Criminal Thoughts in Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales

“Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence— whether much that is glorious— whether all that is profound— does not spring from disease of thought— from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.” (Poe 1) The topic of the madness always kept Edgar Allan Poe’s mind occupied. A lot of his works deal with the issue of sin, guilt and the criminal’s mind. In my paper I will demonstrate the different kinds of mentality of the guilty in Poe’s stories. Edgar Allan Poe is most well known for his Gothic, detective and mysterious stories. His inclination for writing about these topics comes from his childhood. After his father abandoned the family and her mother died, he and his sister had to grow up in foster families. Thinking that he would be reunited in death with his mom can be the explanation to his affinity to death. (Symons 227) Beside the unfamiliar environment the siblings were also separated from each other. Growing up in a “strange” family and getting used to this situation had a great effect on Poe’s career. All of the residence, cherishing, breeding and education what he got here appears in his stories. (Allen 22)

On the other hand, the feeling of neglect, the loneliness also makes him thinking of strange stories. His stepdad, John Allan didn’t want to take Edgar into the family. Moreover he was also a heavy drinker and he was disposed to depression. It is not a surprise that there are a lot of different kinds of factors influenced Poe.

The psychoanalysis of his short stories is very comprehensive. I argue in the paper that it is worth to consider Poe’s works in a psychological aspect. If we take account of Sigmund Freud famous thesi...

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Benton, Richard P. “Bedlam Patterns”: Love and The Idea of Madness in Poe’s Fiction. Web. 23 April 2014 http://www.eapoe.org/papers/psblctrs/pl19781.htm McLeod, Saul. Sigmund Freud. Web. 23 April 2014 http://www.simplypsychology.org/Sigmund-Freud.html Poe, Edgar Allan."Eleonora" Free Public Domain Books from the Classic Literature Library. Free Public Domain Books. Web. 23 April 2014 http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/american-authors/19th-century/edgar-allan-poe/eleonora/ Rachman, Stephen: Edgar Allan Poe and the Origins of Mystery Fiction. Web. 23 April 2014 http://www.strandmag.com/htm/strandmag_poe.htm Simons, Julian. The Tell-Tale Heart: The Life and Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1981. Print.

Valentine, Kylie. Psychoanalysis, Psychiatry and Modernist Literature. Houndmills; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Print.