We’ve learned through history books about the travels and expeditions of those who founded America. Young and old have read about revolutions, the birth and growth of America. The mysterious and cryptic times that surrounded death as a result of plagues in the 1800’s was not as popular narrative. As a new historicism, recognizing the historical expressions of Edgar Allan Poe's, “Berenice” paying giving consideration in the way history can be altered to influence the readers of this short story published in 1835. Poe wrote Berenice seasoning it with shocking drama, at times, leaving the reader filled with terror. The middle school teachers are not reading to our young learners about the cruel epidemic infections and people losing loved ones day after day which Poe lived in. The short stories essence is Egaeus’ fixation on his lover, …show more content…
Elza Steelmane describes Poe’s life experiences in Discourse of Disease as, “loss very early on in his life. His father left the family when he was three, and his mother passed away, not long after, from Tuberculosis. There is some sources that say Poe’s father also had TB and died within days of his mother. These deaths, while probably giving him abandonment issues, were still not catastrophic for him. He was far too young to take it all in. For his first three years, he lived in Boston, which used lead and wood pipes to carry water to residences. Also by the early 1800’s, most of the local water supplies had been fouled by livestock, cemeteries built in or near watershed areas, latrines and garbage waste from humans. It’s possible that Poe’s issues with being sickly most of his life had to do with not only himself being exposed, but his mother also drinking from water pipes made with lead” (Discourse of Disease,