Author: Edgar Allan Poe
Date of First Publication: December 1845
Place of First Publication: New York City, NY: The American Review and Broadway Journal (simultaneous releases)
Bibliographic Reference: isfdb
Type: Short story
Keywords: FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER; BYRONIC HERO; POSTHUMAN
Critical Summary: In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” an unnamed narrator directly addresses the reader, offering to explain, once and for all, the true facts in the famous case of M. Valdemar, for which he was responsible. The narrator is an expert in hypnosis, and develops a fascination with the idea of mesmerizing someone at the very moment of death, to discover what would happen to the hypnotized mind after the moment of passing. The narrator contacts an acquaintance of his, M. Ernest Valdemar, who is dying from complications resulting from tuberculosis. With Valdemar’s approval, the narrator hypnotizes Valdemar just before Valdemar’s death; after the moment of passing, the narrator is still able to address the hypnotized Valdemar, who, with great effort to make the actual sounds, tells the narrator first that he is asleep and dying, and then later asleep and already dead. The narrator spends the next seven months interviewing the mesmerized, dead, and yet still conscious Valdemar, with similar result throughout. At the end of these seven months, however, during an otherwise typical interview, the hypnotized Valdemar suddenly, under great distress, begs to be put back to sleep or brought back to life entirely. As the narrator reels back and hesitates on what to do, the body of Valdemar, within the span of less than a minute, utterly rots away, leaving only the remains of Valdemar’s body and a horrified narrator.
In “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” Poe utilizes the classic archetype of a mad scientist: a character so obsessed with finding the answer to a single driving question or goal (in this case, discover what would happen if someone was hypnotized at the exact moment of death) that they cease to consider any morality or ethics in pursuit of their goal. Also present is the motif of a creator losing control of their creation; as soon as the hypnotized Valdemar begs for the narrator to either bring them back to life or put them back to sleep—in other words, demonstrating consciousness and desire—the narrator has absolutely no idea how to respond to this development, becoming stunned and hesitant to act while the body rapidly decomposes.
In addition, the notion of the “posthuman” is approached in this story, but is avoided by the timely dissolving of Valdemar’s body. The narrator, perhaps only for a moment, believes that he is becoming successful in reviving Valdemar to consciousness, but, at the very moment, the decomposition of the body begins–or is triggered. The horror of Poe’s story is in the hypnotized Valdemar’s existence in its limbo state between life and death, and in the potential of having the hypnotized Valdemar return to life, in an unknown mental and physical state.
“The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” then, examines a specific facet of the horror of Dr. Frankenstein’s creation: how to evaluate consciousness that is not evidently or recognizably human. Both the consciousness of the Creature and of the hypnotized Valdemar demonstrate intelligence, desire, and agency—although the hypnotized Valdemar lacks physical agency, of course—and this horrifies both creators, who did not expect—or did not even consider the possibility—to be unable to control their creations.
Administrative Notes: Kevin Hoang, CSUF. Edited by Gareth O’Neal and Melanie Yogurtian, CSUF