harm to his family’s reputation if their name were connected with it. Egaeus mentions that his ancestors were known as “visionaries,” which is possibly a clue that they shared some of the same peculiarities of character as Egaeus—and that they may have suffered from some of the same symptoms of mental illness as Egaeus does.
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Literary Devices
Egaeus describes the particular connection he has with his home’s library. It was the room in which he was born, and where his mother died. He spent a lot of his childhood reading the “peculiar” books the library held. Although he was born in the library, Egaeus notes that “it is mere idleness to say that [he] had not lived before,” and he describes vague memories of “aerial forms” that he associates with his past life.
Egaeus’s belief that he had “lived before” he was born immediately complicates the concept of death in this story. In Egaeus’s world, death is not the end of life but actually leads to a new one. Egaeus, after all, enters life in the same room where his mother’s life ends, presumably due to complications from childbirth. Egaeus believes that when a person dies their soul will find a new body to inhabit, and so Poe makes it clear that in this story, death of the body is not necessarily death of the individual.
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Literary Devices
Egaeus describes his birth as “awaking from the long night of what seemed, but was not.” By being born in the library, he entered a “palace of imagination,” and believes this is part of why he spent his childhood studying the library’s books. Egaeus then describes how, as he grew older, a “stagnation […] fell upon the springs of [his] life” and made the real world seem like visions while his imagination seemed more like reality.
Egaeus further shares his beliefs about reincarnation by describing being born as an “awaking,” as if he had just temporarily been asleep rather than having not existed at all before. Additionally, what Egaeus describes as a “stagnation” in his life is the first true indication that he suffers from a mental illness. “Stagnation” implies that it brought his mental development to a complete standstill, forcing his mind to turn in on itself and making his imagination seem more real than reality. From this point on, it’s hard to say for sure how accurate Egaeus’s descriptions of reality are.
Themes
Literary Devices
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Egaeus introduces Berenice, a cousin whom he grew up with in his family home. While Egaeus describes himself as “ill of health, and buried in gloom,” Berenice is “agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy.” Egaeus buried himself in books, while Berenice explored the countryside and was always cheerful. Egaeus says that just saying her name brings up memories of what she had been like in her childhood, but that “a fatal disease” took over her life and changed everything about her until Egaeus no longer recognized her as his cousin.
Egaeus and Berenice are clearly very different. Egaeus, with his cold intellectualism, represents the mind while Berenice, with her energy and love of life, represents the heart. Egaeus, in his gloom, can’t help but be drawn to Berenice because of how different she is. Their lives are parallel, however: Egaeus suffers from a mental illness that hinders his intellectual development, while Berenice suffers from a physical disease that destroys her beauty and happiness.
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Literary Devices
Berenice suffers from a number of symptoms connected to one “primary” disease, but Egaeus says the most worrisome one is that she sometimes falls into a “trance” that looks like death. From these trances, however, she abruptly awakes. Berenice’s primary disease not only takes a toll on her physical well-being, but her “moral” one, as well.
Egaeus believes his soul has lived before and been reincarnated in another body, and Berenice seems to undergo a related form of resurrection here: her body appears to die and then comes back, and the more it does this, the heavier a toll it takes on her soul. It seems, then, that this kind of death does come at some cost, apparently to Berenice’s “moral” condition. In other words, Berenice’s disease is corroding her happiness, carefree attitude, and innocent exploration of life, even though her body continues to survive.
Themes
As Berenice’s disease worsens, Egaeus says that his own disease (which he “shall call […] by no other appellation”) also intensifies and develops a “monomaniac character” that takes over his life completely. Egaeus doubts his ability to adequately convey to the reader how intensely his mind can focus on very ordinary things.
The stress of watching his beautiful cousin’s disease transform her has caused Egaeus’s mental illness to gain strength until it completely dominates his life. Not only does Egaeus watch Berenice’s disease slowly kill her, but he also senses the impending demise of his own mind as his mental illness takes over. As a result, his intellectual life becomes a kind of parody of the rigorous studies that once took up his time, as his mind forces him to spend undue time focusing on “ordinary objects” with no real purpose.
Themes
Egaeus describes how his monomania forces him to “muse for long unwearied hours” on mundane objects like “a quaint shadow” or “the steady flame of a lamp.” Sometimes, however, Egaeus focuses on a certain word or phrase, and he will “repeat [it] monotonously” until the words don’t mean anything anymore. Most alarmingly, Egaeus will sometimes “lose all sense of motion or physical existence” while he is fixated on a certain idea, image, or word.
