The Imp in Us All

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The Imp in Us All

"The Imp is taken to be a self destructive force present in all of us but with important difference in each person according to the power of will and morality". (Edwards 162) Those important differences both connect and individualize the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Imp of the Perverse, The Tell Tale Heart, and William Wilson all demonstrate Poe's fascination and exploration with inner conflict and torturer. These short stories deal with the same issue but present it in different ways by making the characters vary when describing their will and their morality. Hawthorne punctuates this fact through his famous character Reverend Dimmesdale from the Scarlet Letter. He demonstrates that even a man made with extremely high moral fabric can be tortured with inner conflict and agony. All of the characters possess some hidden secret that has taken root in their soul either consciously, or subconsciously, and grows until it can not be contained within the human person. It has to find a way out, and it is that desire that drives the characters to apparent insanity. The main characters from The Imp of the Perverse, The Tell Tale Heart, and William Wilson along with Reverend Dimmesdale all struggled with varying degrees of inner conflict after committing their own personal sin.

The one character that displays the least amount of morality is from, The Imp of the Perverse. His inner struggle deals with revealing his secret on the basis that we are urged to do things that are either unsafe to ourselves or wrong for our best interest. The narrator describes this impulse in an extremely confident manner by appealing to logic,

I am not more certain that I breathe, than that the assuranc...

... middle of paper ...

... backgrounds, time periods, and social situations prove that both Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe Knew that there is some "Imp" in us all.

Bibliography:

Becker, John; Hawthorne's Historical Allegory; Kennikat Press, Port washington,

NY, 1971.

Crowley, Donald; Hawthorne The Critical Heritage; Barnes & Noble, Inc.

New York, 1970.

Edwards, Everett; Edgar Allen Poe Seer and Craftsman; Princeton University

Press, 1972.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel; The Scarlet Letter; Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc

New York, Burlingame, 1961.

Kesteron, David; Critics On Poe; University of Miami Press, Coral Gables

Florida, 1979

Poe, Edgar Allan; The Annotated Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Ed. Stephan

Peithman, Doubleday & Company, Garden City New York, 1981.

Whitman, Sarah; Edgar Poe and his Critics, Haskell House Publisher,

New York, 1972.

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