It has been said that one cannot be truly great until they have experienced hardships. This perhaps was why Edgar Allan Poe was an excellent horror, suspense, and mystery writer of the eighteenth century. His life was not sprinkled with tragedy, but completely drowned in it. His use of literary devices and different techniques makes this writer unique to American Literature. As mentioned before, Poe had an unusual way of writing which illustrated the evil in humans. Poe’s childhood was dark and full of misfortunes. To begin with, he was an orphan due to tuberculosis taking both of his parents and later his own brother as well as his first wife. Therefore, he was adopted by his uncle John Allan but after Poe started having financial conflicts, …show more content…
The way this word is defined in this tale is how human are aware that the act is wrong, yet they decide to go forward with that decision. That’s when the spirit of perverseness wins, when the individual would rather do the contrary from the good, a wicked act with self-awareness. In The Black Cat, the narrator is an animal lover, yet with time he ends up maltreating each and one of them, except his favorite pet; his cat Pluto. The narrator identifies this as a disease which he also compares it to alcohol. Consequently, the narrator then loses his temper one night while being intoxicated and violently removes Pluto’s eye. Shortly after this incident, the narrator decides to hang Pluto from a tree. Although the narrator did feel a sense of remorse at the beginning of this so-called disease, the spirit of perverseness comes into play. Poe mentions, “Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart-one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?” (Poe 696-697). The narrator begins to become immune to the feeling of guilt, yet a new cat that resembles Pluto is the delusional form of guilt that lingers around the narrator which drives him insane. After discovering Pluto’s double, which he believes is Pluto itself, he tries to get rid of it with an axe and fails. As a result to his fury against this defenseless animal, he ends up murdering his wife with the axe, and rather than finding a solution, he hides her away knowing it is an unlawful
Poe was a very experienced author of unique tales. He was born on January 19, 1809 and died on October 7, 1849. He had a dark life growing up because his mother, foster mother, and his wife died from tuberculous. His father abandoned him and his foster father disliked him. This background may have greatly influenced his work. He wrote 70 poems and 66 short stories during his lifetime. Poe has written many Gothic horror stories. “The Tell Tale Heart,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” show these similarities.
Introduction Poe was famous for his works of mystery and dark poetry. He was not the most distinguished writer in American history, but he was the most versatile and well worth reading. He had an imagination that carried him away to an almost morbid dreamland, some say his gothic style of writing came from his own life, in which he suffered from depression.
Poe is a very complicated author. His literary works are perplexed, disturbing, and even grotesque. His frequent illnesses may have provoked his engrossment in such things. In 1842 Dr. John W. Francis diagnosed Poe with sympathetic heart trouble as well as brain congestion. He also noted Poe's inability to withstand stimulants such as drugs and alcohol (Phillips 1508). These factors may have motivated him to write The Tell-Tale-Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, and The Black Cat. All of these stories are written in or around 1843, shortly after Poe became afflicted. His writing helped him to cope with his troubles and explore new territory in literature. Poe's interest in the supernatural, retribution, and perverse cause them to be included in his burial motifs; therefore sustaining his interest. There is a common thread laced through each subject, but there is variation in degrees of the impact. The supernatural is the phenomena of the unexplained. With this comes an aura of mystery and arousal of fear. Death in itself is the supreme mystery. No living human being can be certain of what happens to the soul when one dies. It is because of this uncertainty that death is feared by many. These types of perplexing questions cause a reader to come to a point of indifference within one of Poe's burial motifs. One is uncertain of how the events can unfold, because a greater force dictates them. Reincarnation in The Black Cat is a supernatural force at work. There is some sort of orthodox witchcraft-taking place. The whole story revolves around the cat, Pluto, coming back to avenge its death. One can not be sure how Pluto's rebirth takes place, but it is certain that something of a greater force has taken hold. The cat's appearance is altered when the narrator comes across it the second time. There is a white spot on the chest "by slow degrees, degrees nearly imperceptible…it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinct outline…of the GALLOWS" (Poe 4). Foretelling the narrator's fate a confinement tool appears on the cat's chest. This also foreshadows the cat's confinement in the tomb. It reappears like a disease to take vengeance on a man that has committed horrid crimes. "I was answered by a voice within the tomb! --By a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and quickly swelling into one long, loud and continuous scream, utterly anomalous an...
