The character Poe in, the novel, The Man Who Was Poe, is quite similar to the actual Edgar Allan Poe. Likewise, the story written by Avi is much like a few short stories written by Poe himself. The novel and short stories share settings, themes, and characters that closely resemble one another, both with a chilling mood, theme of death, and characters that are utterly insane. Though these tales were not written by the same author, the two have almost identical writing styles. This leads to distinct storylines with the same underlying characteristics. First off, the mood set in the beginning of Avi’s and Poe’s stories is eerie. After the prologue, Avi’s story begins with, “The old city ay dark and cold. A raw wind whipped the Street lamps …show more content…
The two themes that Poe often times uses, death and insanity, can be seen in Avi’s writing as well. First Poe’s major theme of death is included all throughout the mystery in The Man Who Was Poe. It includes Auntie’s death and Poe’s attempted murder of Sis. Avi also uses quotes to involve the theme, “‘It would make a perfect tomb, now wouldn't it?’” (Avi 78). This is used to describe the bank vault that once contained the gold that had been stolen. After Poe hears this he faints, introducing the next theme of Avi’s book: secret fears, ‘Evil is only the name we give...our secret fears’’’. Poe’s secret fear in the novel was being buried alive, which is why he fainted at the idea of a perfect tomb, and the idea of being buried alive is used in his stories too, The Cask of Amontillado and The Black Cat. Again, in his stories, death is usually a central theme, this is also done in Avi’s book, which includes the concept of Poe’s secret fears as well. Avi not only focuses in on Poe’s obsession with death but also his pure insanity. He shows how insanity can drastically change a focused man into a total mess and a shadow of his former self, and he shows this by having Poe state it himself, “‘I’m no longer Auguste Dupin. I am the man who is Edgar-Allan-Poe’” (Avi 161). While this displays a sliver of Poe’s character this mainly focuses in on how central the change in Poe relates to the theme distinctly used by …show more content…
In the beginning of the story, he tells Edmund he is “Dupin”, a character that he includes in his own works. The major similarity between Poe in Avi’s novel and the characters in Poe’s stories is they share a common trait, insanity. In the novel Poe appears to be sensible, but it doesn’t take long for the reader to see his true self, “Dizzy, confused, Dupin leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. It was crisscrossed with cracked lines, alive as a nest of vipers, creating fantastical shapes and ghastly configurations. In one such nest of lines he saw a death's-head. In another, a pool of blood. In a third, a grave. Wincing, Dupin turned away to stare at the equally marred walls. No image is there, just words” (Avi 35). This tells of Poe’s visions and what crazy things go on in his mind, as it later goes on to talk about his obsession with death in his thoughts, “Death. Always death!” (Avi 35). The characters in his short stories can also relate to this. In The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor goes insane and buries Fortunato alive, just to get his perfect revenge, and in The Black Cat, the man becomes psychotic after cutting out a cat’s eye, hanging a cat, murdering his wife, hiding his wife’s corpse within the walls, and then burying another cat
Edgar Allen Poe is known for his dark yet comedic approach toward the his theme of his stories. Likewise, Poe’s themes have gathered many fans due to his impression of reasoning in his stories. The author uses thinking and reasoning to portray the theme. Poe’s unique diction comprehends with the theme of the story. Poe has a brilliant way of taking gothic tales of mystery, and terror, and mixing them with variations of a romantic tale by shifting emphasis from, surface suspense and plot pattern to his symbolic play in language and various meanings of words.
Many of Poe’s stories and poems can be tied to events that have happened in his life. A lot of the hard times that he had had gone through in his life he used as motivation to write his poems and stories. For example the story “The Masque of the Red Death” is thought of to be related to the consumption (aka tuberculosis), which took the life of many of the women he loved. In “The Tell Tale Heart” the dying old man good be seen as Poe’s adoptive father on his death bed, and how the old mans eye made the murderer uncomfortable could be an analogy for how Poe’s father made him feel uncomfortable because he knew that his father did not love him.
The writing style of Edgar Allan Poe shows the writer to be of a dark nature. In this story, he focuses on his fascination of being buried alive. He quotes, “To be buried alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these [ghastly] extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.” page 58 paragraph 3. The dark nature is reflected in this quote, showing the supernatural side of Poe which is reflected in his writing and is also a characteristic of Romanticism. Poe uses much detail, as shown in this passage, “The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lusterless. There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity.” page 59 paragraph 2. The descriptive nature of this writing paints a vivid picture that intrigues the reader to use their imagination and visualize the scene presented in the text. This use of imagery ties with aspects of Romanticism because of the nature of the descriptions Poe uses. Describing the physical features of one who seems dead is a horrifying perspective as not many people thing about the aspects of death.
Poe endured more than any individual should endure, and experienced so much negativity it was almost inevitable that the theme of insanity would appear in his works. He suffered from an excessive amount of hardships and tragedies throughout his life that placed him on the brink of insanity. The first sign of Poe’s insanity is found in his short story “The Black Cat” where the narrator claims “mad [he] is not”. Present in the state of denial, Poe’s character will say or do anything to relinquish the claim of ...