Egaeus’s description of his disease highlights just how mundane the things are that he finds himself uncontrollably fixated on. More importantly, his statement about saying words over and over again “monotonously” until they cease to have any meaning foreshadows his loss of memory and inability to recognize teeth by their name in the end of the story.
Themes
Literary Devices
Egaeus differentiates between the “undue, earnest, and morbid attention” he pays to things that are “frivolous” from the common human tendency to dwell on meaningless thoughts. Egaeus believes the primary difference between his “undue” interest and that of the casual thinker is that normal people will lose sight of what started their thoughts, as they develop new ideas or pictures in their minds that bring them joy. In contrast, Egaeus will never create something substantial with his ruminations and they never brought him pleasure. Egaeus also notes that his interest in certain lines from his books took up weeks of his time as he dwelt on certain passages or ideas.
Egaeus is anxious to make his audience understand that the intensity of his mind’s focus is not simply an overactive imagination or a propensity for daydreaming, but something very serious and harmful. Rather than deriving benefit from his fixations, he is left frustrated. This frustration renders him vulnerable to suggestion—particularly if it might provide a remedy for his illness—which is illustrated in the amount of time he says he spends focusing on passages from different books. By this point, Egaeus seems completely helpless to control his fixations.
Themes
Egaeus notes that the reader must believe that, “shaken from its balance” and taken hold of by small details, his mind must have found ample material to dwell on in the changes to Berenice’s “moral” condition. However, according to Egaeus, the reader would be wrong to think that. It was in “the lucid intervals” of his illness that Egaeus really thought about Berenice’s condition. He felt bad for her and was interested in the personality changes her disease produced, but thoughts about Berenice’s character never took the monomaniacal turn that characterized his mental illness. Instead, his mind focused on the changes he could see happening to her physical being.
Just as he focuses on “frivolous” details and objects in other areas, Egaeus focuses on the superficial aspects of the changes in Berenice. For Egaeus, Berenice and the deterioration of her body seems to offer a physical manifestation of his mind’s deterioration. Like Berenice’s body, Egaeus’s mind is wasting away, changing shape, and losing control of itself. Observing Berenice, then, is like observing his own mind and the condition it is in.
Themes
Egaeus asserts that even when Berenice was young and extremely beautiful, he never loved her. He says this is because his “passions” were never rooted in his heart, but in his mind. He had always seen Berenice as an idea to be analyzed, not as a person to be loved. Now that she was ill and physically altered, however, Egaeus shows signs of falling in love with her. Finally, in what he calls “an evil moment,” he proposes to her and they become engaged.
Due to the “monastic” nature of his childhood studies, Egaeus has repressed some of his desires, particularly his romantic or sexual desire for Berenice and perhaps for other women as well. However, his fixation on her body and the changes being done to it by her disease reveals to him his desire to possess it, although he convinces himself his “passions” are only of the mind. However, he’s still repulsed by his own desire to possess Berenice’s body, as shown by his comment that their engagement was the result of an “evil moment.”
Themes
Literary Devices
Shortly before their wedding date, Egaeus describes sitting in his library when Berenice enters and stands in front of him. Her appearance has altered: her black hair has turned blond, she is emaciated, and she appears taller. The lighting in the room gives Berenice a dream-like appearance, which intensifies when she does not say anything to him. Egaeus also says nothing, and he experiences an “insufferable anxiety” while she’s standing there. As he stares at her and notes that her eyes look “lifeless,” Berenice smiles at Egaeus and exposes her teeth. Egaeus wishes he “had never beheld them, or that, having done so, [he] had died!”
Egaeus’s library represents his mind, so the fact that he is in his library when Berenice enters means he is likely already deep in thought—and, given the state of his mind, perhaps in some altered form of reality as well. Egaeus focuses entirely on Berenice’s body—which, of course, he believes he will soon possess as their wedding day is not far off—and her smile takes on new meaning for him as he is confronted with the fact that he will shortly be able to act on his repressed desire for Berenice. Her teeth are perfectly white—a color typically associated with purity and innocence—and remind Egaeus of what he has lost to mental illness and his obsessive thoughts about Berenice’s body. Meanwhile, it’s notable that her eyes appear “lifeless”; by this point, it’s clear that Egaeus has lost all interest in Berenice’s personality and character.
Themes
Literary Devices
The sound of the door shutting snaps Egaeus out of his thoughts and he notices that Berenice has left. However, in the “disordered chamber” of his mind, he develops an obsession with Berenice’s teeth. He imagines that he sees them almost everywhere and tries, in vain, to fight against the obsession. Egaeus imagines observing them in “every light” and taking note of every detail in them. His thoughts take an even stranger turn as he imagines they have a “sensitive and sentient power.” He comes to believe that if he could possess them, they could give him happiness by “giving [him] back to reason.”