Edgar Allan Poe is one of America's most influential writers. His stories and poems have touched the lives of countless people. His works, however, are influenced by his own life. The events of his life led him down the dark road of depression and morbidity.
Introduced by tragedies early in his life, Edgar Allan Poe became one of the most successful writers, poets, and storytellers to ever live. Edgar Allan Poe had the intelligence to do anything he wanted to do, however, the pain of losing his loved ones always seemed to drive him towards a pen and paper. His emotions never failed to show through his writings, which helped the story line touch the readers. Poe became very close to several different women but each would die shortly after he came to love them. This only pushed him to write more emotionally. Poe had a natural talent for putting his real life experiences into a fictional story and making it seem as if it were really happening.
In conclusion, I believe that Edgar Allan Poe’s life was full of sorrow and loneliness. Though his life was one problem after another, this pushed him and inspired him to be the writer was. His past inspired his dark and demented them of his short stories, poems, etc. Many look up to Edgar as a phenomenal writer.
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.
Before the age of three, Poe was already an orphan after his Mother dying and his Father walking out on them (Frank 56). Poe was too young to remember his Mother since her death occurred when he was very young, but later in his life he grew resentful for being raised as a foster child. After the loss of his Mother, Poe would go on to experience the death of many more loved ones. This became the source of the terrible fear Poe would associate with death and dying, a common theme in many of his works.
First one needs to know some background information on Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was born in Boston, Massachutes, to David Poe and Elizabeth Arnold. He lost both his father, who abandoned the family, and his mother, who died of tuberculosis, at a very young age. He was taken in by John Allan, a wealthy business man. As Poe aged, he and his father relationship became very strained. In 1826, while attending the University of Virginia, Poe and his father had a falling out over his supposed drinking and his gambling debts. In 1827, Poe enlisted in the U.S. Army. After two years of service, his father helped him get accepted into West Point Military Academy. It was only a few months before Poe was expelled from school and disowned by his father. In 1832 he moved to Baltimore to live with his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, and Cousin Virginia. Four years later Poe and his young cousin were married. She soon became very sick and suffered from repeated illness until she died in 1847.
In 1811, Elizabeth Poe passed away. Edgar Allan Poe was only 2 when this tragedy occurred. His father abandoned his siblings and him not too long after. After being abandoned by his father, he was adopted by Mr. and Mrs. John Allan. His sister, was adopted by another family. Starting from a young age, Edgar Allan Poe was parentless and had no family connections. Growing up with Mr. and Mrs. John Allan, Poe lived a luxurious life. He went to nice private schools and lived in a nice home. However, when Poe attended college, he was not given enough enough money to survive. This angered him, and he began to drink, gamble, and fall in debt. Not too long after, Poe dropped out of school. It is known that Poe sent many letters to John asking for help but did not receive any. Poe was not mentioned in John’s will when he passed away in 1834. When his foster father died in 1834, the death had major negative effects on Poe’s
Poe became a huge role model in American romance literature. "Edgar Allan Poe helped to establish the image of the Romantic artist as a being who not only created art from the essence of his own personal suffering but also came to define him through this suffering." (Magistrale 1). Poe's life and all his heartbreaks and suffrage through it all are what made him such a good writer. He wrote about sad, depressing, dreary feelings because that is how his childhood and later life was.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential writers of the horror genre in American history. His horror stories have impacted numerous authors and their stories over the years. Various people have tried to copy his way of writing style, but they have failed to achieve the success he did. Even though Poe is no longer living, his impact on American literature can still be felt today.
Edgar Allen Poe was born in 1809 to two actors. His father and older brother were both alcoholics. When he was two years old, his father abandoned he and his mother. His mother, being unable to support them both, sent him to live with John and Frances Allen. She died not long after that. The Allen’s gave Poe a good life, but never legally adopted him, which led to him feeling like an outcast. Poe was bullied in school for being the child of actors, which fed into his feeling of not belonging. Poe was later sent to college, and planned to marry Sarah Elmira Royster as soon as he graduated. He eventually had to leave college due to debt, and returned home where he discovered that Sarah was engaged to another man. He then joined West Point Academy for a short time, but did not like it and soon dropped out. After that, Poe moved from job to job until he eventually married his 13 year old cousin, Virginia. Six years later, Virginia fell ill with tuberculosis and died. Poe’s depression deepened, and he later tried to kill ...
Poe was raised by his God parents after his parents died at the age of three. He was involved in Gambling and he also drank a lot. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia,
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.