This novel by Poe is dripping in madness and an interpreter's dream. There are so
many themes and critical viewpoints to go off of it was tough for me to choose just one. For this
response I will be focusing on the ending of the story. I want to argue that the true ending is
actually written in the preface of the novel being that the preface are Pym’s last written words.
Normally after reading a novel would the reader wouldn’t return to the preface but if you look at
the novel chronologically and the preface being the last words written by Mr. Pym, returning to it
make more sense, and by doing this you get unity for the novel. I found it strange for some of the
words in the preface to fall under italics, and these two specifically
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As soon as we read the preface we’ve fallen into a trap, Poe makes us read the beginning,
and the end, just to end up back where we started. Of course Poe knew the ending probably
before the preface was even written. It would make sense for him to use the year between the
copyright date and the publishing to perfect the preface even further, and since the publication
and the preface are dated the same year this may be used as evidence to support my thought. The
preface might also serve as some form of control over a novel that Poe never thought would
make it to print. The writing of the preface also gives the novel an overall unity, it stands to give
the narrative authenticity, while also providing the denouement, which are viewed using
italicized words. The only two words that remain are “ruse” and “expose”. While the entire text
was written specifically as a ruse, Pym states in his preface that the following is an expose. Pym
is exposing fiction that isn’t supposed to be fiction, and what we really want the exposed is the
human figure in the last chapter. After following this complete failure of an adventurer