Isolation In Edgar Allan Poe's Life

Edgar Allan Poe is a nineteenth century American writer and poet who is highly acclaimed as the father of dark fiction. Poe, who dealt with personal tragedies his whole life, portrayed his struggles and sense of isolation in his works. Poe’s poems and short stories that explore the themes of love, mystery, and human darkness are eloquent representations of his life experiences.
Poe was born on 19 January 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts to David and Eliza Poe. His parents were both actors who traveled extensively and lived in poverty (Ackroyd 8). Poe’s father succumbed to extensive alcoholism and abandoned his family early on. Poe himself “became an echo of his father,” later turning into an alcoholic (Ackroyd 10). Infant Poe witnessed the slow

After his mother’s death, Poe was separated from his siblings and taken into the care of John and Fraces Allan. Under the kindness and generosity of the Allan family Poe had a “childhood of fortune;” however, he was constantly troubled by a sense of “uncertainty and isolation,” caused by the charity of the Allan family (Ackroyd 14). At the age of seven, Poe was shifted to England, where he bounced through many boarding schools, excelling in Latin and other orthodox subjects. The Allan family relocated back to Richmond after five years of stay in England and Poe enrolled in the Richmond Academy, where he studied the works of classical authors, participated in running and swimming, and ventured into poetry (Ackroyd 19, 20). Tension between Poe, whose teenage years were characterized with lack of humility, and Jack Allan soon emerged (Ackroyd 23). At the

(Ackroyd 25, 26). Allan’s refusal to provide sufficient funds and Poe’s increasing debt forced him to quit school and return to Richmond a year later. At the age of twenty one, Poe left the Allan family forever and returned to his birthplace, Boston. After his failure to support himself, Poe decided to enlist in the army, where he excelled as a sergeant major (Ackroyd 28, 34). In 1829, Frances Allan died of tuberculosis, doubling Poe’s sense of “orphanhood” and softening John Allan’s bitterness towards Poe. Consequently, Allan gave Poe the consent to enroll at West Point (Ackroyd 35). Poe, however, continued to struggle with severe intoxication and soon left West Point when John Allan refused to provide him with further funds (Ackroyd 43). Much of Poe’s adult life was dominated by depression and professional failures. He struggled to publish any of his works and lived in poverty. While Poe was working as an editor of the Southern Literary Messenger, he moved in with his aunt Maria Clemm and married his cousin Virginia (Ackroyd 49). For the next ten years he worked as an editor of several magazines and published many of