Examples Of The Rejection Of Edgar Allan Poe

The acceptance and rejection of Edgar Allen Poe

Many today marvel at his stories of horror, but not so much back in his time. Edgar Allan Poe was seen as a melancholy, alcoholic laughing stock. It all began from Poe’s major woe at the age of 2, when his dad left the family and his mom was dying from Consumption, also known as Tuberculosis. Little Poe watched as his mom cough up blood and waste away. After his mother’s death, Poe was separated from his brother and sister and was sent away to his foster parents John and Frances Allan. From there, Edgar’s like kept getting worse and worse; death was a constant theme for both his life and his works. His most famous poem, named “The Raven”, made him an overnight sensation, but he was still poor;

he had only earned $14 for that poem. In fact, in his lifetime, he probably only made around $300 for all his writing. Edgar Allan Poe is known as “the father of the detective/mystery genre. and also as “the horror lord”. Poe’s life was filled with sorrow and misery, but only a few can rightfully say that they had accepted him.

Poe was rejected by the majority of the people in his life.

When he moved in with his foster parents, his foster dad, John, loathed him while Frances, John’s wife, loved. When Poe was old enough, John sent him to the University of Virginia, not because he cared about his education, but because John wanted to get rid of Poe. This means that John had rejected Poe any care or love for him, even when Poe’s mother died and his father abandoned the family. John resented Poe and sought any opportunity to send Poe away. Another example of the rejection of Edgar Allan Poe is that back then, years after his death, when students were to memorize famous works by famous writers, Poe was always left out. This means that Poe was not “worthy” enough to have his works studied, implying that the teachers thought lowly of him and resented the idea that he was also a talented writer that should have been looked up to. In conclusion, many Americans dismissed Poe as unimportant, rejecting his both in life and in

death.

Unfortunately, Poe did not handle rejection very well; he avoided the problem, and he vented his feelings of distress into his writing.

When his foster dad didn’t supply him with enough money to go to the University, he had to confront the cost mostly by himself. He accumulated a lot of debt from gambling, so he decided to leave Richmond when he found out that his sweetheart had married someone else, and to escape the chance of being thrown into debtor’s prison. The meaning behind this is that when Poe was rejected the entirety of his education, he had been overwhelmed by the stress, fear of being locked up, and depression from the loss of someone who he loved. The other way Poe dealt with rejection was by venting out his feeling in his writing. After dropping out of the University, he went to West Point, a military academy, he was haunted by the death of his mother, and also left in more depression when he found out that Frances was dying, he put those emotions into his writing. This is saying that when faced with death, grief, and rejection of the life of another loved one, Poe put his theme into his stories to try to help himself cope with the pain. In summary, Poe tolerated rejection by avoiding the source and/or by conveying it out of

paper.

Once again, Edgar A. Poe’s life was filled with the absence of the people who he loved, poverty, and rejection. To sum it all up, Poe was resented by many different people in his time, whether it being the neglect from a “fatherly figure” or even the exclusion of literary learnings, Poe had handled these problems by either trying to escape the issue or by turning those negative emotions into a horror story. Poe has not been truly accepted by us Americans. While some praise him on his masterpieces, there are still false stereotypes that depict him as a morbid, mysterious figure lurking around cemeteries or crumbling castles. While this is entirely false, if we truly accepted him, these lies wouldn’t exist. Maybe, if people would’ve appreciated him more, he could’ve contributed more to the English literature and have a much easier life. But who knows; we can’t change the past. When you are faced with either rejection or acceptance, you should react in a reasonable manner; one set back or victory might be overwhelming, but you need to pick yourself up, learn from your mistakes and from other’s, and keep moving forwards.

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