American Military University

Edgar Allen Poe:
Literary Analysis

Lakeidra Eady
LITR 220
Professor Macon
Sept. 31, 2013

Lakeidra Eady
Professor Macon
LITR 220
Sept. 31, 2013

Edgar Allen Poe Literature is a very diverse subject which constantly changes from century to century. The first American writers, in the years before the civil war, had the challenge of producing an original American literary form, content, and voice. They were creative when it came to expressing their emotions. Edgar Allen Poe was among one of the most influential writers of his time.
Poe’s life was an American horror story. In fact his somewhat disturbing pieces are often based his life events. At the age of three Edgar was adopted by the Allen couple after his father abandoned him and his mother passed from tuberculosis. After tuberculosis claimed his adopted mother, Frances Allen, Poe attended the University of Virginia, but later dropped out to enroll in West Point where he was later expelled. Although his literary worked had gained him some credibility they brought in little financial support. At the age of 27 Poe took his 13 year old cousins hand in marriage only to watch her die of tuberculosis like the previous women in his life. A few years later, at the age of 40, Poe followed his wife in death.
“In an analysis almost 147 years after his death, doctors at the University of Maryland Medical Center believe that writer Edgar Allan Poe may have died as a result of rabies, not from complications of alcoholism.” (http://rt.qc.rimt2.pp.ua/ )
Edgar Allen Poe wrote almost seventy works of literature during his lifetime. He is the predecessor or horror, sci-fi, and detective genres. His stories are often described as tales of horror and every genre explores profound psychological insights. A Descent into the Malstrom and The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pyum are a couple of his literary parodies and experimental stories. Some of his most famous poems are, The Raven and The Bells, were extremely powerful. Poe’s theories of composition were a great contribution to literature. His basis was that a stories main purpose is to create a psychological and spiritual effect upon the reader. Compared to this the theme and plot should be a writers secondary goal. Poe’s invention of a prose tale, a tale read in a half-hour to an hour, was meant to keep readers engaged until the very end. He thought all stories should entertain the readers.
Edgar Allan Poe's short stories, "The Telltale Heart" and "The Masque of the Red Death" are two very different stories. One is about a simple man, perhaps a servant, who narrates the tale of how he kills his wealthy benefactor, and the other is about a prince who turns his back on his country while a plague known as The Red Death ravages his lands. Yet, there are some similarities in both. Time, for instance, and the stroke of midnight seem to always herald the approach of impending death. Both are killers, one by his own hand, and the other by neglecting his country. One seeks peace, the other seeks pleasure, but both are motivated by the selfish need to rid themselves of that which haunts them, even at the expense of another's life.
The Gothic terror is the result of the narrator’s simultaneous love for himself and hatred of his rival. The double show that love and hate are inseparable and suggests that they may simply be two forms of the most intense form of human emotion. The narrator loves himself, but when feelings of self-hatred arise in him, he projects that hatred onto an imaginary copy of himself. In “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the narrator confesses a love for an old man whom he then violently murders and dismembers. The narrator reveals his madness by attempting to separate the person of the old man, whom he loves, from the old man’s supposedly evil eye, which triggers the narrator’s hatred. This delusional separation enables the narrator to remain unaware of the paradox of claiming to have loved his victim. In