Edgar Allan Poe is a very well known short stories author as well as a poet in the 1800 and even now. He has written many short stories, and all of these stories always has a deeper meaning to what he’s saying. This makes the readers think more than they normally would in other short stories and also make it so that the reader can find out more about it indirectly. His life had never been a normal happy life. He was in the same room with his brother when his mother died. He was there for two days with the dead body of his own mother which must have brought on trauma. It seems like he was also used to the concept of death to lead him to write such stories. Some short stories that will be analyzed are The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Oval Portrait. Edgar Allan Poe’s childhood affected his style which led him to write about sadness and heartbreak. Because Poe’s wife had died of tuberculosis, he became very sad and used drugs and alcohol to overcome his loss. What made him even more depressed was the fact that the day before Virginia, Poe’s wife, had passed away, he had written a letter to his aunt saying that there was no sign of her getting better but she’s not dead yet. This event in his life must have given him the idea to include women in his stories.
When reading “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” the first thing that came into mind
was that this story was weird and obviously sick. There didn’t seem to be any deep dark meaning
though. An orangutan had gone crazy and killed two women. It seemed straight-forward. In
“The Pit and the Pendulum” it seems that Poe feels like he’s trapped and hopeless because he tries to break free but doesn’t until the mice gnaw the ropes. It’s as if he doesn’t...
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...& so sad a life, be exprest [sic] & comprest in on line — would it not be best to say of Poe in a
reverential spirit simply Requiescat in Pace [?]” — (Alfred Lord Tennyson’s reply to the Poe
Memorial committee, February 18, 1876
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Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Ed. Lynn M. Zott. Vol. 117. Detroit: Gale, 2003. P
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Poe’s frightening stories acts as helpful inspiration for entertainment in the present, and for many years to come. The timeless relevance of his work, and its merciless scrutiny of the human condition, solidifies its place in history and its position of high admiration. In conclusion, the extraordinary-fleeting-tragic life of Edgar Allan Poe will forever remain on record as the tale of an orphan, a gentleman, a soldier, and one of the most prominent literary figures in American history.
Many of Poe’s stories and poems can be tied to events that have happened in his life. A lot of the hard times that he had had gone through in his life he used as motivation to write his poems and stories. For example the story “The Masque of the Red Death” is thought of to be related to the consumption (aka tuberculosis), which took the life of many of the women he loved. In “The Tell Tale Heart” the dying old man good be seen as Poe’s adoptive father on his death bed, and how the old mans eye made the murderer uncomfortable could be an analogy for how Poe’s father made him feel uncomfortable because he knew that his father did not love him.
The writing style of Edgar Allan Poe shows the writer to be of a dark nature. In this story, he focuses on his fascination of being buried alive. He quotes, “To be buried alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these [ghastly] extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.” page 58 paragraph 3. The dark nature is reflected in this quote, showing the supernatural side of Poe which is reflected in his writing and is also a characteristic of Romanticism. Poe uses much detail, as shown in this passage, “The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lusterless. There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity.” page 59 paragraph 2. The descriptive nature of this writing paints a vivid picture that intrigues the reader to use their imagination and visualize the scene presented in the text. This use of imagery ties with aspects of Romanticism because of the nature of the descriptions Poe uses. Describing the physical features of one who seems dead is a horrifying perspective as not many people thing about the aspects of death.
Poe, Edgar Allan. Ligeia. 8th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. 692-701. Print.
Redfield, J. S. "The Genius of Poe." Foreword. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. A.C. Armstrong & Son. New York: A.C. Armstrong & Son., 1884. xv-xxvi. EPUB file.
Edgar Allan Poe was an excellent horror, suspense, and mystery writer of the eighteenth century. His use of literary devices and different literary techniques makes this writer important to American literature. This paper will show how Edgar Allan Poe has made an impact on Society and American literature as well as how Edgar Allan Poe developed the short story. I will also discuss and analyze some of his works and techniques he uses in his short stories and poems.
Meyers, J. (1992). Edgar Allan Poe: his life and legacy. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons Frank, F. S. (1997). The Poe encyclopedia. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press..
Ingram, John Henry. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions. New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1965.
Edgar Allan Poe’s haunting poems and morbid stories will be read by countless generations of people from many different countries, a fact which would have undoubtedly provided some source of comfort for this troubled, talented yet tormented man. His dark past continued to torture him until his own death. These torturous feelings were shown in many of his works. A tragic past, consisting of a lack of true parents and the death of his wife, made Edgar Allan Poe the famous writer he is today, but it also led to his demise and unpopularity.
Thomson, Gary Richard, and Poe Edgar. The selected writings of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Norton & Company, 2004
Kennedy, Gerald J. A Historical Guide to Edgar Allan Poe. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2001
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Fisher, Benjamin F. The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print.
Throughout Edgar Allan Poe’s life, death was a frequent visitor to those he loved around him. When Poe was only 3 years old, his loving mother died of Tuberculosis. Because Poe’s father left when he was an infant, he was now an orphan and went to live with the Allan’s. His stepmother was very affectionate towards Edgar and was a very prominent figure in his life. However, years later she also died from Tuberculosis, leaving Poe lonely and forlorn. Also, later on, when Poe was 26, he married his cousin 13-year-old Virginia, whom he adored. But, his happiness did not last long, and Virginia also died of Tuberculosis, otherwise known as the Red Death, a few years later. After Virginia’s death, Poe turned to alcohol and became isolated and reckless. Due to Edgar Allan Poe’s loss of those he cared for throughout his life, Poe’s obsession with death is evident in his works of “The Tell-Tale Heart”, “The Black Cat”, and “The Fall of the House of Usher”, in which in all three death is used to produce guilt.
Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1941. Internet.