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The themes in edgar allan poe
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“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence— whether much that is glorious— whether all that is profound— does not spring from disease of thought— from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.” (Poe 1) The topic of the madness always kept Edgar Allan Poe’s mind occupied. A lot of his works deal with the issue of sin, guilt and the criminal’s mind. In my paper I will demonstrate the different kinds of mentality of the guilty in Poe’s stories. Edgar Allan Poe is most well known for his Gothic, detective and mysterious stories. His inclination for writing about these topics comes from his childhood. After his father abandoned the family and her mother died, he and his sister had to grow up in foster families. Thinking that he would be reunited in death with his mom can be the explanation to his affinity to death. (Symons 227) Beside the unfamiliar environment the siblings were also separated from each other. Growing up in a “strange” family and getting used to this situation had a great effect on Poe’s career. All of the residence, cherishing, breeding and education what he got here appears in his stories. (Allen 22)
On the other hand, the feeling of neglect, the loneliness also makes him thinking of strange stories. His stepdad, John Allan didn’t want to take Edgar into the family. Moreover he was also a heavy drinker and he was disposed to depression. It is not a surprise that there are a lot of different kinds of factors influenced Poe.
The psychoanalysis of his short stories is very comprehensive. I argue in the paper that it is worth to consider Poe’s works in a psychological aspect. If we take account of Sigmund Freud famous thesi...
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...934. Print.
Benton, Richard P. “Bedlam Patterns”: Love and The Idea of Madness in Poe’s Fiction. Web. 23 April 2014 http://www.eapoe.org/papers/psblctrs/pl19781.htm McLeod, Saul. Sigmund Freud. Web. 23 April 2014 http://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html Poe, Edgar Allan."Eleonora" Free Public Domain Books from the Classic Literature Library. Free Public Domain Books. Web. 23 April 2014 http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/american-authors/19th-century/edgar-allan-poe/eleonora/ Rachman, Stephen: Edgar Allan Poe and the Origins of Mystery Fiction. Web. 23 April 2014 http://www.strandmag.com/htm/strandmag_poe.htm Simons, Julian. The Tell-Tale Heart: The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1981. Print.
Valentine, Kylie. Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry and Modernist Literature. Houndmills; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.
Faculty of Arts and Humanities Department of European Languages and Literature Rana Al-Ghalib 1700871 Short Story LANE – 615 Final Paper Schizophrenia and Poe Outline Abstract Schizophrenia Schizophrenia in The Life and Work of Poe Schizophrenia Represented in The Fall of The House of Usher ConclusionAbstract Edgar Alan Poe is one of the major contributors to the literary canon. He was allegedly suffering from a mental disorder. His own psyche was said to be an inspiration for many of his works.
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.
Sova, Dawn B. "Poe, Edgar Allan." Bloom's Literature. Ed. Facts on File, Inc. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Bloom's Literature. Web. 23 Jan. 2014.
The life of Edgar Allan Poe, was stuffed with tragedies that all affected his art. From the very start of his writing career, he adored writing poems for the ladies in his life. When he reached adulthood and came to the realization of how harsh life could be, his writing grew to be darker and more disturbing, possibly as a result of his intense experimenting with opium and alcohol. His stories continue to be some of the most frightening stories ever composed, because of this, some have considered this to be the reason behind these themes. Many historians and literature enthusiasts have presumed his volatile love life as the source while others have credited it to his substance abuse. The influence of his one-of-a-kind writing is more than likely a combination of both theories; but the main factor is the death of many of his loved ones and the abuse which he endured. This, not surprisingly, darkened his perspective considerably.
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
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: The Modern Library 1992
The short story is generally a study in human terror. Furthermore, the author explains Poe use of a particular style and technique, to not only create the mood of mystery, but to cause the reader to feel sympathy for the narrator. Poe makes a connection between the storyteller and reader with knowledge and literary craftsmanship.
Fisher, Benjamin F. The Cambridge Introduction to Edgar Allan Poe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Print.
“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest of intelligence,” Edgar Allan Poe. Poe is famous in the writing world and has written many amazing stories throughout his gloomy life. At a young age his parents died and he struggled with the abuse of drugs and alcohol. A great amount of work he created involves a character that suffers with a psychological problem or mental illness. Two famous stories that categorize Poe’s psychological perspective would be “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Both of these stories contain many similarities and differences of Poe’s psychological viewpoint.
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.
Does the narrator show weakness through this mental illness or is it a sophistical mind of a genius? This is the question that must be answered here. Throughout this discussion we will prove that the narrator is a man of a conscience mind and committed the crime of murder. Along with that we will expose Poe’s true significance of writing this short story, and how people were getting away with crime by justifying that they were insane.
Pruette, Lorine. “A Psycho-Analytical study of Edgar Allan Poe.” Ther American Jounal of Psychology.31.4 (1920): 370-402. University of Illinois Press. Web. 28 March 2014.
Grantz, David. Qrisse's Edgar Allan Poe Pages, The Poe Decoder. 20 April 2001. Web site. 17 November 2013.