Edger Poe Research Paper

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Edger Allen Poe was born to traveling actors in Boston on January 19, 1809. Poe was the second of three children in his family. Three years of Poe’s birth both of his parents had died, and he was taken in by the wealthy tobacco merchant John Allan and his wife Frances Valentine Allan in Richmond, Virginia while Poe’s siblings went to live with other families (Life). He was a very talented writer at a young age. By the age of thirteen, Poe wrote enough poetry to publish a book, but his headmaster advised him against it (Life). In 1826 Poe left Richmond to attend the University of Virginia, where he excelled in his classes while accumulating considerable debt. He took to gambling to pay off his debts, but was unsuccessful at doing so. After being humiliated at collage Poe returned to Richmond and visited the home of his fiancee Elmira Royster, only to discover that she had become engaged to another man in Poe’s absence (Life). He then published his first book Tamerlane when he was only eighteen. Two years later he heard that Frances Allan, the only mother he had ever known, was dying of tuberculosis and wanted to see him before she died, but by the time Poe returned to Richmond she had already been buried (Life). He then joined the army and went to the United States Military Academy at West Point, but before leaving he published another volume of poetry. Poe continued to write and publish many books and poetry. He found a new woman to love, but in 1842 she contracted tuberculosis and died, leaving Poe heart broken again (Life). He faced many hardships throughout his life up until October 7, 1849 when he died at the age of forty. The exact cause of Poe’s death remains a mystery still today (Life). Poe wrote through the troubles in... ... middle of paper ... ...ing the man ultimately turns into overriding guilt even as the justifications, in the narrators mind, of a savage killing by chopping up the body and placing it under the floorboards. The narrator's imagination creates the need and plan to destroy the eye, but it then creates the need to save himself/herself from the heartbeat that drives the narrator over the edge. All in all, Poe’s “The Tale-Tell Heart” shows how ones justification of a character can be justified by actions. The narrator first convinces the audience that he/she is not insane, but then later on shows how insane, he/she really is through the violent murder of the old man. The transformation of this character leads on to question if sanity was even a factor in this story. The character development throughout the story shows how the character went from sanity to insanity in a short amount of time

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