Edgar Allan Poe shows us through his stories, how fear can be harmful, but also helpful to a person. Fear can be harmful to a person since it causes paranoia, clouding rational thinking, and maybe even causing it to lead up to the point where all you can think about is your fear, causing you to do things that can harm yourself or others. Though fear is seen primarily as something bad, it can definitely help you out in many cases. Fear helps you because it restrains you from doing something that can get you into trouble since you become to scared to do it. Fear also keeps you alert, and helps you survive in dangerous situations. All the main characters in Poe’s stories, such as the narrators from “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum” …show more content…
There are different ways fear can be negative but yet sometimes positive. Fear can be positive because it keeps makes us alert and careful, and keeps us from trying anything vacuous. The narrator of “The Pit and the Pendulum” has a fear of the pit as soon as he discovers it, which motivates him to be careful in where he moves and that later helps him escape the prison. Prince Prospero also has the courage to chase down the killer in “The Masque of Red Death”, which gets him killed. If he were to fear the killer, he would not charge head on to die so early. Negatively, fear can take over our minds in the form of paranoia. It can mask rational thoughts and make our fear turn into an obsession. The narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart” is obsessed with the old man’s eye since he lets his fear take over his mind. This clouds all his rational thinking and he mindlessly kills the old man that he had probably loved, for such an atypical and unjustifiable reason. Fear helps people think during a complicated situation, but one should not let their fear take control over their rationality. A balance must be found in between the two to keep a steady mind. Fear can have more positivity than negativity if a person lets fear only go a certain
Fear is a powerful emotion. Wikipedia.com describes fear as “an emotion induced by threat perceived by living entities, which causes a change in brain and organ function and ultimately change behavior, such as running away, hiding or freezing from traumatic events.”Most people tend to avoid fearful situations, not realizing that something positive may come out of the event or experience. Victor Villaseñor focuses on the topic of fear in his novel titled Burro Genius. Villaseñor demonstrates to readers how growing up he was extremely fearful of any situation. Victor also tells his readers how he turned his fear into motivation into motivation to keep going and reach his ultimate goal of becoming a published author.
“Fear becomes easier to master when the patient’s mind is diverted from the thing feared to the fear itself, considered as a present and undesirable state of his own mind; and when he regards the fear as his appointed cross he will inevitably think of it as a state of mind.” (9) Once the patient has figured out the states of fear, then they can conquer it. They immediately transfer paths so they do not get pulled into the dark forces. 1 John4:18 says “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love”
One only needs to look at Edgar Allan Poe's works to see how disturbed he truly was. Poe wrote about men being buried alive, a heart that would not stop beating even after it was taken from the body, a man being tortured by a swinging blade, and a tormented man being haunted by a raven. Why would a person write about such horrors? What demons did he seek to exorcise through his writings? What made him so tormented and cynical? Maybe for Poe it was because both his mother and his bride were snatched from him by tuberculosis. Or maybe it was because the world around him was surrounded by violence and death. Or maybe Poe was just that tortured, due to his broken upbringing.
Fear motivates many people to act upon matters, right or wrong. This emotion has been important in many events in both works of literature, and in the real world. It has forced military geniuses into retreat, and influenced them to plan another method of attack. Fear can be both a positive and a negative acting force in one’s life, a quality that can motivate one to success as well as to downfall.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential writers to date. His thrill filled tales of darkness and death helped people see a different side of romantic literature. Many believe that his isolated life and drinking problem helped influence his works. Poe showed his most prominent life accomplishment and disappointments through his life in his stories. He defined a lot of his life’s parallels through his works.
In “The Tell Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe, creates fear and dread. One way Poe creates fear and dread is through the narrator. The narrator shows humor towards the man’s fear. He states, “To think there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea” (Poe 304). Poe shows the two faced personality that the narrator has towards the old man. In the story, the narrator tells us that he was never kinder to the old man than the week before he killed him. Throughout the story, he feels confident in his deed. After killing the old man, he pretends to be calm and convincing. The narrator’s madness tries to convince readers that he is not insane. He states that madmen
This essay will discuss the themes in Poe’s writing that mirror his personal life and, in addition, the fear and supernatural motivators for his characters. First, I will discuss Poe’s background and explore how he became best known as a poet for his tales of mystery and macabre.
