The Facts In The Case Of M Valdemar Analysis

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The visible structure of the text contains no chapters or sections, but is structured using only paragraphs. One reason why Poe may have done this was to not only make the story follow and to read more easily, but this story is not written as a story. It is titled, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” and is the narrator’s account of results of an experiment. Chapters and sections are usually used to establish a pace within the text, to switch settings or to switch to another character’s point of view. In this story, besides the few lines said by M. Valdemar such as “yes; asleep now. Do not wake me! – let me die so!” the narrator is the only one talking (Poe 4). Also, the setting does not change within the story. It makes sense for this
The use of metaphor is essential to my thesis. Throughout the story particularly through pages 4, 5, and 6 the term “sleep-waker” is used six times. This term is defined as a state of mesmeric sleep; a state of altered consciousness. In Valdemar’s case his state was between life and death. However, I argue that when Valdemar was “successfully” placed in a “perfect state of mesmeric trance,” Valdemar was still dying (Poe 4). When questioned several times by P, Valdemar states, “Yes; - asleep now. Do not wake me! – let me die so!...no pain – I am dying…yes; still asleep – dying” (Poe 4,5). At one point after being placed in the mesmeric state P describes the appearance of Valdemar; his eyes rolling, “the pupils disappearing upward...and the circular hectic spots which, hitherto, had been strongly defined in the centre of each cheek, went out at once. I use this expression, because the suddenness of their departure put me in mind of nothing so much as the extinguishment of a candle by a puff of the breath” (Poe 5). In lights of Poe’s choice of words, I ask, but what is death but the extinguishment of life? An extinguished candle is a metaphor of death. Poe’s words create the metaphorical image of a person who transitions from the dying state to the state of death with a “breath,” death is a moment, a

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