Alone By Edgar Allan Poe

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1. In the poem “Alone” (636-637), what “mystery” is the speaker referring to in line 12? How does that mystery reflect the things it is “drawn/ From” (lines 9-10)? Is this a poem about Emersonian self-reliance? Why/ why not? Poe’s poem “Alone” tells the story of how alone the writer had been all of his life. He states in the first three lines that he was not like “others were” and he could not see “as others saw” from the time that he was a child (636). This can lead readers to believe that Poe is saying that he had always felt like an outcast, and was essentially always alone. Why exactly he felt this way during his childhood is unclear, other than the possibility that he did not feel like he belonged with his foster parents John and Frances Allan, who took him in after his father had abandoned his family and his mother had died. Moreover, he was then separated from his siblings, further showing how he was separated from those he loved and left to his lonesome (629). This knowledge plays in part with what Poe’s “mystery” in line 12 is. Poe states in line 9 of his poem that the mystery had …show more content…

Furthermore, he wonders why he is alone (636-637). It is because of this that it can be concluded that the writer is trying to show that he does not really want to be alone. Emerson might not have been alone all the time, but he did believe in the “independent spirit” (214). The writer of “Alone” seems to almost be complaining about his forced independence, and thus it can be drawn that the poem about the opposite of Emersonian self-reliance. 2. In Chapter 5, “Solitude”, Thoreau asserts that while living alone in his cabin, “I am no more alone than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumble-bee” (1053). What is the point of the very specific list of comparisons he makes in this paragraph? Do you believe his assertion? Why/ why

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