Like "The Fall of the House of Usher," this story also has all of the trappings of a classic, gothic horror tale. As noted in the introduction, the setting is in an old castle in an unknown or remote part of the world; in its dark interior, there are huge ottomans and tapestries and, outside, the wind is blowing the casement curtains, causing strange configurations. Likewise, there are strange noises, producing an eerie, "phantasmagoric" effect on the inhabitants. Everywhere there is "verdant decay."
Here, the castle as Poe's setting sits molding on the Rhine, conjuring up all types of gothic visions for us; later, he replaces this moody setting with yet another gothic touch: a forlorn abbey located in some remote part of England. The walls there are "elaborately fretted with the wildest and most grotesque specimens of semi-gothic" that the narrator has ever seen. This mood, as well as the suspense that Poe creates, is sustained.
Yet, were the story not set in the ghostly castle, or even in the "semi-gothic" abbey, the tale would still lend itself to the gothic genre merely by the presence of the supernatural element, an element which plays such a major role in the history of the Lady Ligeia herself.
This story is akin to "The Fall of the House of Usher" in that both the Lady Ligeia and the Lady Madeline possess an inordinate and superhuman strength to live. Both women are presumed to be dead, but both of them possess a will to live that will not let either one of them remain dead. "Ligeia," published exactly one year before "The Fall," expresses this concept even more directly than does the story just discussed. For example, note the quotation which is placed at the beginning of the story; it is used two more times in the story by the Lady Ligeia to express her belief that some type of life continues after the apparent death of the body. (As a footnote, it is interesting that while Poe credited the quotation to Joseph Glanville, an author who actually did live and who was a favorite of Poe's, the exact quotation has as yet not been found among the author's works. It is suspected, therefore, that Poe made up the quotation and merely assigned it to the writer.) The key words in this quotation, which the Lady Ligeia utters, express her strong belief that the weak may die but that the strong do "not yield . . . unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of [a] feeble will!" Whereas in "The Fall" the Lady Madeline was able to break free of the iron that entombed her, the Lady Ligeia seemingly has the ability to retain her will to live through periods of time and to cross barriers of land and water; ultimately, it would seem, it is possible for her — and the dead — to assume the body of another person.