Egaeus develops the idea that Berenice’s teeth “are full of ideas” that, like the teeth themselves, are not marred by disease or imperfections. Egaeus is desperate to regain control over his own mind—that is, to be able to create thoughts that are as perfect as Berenice’s teeth. His mental illness has turned his mind into a “disordered chamber,” and it can be assumed that, in his right mind, he would never have come to believe that Berenice’s teeth had magical healing qualities. But as it is, he obsesses over the idea that they are the key to resurrecting his lost mental health, again showing how Egaeus views Berenice’s body as a proxy for his own mind.
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Literary Devices
Egaeus spends the rest of the night, the next day, and the beginning of the next night thinking about Berenice’s teeth. At some point, however, a maid screams and Egaeus goes to investigate. The maid tells him that Berenice became “seized with epilepsy” that morning and has just died. By the end of the night, Berenice is prepared for burial.
Between his belief in resurrection/reincarnation and his loss of reason, it’s possible that some part of Egaeus sees Berenice’s death coming at the exact moment he is hoping to resurrect his mental stability as more than a coincidence. Just as Egaeus’s mother’s death led to new life for Egaeus, so might Berenice’s death give new life to his reason.
Themes
Egaeus says he “[finds] himself” sitting in the library alone, feeling as if he has just woken up from a dream. He knows Berenice was buried, but has no recollection of anything that has happened since then. He does, however, have a feeling of “horror” associated with the intervening time. He tries to piece together the “dim […] recollections” that he does have, but cannot put them together. As he thinks, he believes he keeps hearing a “shrill and piercing shriek” in a woman’s voice. He knows that he did something, but cannot remember what.
Egaeus’s description of waking up in the library with no memory of where he has been or what he has done implies that he has suffered from a dissociative episode, which, as he noted earlier, is a typical symptom of his mental illness. Disoriented, Egaeus turns inward for clues about what happened rather than observing the space around him to try and find answers there. His imprisonment in his own mind seems to have become complete.
Themes
Egaeus notes that, sitting next to him, there is a lamp and a small box. He knows that the box belongs to the family doctor, but has no idea why it is sitting on the table next to him. Also on the table is a book by Ebn Zaiat that is open to a passage that says: “Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas.” Although he does not know why, Egaeus says that this line makes his hair stand on end and his blood run cold.
The Latin passage in the book on the table reads: ““My companions told me I might find some little alleviation of my misery, in visiting the grave of my beloved.” The fact that the book is already open to this passage, along with Egaeus’s reaction to it, implies that he recognizes in the words the kind of idea that his mind might have become fixated on. Though Egaeus does not know why, this lines seems to provide a vital clue as to where he was during his dissociative episode.
Themes
A servant knocks on the door and comes in looking white as a ghost and very scared. Egaeus only hears him talk in “broken sentences” about someone hearing a scream at night and the household gathering together to find the source. The servant tells Egaeus that they followed the sound to Berenice’s grave and found that it had been “violated,” but that Berenice’s “disfigured body” was there and she was “still breathing, still palpitating, still alive!”
Once again, death defies expectations: Berenice was believed to be dead—was buried, in fact—but now she is found alive and “disfigured.” That Egaeus only hears the servant’s account of what happened in “broken sentences” indicates that his mind is already in a whirl, probably because of his earlier reaction to the book on the table and the dawning realization of what he has done.
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Literary Devices
The servant then points out to Egaeus that his clothes are “muddy and clotted with gore,” that there are human nail marks on his hand, and that there is a spade in the corner of the room. Egaeus, “with a shriek,” goes to the table and grabs the box. He can’t open the box, but it falls out of his hands and breaks. Inside of it are some dental tools and “thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances” that scatter to the floor.
Egaeus, it becomes clear has violated Berenice, ripping away the one untarnished, pure part of her otherwise diseased body: her teeth. Berenice’s teeth were the sole physical reminder of their happier days as children, calling to mind her past beauty and happiness and also giving Egaeus an image of the kind of sanity that his own mind has lost. But now, Egaeus has to confront the fact that he has failed to resurrect his reason, even though he has apparently gone through with his plan to take Berenice’s teeth for himself. His continuing mental illness is shown most vividly by the fact that he describes the objects that fall out of the box rather than just calling them by their name: teeth. This complete (and violent) breakdown between fantasy and reality is, it seems, the “unloveliness” that Egaeus said he created out of “beauty” in the opening lines of the story.
Themes
