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Edgar Allan Poe Research Paper

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During the 19th century, it was reported that over 450 people between the ages of fifteen and forty-four in America died of tuberculosis every day. The life of Edgar Allan Poe had been significantly affected by this epidemic due to the fact that he watched as tuberculosis took the life of his biological mother, foster mother, and wife. For Poe, losing the women who were the closest to him was an experience that haunted him for the rest of his life. Poe’s experiences shaped him into the author and poet that he became because he created stories that symbolize and reflect the hardships of his life. Therefore, Edgar Allan Poe incorporated the theme of death into all of his short stories because it was a way to fulfill his fantasies of killing the …show more content…

In the article, Literary Contexts in Short Stories: Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask of Amontillado, it states, “Those in the publishing world of the time interpreted it as Poe’s response to attacks made upon by a one time friend Thomas Dunn English in the New York ‘Evening Mirror’- which included a charge that Poe was a heavy drinker” (Mustafa 1). When Thomas Dunn English exposed Poe’s private life, Poe then published The Cask of Amontillado, which resulted in the theory that Poe wrote this short story to attack English. William Evans Burton was also attacked. Five years before Poe published his short story, he had written a letter to Burton which states, “… If by accident you have taken it into your head… that I am to be insulted with impunity I can only assume that you’re an ass” (Mustafa 1). In the letter that Burton received, it included a quote which Poe later used in The Cask of Amontillado. Overall, Poe had many disputes with men during this time period, which resulted in Poe including attacks towards these men in his short …show more content…

After Poe’s wife died of consumption, he spent the years after roaming graveyards and writing poetry about his lost love. According to Edgar A. Poe, “Virginia would die in her mid-twenties, an invalid for years, and versions of her would figure in many of Poe’s tales of consumptive women destined to haunt his narrators’ imaginations…” (Rollyson 1). Following Virginia’s death, Poe coped with extreme grief by symbolizing her death in his short stories. In The Raven, it states, “Leave my loneliness unbroken!- quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out of my heart and take thy form from off my door” (Poe 3). This quote demonstrates how Poe wants the raven which is symbolizing grief, to leave him alone because he doesn’t want to continue feeling extreme sadness and grief. Overall, Poe incorporated the theme of Death to be able to emotionally cope with the death of his beloved wife,

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Edgar Allan Poe, the author of both “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Raven,” was a literary specialist in horror and suspenseful fiction, known for his ability to compose and express vivid macabre tales that delve deep into the darkest chasms of the human psyche. Much like the two pieces noted, sundry of his stories frequently feature common gothic literature themes of death, madness, gloom, and employ a strong sense of symbolism for more nuanced meaning. Poe’s astounding stories are due to the implementation of common signature American gothic literature elements, which is most likely due to the historical context of the time period. During the early to mid 19th century, writers under the genre of Romanticism and gothic literature were accumulating

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As much as Poe tries to get the raven to leave him alone the only response he would get back was “never more.” Hinting that the raven would never leave him alone. Portraying that he will never be able to get over the loss of his wife. This symbolism Poe uses of the raven compares his sadness of the narrator to a raven, know for its dark and sad

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One of the most influential authors of all time, Edgar Allan Poe, uses dark imagery and complex syntax to make his short stories and poems harrowing and mysterious. Poe’s tragic backstory contributes to his writing style. Poe’s depressing life, such as the death of his mother, foster mother, and wife to tuberculosis caused him to write stories such as The Masque of the Red Death a story about a disease similar to tuberculosis called the Red Death spread across the country. Another theme throughout some of Poe’s stories is young women dying such as in Annabel Lee and The Fall of the House of Usher. A reason for this is because most every women he loved, his mom, foster mom, and wife, died young.

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The raven symbolizes death, and the apparent demise of the narrator. The message of this poem revolves around love and grief. The narrator’s love for Lenore left him overcome with grief. His love led to grief, and grief is what destroyed the narrator.

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Edgar Allan Poe, an eerie author, was always writing dark stories and poems, which was unusual for the time period he wrote in. During his writing career he wrote many stories that were closely related to his life, especially tragic love stories. When many of his girlfriends and family died, he went mad, drank a lot and eventually died. After reading Poe’s stories that include topics like people in love who pass, dying from tuberculosis and being caught between rationality and irrationality, it is evident that he drew from his own life as inspiration. Poe was constantly devastated by his significant other dying and this happens in lots of his stories and poems too. For example, in The Bridal Ballad, it says “ And My Lord he loves me well.”

