Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne both had a passion for writing about the dark sides to human behavior. While they shared that common interest, they also had different ways of presenting their scary tales. Were there any similarities’ in their youth that could contribute to the same love for the tales that haunt people? Did their difference in style and techniques really matter? Can a scary story really be that different depending on the way it is told?
Edgar Allen Poe was born in 1809. His parents were actors his mother ended up raising her three children alone after their father left them. His mother later died leaving the children behind. Poe was raised in the home of well to do merchant named John Allen. Allen and Poe were not very close in fact; John Allen never adopted Poe as a child. The death of his mother and the life lived with an emotionally detached caregiver led to the events that turned Poe into one of the most psychological writers of the times. Poe developed the love for writing and his style was a little different for most writers in that time. Poe enjoyed writing about horrors and things that go bump in the night. The kinds of tales that make the hair stand on a person’s neck and arms. Most of his writings always included death, murders and mysteries that went beyond anyone’s wildest imaginations.
Poe wrote many mystery’s and the subject he seemed most intrigue to write about was death and the death of women was a subject Poe would call “The most poetical topic in the world” (Van Doren 191). Edgar Allen Poe’s writes his stories in a way, which makes them much more...
... middle of paper ...
...ing, morally unpleasant but captivating at the same time. Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne were two of the most influential writers and made people think outside the box. They influenced many of the writers we get our thrills from today. Only difference is in that era tales like Hawthorne’s and Poe’s one could only dream about and in today’s society, it is everyday news.
These two men had an imagination before their times. Hawthorne and Poe’s love for writing tales that will raise hair on a reader’s body, make the reader question every detail and moral fiber within their being. That is what makes these two men great at what they loved to do. While they both had differences that set them apart, they also had similarities’ that brought them together and they each created master pieces that will last lifetimes to be read and enjoyed by many generations to come.
Edgar Allan Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. Poe is best known today as a short story writer, poet, critic, and editor. Poe was born into a family of actors and was the second youngest of the three children. Poe never really knew his parents because his father had left the family when he was in his early age and his mother ended up passing away before he reached the age of three years old. Poe was separated from both of his siblings and began living with John and Frances Allan, who was a successful tobacco merchant.
Edgar Allan Poe and Ray Bradbury are very different in life, but they have a lot in common when it comes to writing. They both used their personal lives in their stories as themes. They also used the same style of writing, and focused on more supernatural and things that ordinary authors wouldn’t write about. They also used some of the same literary devices such as allusion, irony, foreshadowing, and imagery.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most known authors well after his time. He has had a life field with death and sadness, but yet he still continued to write and is now one of the greatest writers of his time and is still studied by teens and English teachers today.
They are the ones that with their unique styles managed to impress people from their society, and more importantly, continued to influence writers many years later. Although some of their works are considered a little out of tone with their time, perhaps controversial, one cannot deny that they are outstanding pieces of work because of their topic and theme. From satire to fiction, Washington Irving created a reputation for being the first American to transcend in America and England. Hawthorne used the events in his life as a source of inspiration, and better yet, his perspective of society and mankind, helped him write great novels Finally Edgard Allan Poe, a man with a troubled soul, managed to write entrancing works full of mystery, crime, and gothic themes. All three men were successful writers and no doubt their works will keep being an inspiration for many more
Edgar Allen Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother and father where both actors, David and Elizabeth Arnold. They had financial difficulties, which soon caused the father to abandon the family. Poe's mother soon had another child; however, she was having physical conditions causing her death on December 8, 1811. Becoming orphans, both Poe and his sister were split up in family friend’s houses. Poe went to live with the Allan's. As Poe grew up he started having problems with his John Allan, his foster father, which caused future problems. Poe's first step to start a career was attending the University of Virginia in 1826. "Allan failed to provide Poe with enough money for necessities such as furniture and books and Poe soon ran up a tremendous gambling debt and began drinking, despite his very low tolerance for alcohol" (Loveday 2). After a time he moved to Boston, "The Great Literature Capital." What was helping Poe start of his career, where the big hopes of one day becoming a writer despite the harsh life he had since he was little. Poe's work has had an impact on literature. Throughout his most famous pieces of literature, "The Fall of the House of Usher," "The Raven," and "The Cast of Amontillado," we see common factors that influenced these types of works through his plots and characters. "Madness, alienation, and mankind's long love affair with morbidity were the his subjects, and he didn't mind admitting to being more to being more than half in love with easeful death, to mangle a line from his favorite poet, Tennyson," (Allen 2).
