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Alcoholism in the works of edgar allan poe
Research paper the work of Poe
Research paper the work of Poe
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Most of Edgar allan Poe’s stories are written in first person and not everyone comes to conclusion that his wild, yet atrocious stories could have linked to his intemperance with alcohol. He does not directly specify that his writings are related to him yet in a way, with his background on susbtance abuse it can be put in theory that it does. In some ways it is reasonable that an author who writes so convincingly about illusion, fantasy, and horror should be suspected for this kind of act. Some argue that it was his fears and anxieties that led Poe to commit to such horrific stories and poems that seem strangely inhuman and in way uncomfortable but what led to these anxiteis and fears? In the text there are qoutes that can link alcohol to
his violent acts. Proof that he is showing that alcohol can convert you into a monster of a person as shown in The Black Cat.
Although there are several theories as to how Edgar Allan Poe died, I think he died from a practice called cooping which involved excessive alcohol ingestion as well. Cooping was a form of electoral fraud where victims are forced to wear disguises, do drugs and drink alcohol and then vote numerous times. Most of the theories involving Poe’s death have been discredited. The cooping theory is one of the most likely ones to have happened. In comparison to other theories, this one is considered likely to be true. There are just too many discrepancies in the other theories to be identified as true.
Poe could have died of alcohol poisoning, but doesn't explain his five-day disappearance and his change of clothing. Since alcohol has been a big problem in his life, Edgar could have just been tempted to drink after not having it for a while and just got out of hand. The alcohol theory was propagated by Snodgrass after Poe's death. Snodgrass was a member of the temperance movement and gave lectures across the country. Snodgrass said binge drinking caused the death of Edgar Allan Poe.
In the article “The Murder of Edgar Allan Poe”by Douglas MacGowan, it stated that the cooping gang would compel people to drink whiskey. Also sometimes the whiskey was mixed with other drugs .According to this evidence it shows that he could’ve been drunk from all the alcohol that the gang gave him.In addition it tells us that he may have been on other drugs that he wasn’t supposed to compel . Also in the article “Poe's Death Is Rewritten as Case of Rabies”by Dr.Bentiz, it says that Poe refused alcohol and could only drink water. It also says that Poe wasn’t drunk but, a glass of wine would make him violent. This evidence shows us that he doesn't like alcohol but, sulfur dioxide is in wine and that is a toxic gas. So it would make him act a lot diffrent then he should be acting like. Another article “Poe’s Final Days by K.Silverman” talked about how on October 4 he was unconscious and his face was pale. When Poe was drunk he was abusive and very ungrateful. In fact, Dr.Snodgrass also attributed his death to a lethal amount of alcohol. According to this evidence it shows that the ingredients of wine could possibly make him violent. It also shows us that wine is not good for your body and you shouldn’t drink it. It also could’ve been rabies since he had a cat he could’ve died from
Alcoholics Anonymous is one of the great unrecognized literary works of the first half of the twentieth century. It has been through three editions after its first printing in 1939 and at least fifty-three printings in over ninety countries (xxii). The wide popularity and circulation of the book certainly affirms this claim. An examination of the contents of the book will show that it also deserves this title. It is a rich work because it conveys a basic human condition, though ugly, until that time not often spoken of in public. If it simply did this and nothing more it would merely be a good book. But it does more than speak to an ugly condition; it gives a blueprint for change.
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.
Substance abuse plays a role in more than one of Poe's works. In the black cat alcohol drives the narrator to rip out his cats eye with with a pen and then hang the cat in guilt of what he had done. The narrator was a kind hearted man who loved animals and would do nothing to hurt them until he started to drink. He became an angrier person, always getting enraged with the people and creatures around him and his personality changed for the worse. Substance abuse changed him and drove him to be a different person than he really was. After killing the cat he felt little to no remorse for the deed he had committed and went back to his drinking and partying.Eventually his drinking led him to kill his wife, substance abuse changed him into a cold hearted man who could rationalize killing his wife and getting away with it.
Alcoholism is the addiction to the intake of alcoholic liquor or the psychological illness and neurotic behavior resulting from alcohol dependency. There is a time and place for alcohol consumption in every culture. It’s a growing problem in America’s society and culture today. Revenge and trust are an issue in this short story. In Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, Montresor symbolizes Poe’s alcoholism, whereas Fortunato represents himself, the man who is trying to reach satisfaction and eventually gets imprisoned by his minute habit. He is attempting to get revenge on someone else because of the insults he had been given. Revenge, trust, and alcohol are all apparent in today’s society, even though this was over 150 years ago, America’s population can still relate to it.
