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Edgar Allan Poe Influences

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The impact of the tragedies in Edgar Allan Poe’s life has undoubtably influenced the subject matter of his works. This, to me, has created one of the best authors of his time. In Poe’s lifetime, and literature, he had been portrayed as sort of a gothic author with themes like jealousy, death, and the fear of death; Symbolisms such as clocks; to the personification of death. Most, if not all, of Poe’s writings are focused around loss and the idea (and reality) of death. Edgar Allan Poe has loved and lost. His choice in works reflects the two, however, it is in that loss that created the beautifully dark author he grew into. According to the article, “Poe’s Life: Who was Edgar Allan Poe?” By Poe Museum, Poe has gone through many trials and tribulations. …show more content…

In, The Masque of the Red Death (p.438-442), Poe uses foreshadowing to paint a picture of how vastly people try to escape certain experiences. “This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion” (p.438). Along with foreshadowing there are also symbols such as a clock and the color red. The clock stands for not being able to escape death. Edgar Allan Poe repeats the phrase “to and fro” (p.439, 440, 441) several times to not only explain the pendulum of the clock, but to explain the motion of the dancers, and the guests in the seven rooms when they were running from death. Poe uses the personification of death to personalize the intimacy of death. “He had come like a thief in the night” (p. 442). The way Poe speaks of death in this particular piece explains to the reader that no one can escape this being that will inevitably catch up and take us all, “like a thief” (p. 442) He explains death by creating an unknown guest. “The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse...” (p. 441) Not only does Poe personify death, but he creates a reality for the clock, “And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock” (p.440) along with bringing death to the clock with the final person in the haven, “And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay” (p. 442). The color

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