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Comparing Poe's El Dorado And The Oval Portrait

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Have you ever felt sad or upset? Edgar Allen Poe did in his life and it was shown in his writings. Poe created a poem called ‘El Dorado’ which was about a man looking for a city of gold and kept looking but grew old as the hills, so he wasted his life looking for money but never found it. He also wrote a short story named ‘The Oval Portrait’ and it was about a man staying in a castle who found a picture and it had a caption talking about how the man painted his wife in which he was so obsessed with drawing her that he didn’t even notice she was dieing. In ‘El Dorado’ and in ‘The Oval Portrait’, they each had their own theme and in those, the story can be compared to his life. First off, ‘El Dorado’ had a theme which was that money isn’t always the answer. In the first quote a man started off young and strong, looking for …show more content…

In the first quote, the painter would look at his wife, observe her features, and start painting every detail, and he would do that for weeks. The first quote is ¨The painter (who had high in renown) took a fervid and burning pleasure in his task, and wrought day and night to depict her.¨ This proves the theme because he just drew her for weeks without any breaks and when he did that, he isn't noticing what was happening around him like his house, which could involve him missing break-ins or fires. Now in the second quote, the painter continued his painting but didn't notice the changes she had had with her features. The second quote is ¨the painter had grown wild with the ardor of his work, and turned his eyes from canvas merely, even to regard the countenance of his wife.¨ This proves the theme because the painter was so into painting his wife that he didn't even notice her changing/dieing which is taking away his loved one. So in summary the theme of ´The Oval Portrait´ was that Obsession can take away from what's really

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