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of actress Elizabeth Arnold Hopkins Poe and actor David Poe, Jr. His father abandoned the family in 1810, and his mother died of tuberculosis when he was only two, so Poe was taken into the home of John Allan, a successful tobacco merchant in Richmond, Virginia. Although his middle name is often misspelled as "Allen," it is actually "Allan" after this family. After attending the Misses Duborg boarding school in London and Manor School in Stoke Newington, London, England, Poe moved back to Richmond, Virginia, with the Allans in 1820. Poe registered at the University of Virginia in 1826, but only stayed there for one year. He was estranged from his foster father at some point in this period over gambling debts Poe had acquired while trying to get more spending money, and so Poe enlisted in the United States Army as a private using the name Edgar A. Perry on May 26, 1827. That same year, he released his first book, Tamarlane and Other Poems. After serving for two years and attaining the rank of Sergeant-major, Poe was discharged. In 1829, Poe's foster mother Frances Allan died and he published his second book, Al Aaraf. As per his foster mother's deathwish, Poe reconciled with his foster father, who coordinated an appointment for him to the United States Military Academy at West Point. His time at West Point was ill-fated, however, as Poe supposedly deliberately disobeyed orders and was dismissed. After that, his foster father repudiated him until his death in March 27, 1834.
Edgar Allan Poe was an excellent horror, suspense, and mystery writer of the eighteenth century. His use of literary devices and different literary techniques makes this writer important to American literature. This paper will show how Edgar Allan Poe has made an impact on Society and American literature as well as how Edgar Allan Poe developed the short story. I will also discuss and analyze some of his works and techniques he uses in his short stories and poems.
Known for his mystery, macabre and detective fiction genre, Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most remembered poets of all time. Usually when people think of him, mind images of premature burials, murders, madmen, and mysterious women who are taken back from pure death like some zombie-like creatures comes to mind. In 1809, Edgar was born the second son out of three, two of which became actors. After the death of his mother and father at the age of three, John and Francis Allan raised him in Virginia. Edgar was sent to the best boarding schools and later on attended the University of Virginia where he was successfully academic. He was forced to leave due to refusement to pay his gambling debts. In 1827, he moved back to Boston and enlisted in the United States Army where his first poems titled Tamerlane, and Other Poems were published.
The life of Edgar Allan Poe, was stuffed with tragedies that all affected his art. From the very start of his writing career, he adored writing poems for the ladies in his life. When he reached adulthood and came to the realization of how harsh life could be, his writing grew to be darker and more disturbing, possibly as a result of his intense experimenting with opium and alcohol. His stories continue to be some of the most frightening stories ever composed, because of this, some have considered this to be the reason behind these themes. Many historians and literature enthusiasts have presumed his volatile love life as the source while others have credited it to his substance abuse. The influence of his one-of-a-kind writing is more than likely a combination of both theories; but the main factor is the death of many of his loved ones and the abuse which he endured. This, not surprisingly, darkened his perspective considerably.
In "The Black Cat," the author, Edgar Allan Poe, uses a first person narrator who is portrayed as a maniac. Instead of having a loving life with his wife and pets, the narrator has a cynical attitude towards them due to his mental instability as well as the consumption of alcohol. The narrator is an alcoholic who takes out his own insecurities on his family. It can be very unfortunate and in some cases even disastrous to be mentally unstable. Things may take a turn for the worst when alcohol is involved, not only in the narrator's case, but in many other cases as well. Alcohol has numerous affects on people, some people may have positive affects while others, like the narrator in "The Black Cat," may have negative affects like causing physical and mental abuse to those he loved. The combination of the narrator's mental instability along with the consumption of alcohol caused the narrator to lose control of his mind as well as his actions leading him to the brink of insanity. Though the narrator is describing his story in hopes that the reader feels sympathy towards him, he tries to draw the attention to his abuse of alcohol to demonstrate the negative affects that it can take on your life as well as destroy it in the end.
Edgar Allan Poe has a unique writing style that uses several different elements of literary structure. He uses intrigue vocabulary, repetition, and imagery to better capture the reader’s attention and place them in the story. Edgar Allan Poe’s style is dark, and his is mysterious style of writing appeals to emotion and drama. What might be Poe’s greatest fictitious stories are gothic tend to have the same recurring theme of either death, lost love, or both. His choice of word draws the reader in to engage them to understand the author’s message more clearly. Authors who have a vague short lexicon tend to not engage the reader as much.
One of the main theories was the alcohol theory. This is the main theory that most people think about when you talk about the death of Edgar Allan Poe. . Edgar Allan Poe was a major drunk all his life and it got worse after his young wife Virginia had passed away. Another reason that Poe had always been in the bottle is that his wealthy guardian cut him off and he got stricken with poverty.
The narrator has begun to go slightly insane and he does not care for people’s comments and opinion when he is in public or when he abuses his wife and pets. The narrator has started to see life in a different way now that he has become an alcoholic. Wing-Chi Ki stated in an article, “In Poe's story, the narrator is a slave of the bottle, but wine also leads the narrator to master himself, to do evil in a disinterested manner, and to equate evil with the highest duty. The narrator's behavior implies the triumph of diabolical evil that advocates neither selfish calculation nor a clear ideological identification.”