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Poe’s Use of Unreliable Narrator in “The Cask of Amontillado” The unreliable narrator in the short story “ The Cask of Amontillado” draws the reader's attention. Edgar Allan Poe uses an unreliable narrator in “The Cask Amontillado” and his theme is revenge. Poe’s use of an unreliable narrator in his short story successfully creates a nervous effect for his readers. Poe uses an unreliable narrator by how he is very sneaky with his ways and how he wants to get back at someone for insulting him he is probably going to kill them.

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Most people know that when Poe was succumbed to alcohol, he became “staggering drunk after a single glass” of any alcoholic beverage (Geiling). Poe wrote about these horror stories about alcohol. For example, in “The Cask of Amontillado,” the character Fortunato is a drunk who “prided himself on his connoisseurship in wine” (Poe, The Cask of Amontillado,”) that is easily lured by the temptation of good wine. This ultimately leads to his death. This could be Poe writing about his own life experiences with alcohol.

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Edgar Allan Poe's life was marked by signicant trauma, which is reflected in his haunting and macrabre stories. The topic of death and grieving is a contant presence in "The Raven.". In Poe's life, he lost many family and friends. In "The Raven" it quotes, "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary. " This shows that Poe was left all alone and nowhere to go. "

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Edgar Allan Poe once noted about insanity, “I do not suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.” Many of Poe’s readers may agree with his words because he includes many moments of insanity in his stories. Likewise, as Poe suffered from a great deal of tragedy during his lifetime such as the deaths of four family members, the reader may believe that his life was not the simplest and most pleasant. Although Poe’s short stories and poems seem quixotic, “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “Annabel Lee,” and “The Conqueror Worm” illustrate a direct reflection of how these events affected him in his lifetime.

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“The Raven” Analyzed “The Raven,” is and was one of the most famous poems in the history of poetry written by someone. For most people who have had the privilege of reading the poem, would answer some questions about the poem stating that it is undoubtedly being the Poe us writing this poem with the unique propose to illustrate the strong impact left by the death of a loved one in the mind of the mourner. The answers that come by like these would be true because in the poem he really is going through a hard time after losing someone who has been by his side since he was a teenager. By Poe losing his wife made him start wanting to do things more than ever before because he wanted to do them for his wife not only for him. However once I finished reading the poem “The Raven” I was immediately captivated by the new viewpoint brought to my attention

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Edgar Allen Poe knows the horrors of disease and reality and tries to portray that feeling through his stories to the reader. His writing is often perceived as gruesome and focused on death and torture. Edgar Allen Poe, a renowned author, is known for writing many morbid stories and it can be assumed that he writes that way due to his past experiences in his life with death and loss. Poe’s life is filled with many sad moments that can all explain the moods that are present in his writing. As a child and throughout adulthood, Poe experienced loss through his loved ones, including his mother and his wife, dying from mainly tuberculosis, and other diseases (A+E Biographies).

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Poe experienced lots of loss as a young man. He lost multiple people he loved throughout his life. Some most of the important poems he wrote was the “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee”. Poe carried his idea of death throughout these poems to capture his common themes, which was death and loss.

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Learning about how all of the people that he loved, and cared for died will show just about anyone that it was not an easy life for Poe. A critic once said that Poe wrote and knew that any type of love had to come with loss (Kennedy). This showed a lot about Poe’s life as everyone that he loved he actually did lose. This made it a lonely life that made him very depressed. In his poems, Edgar Allan Poe, portrayed that his loneliness has came from the love, and loss of his most important people.

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However, for Poe, death is poetical. And not just any death, but rather the death of a beautiful woman— by beautiful we will assume he refers to the women he admires, the women he found beautiful on the inside, because death is also the end of all external appearances. In any case, if one is familiar with Poe’s style, we will know that the death motif was nothing new in his stories, neither was the death of his female characters. Nevertheless, to understand why he had the audacity of presenting the death of a woman as something poetical, it is necessary to know more about his personal life.

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