We begin to wonder why he is dominating since it is questionable that a man with a split personality disorder could intelligently think straight, perhaps the other half of his mind has either given up or does not exist anymore. Then out of nowhere, “the wide heavy doors of the room were suddenly opened. Every light in the room went out”(46). Wilson “had seen that a man entered”(46). The atmosphere created before the man entered solidifies the anticipation that something wicked may happen, but as the narrator realizes the unexplained figure was again very similar to him, the audience concludes that William Wilson from his childhood days has returned once again. Going mad, Poe’s unreliable narrator struggles to escape the presence of his eerie spirit. He stated, “I went from city to city, and in each one Wilson appeared. Paris, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, Moscow- he followed me everywhere” (54). Wilson had come to realize that his twin was purposely restricting him both mentally and physically. In one final action he stabbed the immoral figure through the heart thinking it would rid him forever of this wretched individual. Poe cunningly writes passage to put the audience and his character at ease but he then launches them off the edge as William Wilson spots himself standing in a mirror,
Every poem of Edgar Allan Poe’s has some common literary elements, such as themes, symbols, motifs, and moods. Poe often uses similar themes throughout his poems. For instance, revenge is a common them and is used in the “Cask of Amontillado” and “ Hop Frog.” Another them he uses quite frequently is death. In almost every poem, death is mentioned. In the “Cask of Amontillado,” Montresor kills Fortunato. In “Premature Burial,” it has documentaries of people who have died. In “Tell Tale Heart,” a man his killed. Dea...
...story, the narrator continues to repeat himself over and over, along with question why the reader should have any uncertainty about his psychological state. Additionally, the narrator continues to defend his sanity by telling the reader that he cannot be considered crazy because he was mindful and took caution in his actions: “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded -- with what caution -- with what foresight, with what dissimulation, I went to work!” (1). With Poe’s writing style and use of language he achieves an emotion of genuine doubt about the narrator’s true mental state. Moreover, Poe reveals the narrator’s fear of the “vulture eye” and his peculiar obsession with it until he is finally able to eliminate it.
Perhaps the most incriminating move by Poe in regard to his construction of the narrator and Dupin’s relationship is his use of the Palais Royal as a setting in “The Murders of the Rue Morgue.” As previously discussed, Poe’s integration of homoeroticism in his Dupin stories operates through the consistent normalization of same-sex desire. The stroll along the Palais Royal in “The Murders of the Rue Morgue” play with the notion of deviant forms of desire without unequivocally calling attention to as much, similarly pointing to homoeroticism within the text while still not outright calling it out. Therefore, while the narrator and Dupin’s stroll alongside the Palais Royal seems relatively impersonal in the context of the story, Courtney Novosat
The story is told through the subjective viewpoint of the narrator who begins by telling the reader he is writing this narrative to unburden his soul because he will die tomorrow. The events that brought him to this place in time have “…terrified, tortured and destroyed him” (Poe). This sets a suspenseful tone for the story. He blames the Fiend Intemperance for the alteration of his personality. He went from a very docile, tenderhearted man who loved his pets and wife to a violent man who inflicted this ill temperament on the very things he loves. The final break from the man that he once was, is the “…spirit of PERVERSENESS” (Poe 514). He describes this as doing something wrong because you know it is wrong. Evil consumes his every thought and he soon develops a hatred for everything. “Speaking through his narrators," Poe illustrates perversit...
In Poe’s works, death is viewed as “a forgone conclusion as the end of a decaying process that started long ago” (Wang). This is illustrated in poems such as “The City in the Sea,” “The Bells,” and “The Conqueror Worm.” The narrators in most of his works is only able to feel complete in death. Many critics attribute Poe’s fascination to the deaths of almost all of the significant women in his life (Poetry of Edgar Allan Poe). Since nearly all of the important people in his life died, Poe was forced to ponder the truths of death and how it fit into the plan of life.
Edgar Allan Poe was a man who unfortunately was born into a life full of morbidity and grief. The stories and poems that he created reflect the experience he has with agonizing situations, in which Poe’s dark side developed; his evil reasoning and twisted mentality allowed Poe to develop extremely vivid and enthralling stories and works. Due to not only his family members but also his wifes to passing from tuberculosis, morbidity and grief is present in almost every work that Poe created. From major works such as “the Raven”, “Black Cat”, “Annabel Lee”, and the Tell- Tale Heart, Poe utilized themes such as death, premature burials, body decompositions, mourning, and morbidity to enhance his point an the image he attempted to convey.
...n with death. His fascination with death can be traced back to the death of those he loved in his life, including his mother, step-mother, and wife. Poe conveys his fixation through his narrators in short stories, whether they kill based on fear, hate, or anxiety. By including death in all his works, he frightens his audience and shows them that death is unavoidable and constantly chases us throughout our lives.
Raymond Chandler, an American Literature writer in the early twentieth-century, introduces a new type of genre that will later set the standards and inspire future literature writers. In his first book, “The Big Sleep”, Chandler features the main character, Phillip Marlowe, as a detective trying to solve a blackmail case for the Sternwood family. Marlowe goes through all kinds of hardships throughout the book in order to be the knight in shining armor. One of these hardships is lust and temptation. For example, when Marlowe comes home after trying to investigate Vivian on Eddie Mars and their relationship, he is surprised to find a naughty, seductive, and sexy Carmen lying naked on his bed.
Poe is able to convey fear on two different levels in his most popular short story. By using dark diction and eerie imagery, he creates an overly dramatic horror story, but by adding deeper psychological themes, he creates a timeless work that is relevant to any reader.