Fear influences people to make irrational decisions and take extreme measures. Often times, these actions are done to protect one’s reputation. Fear causes people to lie and manipulate to those they care about in order to escape what they are scared of most. Fear of failure has caused higher levels of anxiety, and has made society put blame on each other, rather than owning up to their mistakes. Fear can also cause one to forget one’s true identity and lose one’s values. There are two options that one can take when being faced with a fear: run away from the fear, or go through it and learn a valuable lesson in the end that will make you a stronger person. Fear is a harmful emotion that everyone has to go through in order to succeed.
Of course, the most dominant example of fear was when Scrooge met The Ghost of Christmas Future, and saw his fate. Scrooge saw that people wouldn’t show up to his funeral, and saw that some thieves even stole from his room whilst his corpse was still resting in his bed. It made Scrooge want to become a better person, and have a better legacy when he died. In “Thank You M’am”, Roger was scared that Ms. Jones would report him to the police or kidnap him. When Ms. Jones shut the door on him, he was scared straight to knowing that stealing was wrong, and that the next time he steals somebody won’t be as generous as the lady. In my small group learning, Jesus was too scared about being faced with prejudice to help the lady with the valise and the kids. He hated that he was scared, so he decided to change himself to be helpful, even if he may be shunned by the way he looked. If somebody is about to lose their job, they change to focus more and learn how to do their job better. We all do have fear, but in some situations fear can be
In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the author, Edgar Allen Poe, creates fear and dread throughout the story. One way Poe creates fear is in the way the narrator claims he is sane, when in reality he is very unstable. The narrator claims that his insanity is actually just the over-acuteness of his senses. As the narrator approaches the old man, he begins to grow furious at the sight of the man’s eye. That fury increases even more when he supposedly hears the old man’s heartbeat. When this occurs, the readers start to become fearful for the old man. They start to become scared because they know this fury will eventually lead to the old man’s death. The unstable state of the narrator is also shown when he continuously stalks the old man. His method of
Human's fears should not be taken lightly. Fear could do anything to one's minds, though without fear, man can be as savage as animals. In the book Lord of the Flies, William Golding presented fear of the unknown to be a powerful force in a man's mind. Fear of the unknown is a powerful force, which can turn to either insight or hysteria. The kids feared of not being rescued off of the island, so they made signal fires on top of the mountain. Then, there and gone, Roger's fear of the old rules he abided to. Also, there were the fears of the beast which confused and isolated the kids from the top of the mountain.
In the words of Bertrand Russell, “Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom” (Russell). Fear causes many problems in our lives. Fear influences many of a person’s actions and decisions. However, people usually regret the decisions or actions they made out of fear. Also, these actions and decisions can cause problems for those people in their future. Fear is a harmful emotion, for it clouds people’s judgement, disables them from taking action, and causes them to make decisions that they will regret later.
“There is nothing to fear but fear itself” (Roosevelt). “Fear is a chain reaction in the brain that starts with a stressful stimulus and ends with the release of chemicals that cause a racing heart, fast breathing and energized muscles, among other things, also known as the fight-or-flight response” (Layton). Fear affects the brain and can help people or make them in a worse situation than they were in the first place. Fear most motivates/influences people during times of crisis by clouding judgement and becoming a weapon of power.
Fear has controlled the world and shaped humans into what they are now. New technologies have been created, because of the fear humans have. Over time new fears have evolved, and illnesses occurred due to anxiety and depression from these fears. The terror that runs through each individual is different. Without fear there would be no evolution or protection.
Edgar Allan Poe had a very tough life, he faced many hardships. The hardships in his life made him a very sad, depressed person and he expresses that through his writings. He was born in 1809 and his father deserted the family right after his birth, a year later his mother died. All the woman in his life that were close to him died. Edgar Allan Poe later joined the army and started his writings. Edgar Allan Poe used himself or made himself similar to the narrator in his stories a lot of times. He expresses his feelings and reflects on his life through his writings, such as his short stories. The short stories that he really seems to express his emotions in are The Black Cat, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Tell-Tale Heart.