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.
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.
Edgar Allen Poe was born on January 19th of the year 1809 to two traveling actors (Poe’s Life). Both of his parents died within his first year of life (Poe’s Life). After his parents’ death he went to live with John Allan a...
...e the horror genre might not have become as popular as it is now. Poe thought that he was just writing to express his thoughts and feelings, but what he did not realize that his works would change American Literature forever.
Edgar Allan Poe has a unique writing style that uses several different elements of literary structure. He uses intrigue vocabulary, repetition, and imagery to better capture the reader’s attention and place them in the story. Edgar Allan Poe’s style is dark, and his is mysterious style of writing appeals to emotion and drama. What might be Poe’s greatest fictitious stories are gothic tend to have the same recurring theme of either death, lost love, or both. His choice of word draws the reader in to engage them to understand the author’s message more clearly. Authors who have a vague short lexicon tend to not engage the reader as much.
'Young Goodman Brown,' by Hawthorne, and 'The Tell Tale Heart,' by Poe, offer readers the chance to embark on figurative and literal journeys, through our minds and our hearts. Hawthorne is interested in developing a sense of guilt in his story, an allegory warning against losing one's faith. The point of view and the shift in point of view are symbolic of the darkening, increasingly isolated heart of the main character, Goodman Brown, an everyman figure in an everyman tale. Poe, however, is concerned with capturing a sense of dread in his work, taking a look at the motivations behind the perverseness of human nature. Identifying and understanding the point of view is essential, since it affects a reader's relationship to the protagonist, but also offers perspective in situations where characters are blinded and deceived by their own faults. The main character of Poe?s story embarks on an emotional roller coaster, experiencing everything from terror to triumph. Both authors offer an interpretation of humans as sinful, through the use of foreshadowing, repetition, symbolism and, most importantly, point of view. Hawthorne teaches the reader an explicit moral lesson through the third person omniscient point of view, whereas Poe sidesteps morality in favor of thoroughly developing his characters in the first person point of view.
Edgar Allen Poe was a deeply troubled man. From a young age he struggled with a love life that would slowly tarnish his mind. Poe frequently turned to controlled substances and alcohol to help sooth his pain. Poe’s only true solace from the harsh reality to which he was doomed to live was through his writings. Poe helped developed several major literary genres including American gothic style and the American Detective Story. Both his short stories and poems are littered with themes expressing deeply macabre scenes such as mutilation, gore, and criminal insanity. However, one of his most prominent and well known topics in Poe’s writing deals with the death of beautiful women. This is directly
Reading Edgar Allen Poe’s works such as “The Cask of Amontillado” and “Tell-Tale Heart” are both written around 1840’s and written in the gothic style. Poe displays his horror short stories, in which the reader can differentiate his signature style. Although many of Poe’s significant works may have a similar theme, the reader can distinguish the themes through the characters in “The Cask of Amontillado” and “Tell-Tale Heart.”
The similarities and differences between Poe and Hawthorne both show a dynamic and intriguing method that has lasted through the times. They both show an inner personal look through their writing about their loved ones. The dynamic writing between both writers depict the idea that no matter how morbid the writing love can shine through any view. With both writers there is a vision of morbid curiosity along with a romantic nature for the audience; by depicting death of a loved one to show a sense of connection with the audience. Although both are gothic romantic writers you can easily see that both have a different sense of life and death, and to which one holds more value.
Edgar Allan Poe is one American author whose name is known to almost everyone. Edgar is known for his elegant poems and for being a tough critic of refined tastes, but also for being the first master of the short story form, especially tales of mystery. He has a talent of having an extraordinary hold upon the readers imagination and not letting lose. Many advents of Edgar’s life has probably led to the strange, but successful and renowned pieces of American literature.