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The Psychological Resemblance of Poe

Published by TheUnconditionalWriter, May 12, 2009

This is an informational piece on Edgar Allan Poe and how is pieces of literature relate to his personal life.

“It will be found, in fact, that the ingenious are always fanciful, and the truly imaginative never otherwise than analytic.”

-Genius and Imagination

“The Murders in the Rue Morgue.”

Many times, authors use instances and memories the other hand, some prefer to walk a different path; they manipulate the psychological aspects of their characters without using things from their own lives.

Edgar Allan Poe, a renowned nineteenth century Gothic writer was born January 19, 1809 in Boston and is one of the many authors who expose their lives within each work. Each piece has some sort of psychological exposure. Throughout his life, he created over one-hundred literary works, capturing the minds of many, filling them with unexplainable thoughts, keeping them on the edge of their seats. At first glance, Poe’s work gives off a dark and gloomy vibe – a vibe that enshrines the reader in doom. More than three have captured the minds of readers today, works like, “The Tell Tale Heart”, “Annabel Lee“, “Lenore”, and one of my favorites, “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Some work has been forgotten, but those who have read it, will never forget it.

“The Black Cat”

“The moodiness of my temper increased to

hatred of all things and of all mankind”

“The Black Cat” was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post where a murderer carefully conceals his crime, but eventually breaks down and reveals himself, impelled by a nagging reminder of his guilt. “The Black Cat” explores the themes of violence, hatred, and guilt, as well as a mystical and mysterious setting and a vicious and chilling end.

The narrator is characterized as a man who once loved many things, but turned alcoholic and became abusive. After coming home one night intoxicated, he believed the cat to be avoiding him and when he tries to capture the cat, he bites him and the narrator began to gouge out the cat’s eye. In defeat, the narrator becomes sad and regrets his cruel acts.

From that day forward, he became a monster. He showed no remorse when he took the cat out into the garden one morning and hanged him by a tree, nor when he engraved the axe into his wife’s head and walled her up in the cellar. The Police came by to investigate his place, they found no trace of evidence to convict him of doing anything wrong, but on the last day of the investigation as they were inspecting the cellar, they heard a wailing sound from behind the wall where he had put his wife. The alarmed officers tore the wall down to find the body of his wife and the screeching black cat. As he words it: “I had walled the monster up within the tomb!”

“The Black Cat” to me represents yin and yang, both sides of the scale. Without darkness, light cannot be balanced and vice versa. The white cat is the light and the black cat with the white spot is the darkness. The once pure light that came from the narrator turned as black as death when the white cat was killed, unleashing his insanity, making him lose himself completely.

For many years, Poe was an alcoholic; some even said he drank himself into oblivion which could have caused Poe to come up with a story like this. A story about a man once good, but driven to the edge of questionable sanity through alcohol, making him slaughter the innocent.

Maria Bonaparte (A psychiatrist) believed that in “The Black Cat” Edgar showed his anger through this character to the women around him as well as the cat in compliance to his mother leaving him behind at such a young age. When I think about the black and white cat, it reminds me of the displacement from his mother. His mother resembles the white cat. She loved and cared for Edgar, but only gave him a moment of remembering her before she died. The black cat resembles everything after the death of his mother that fell into place. Loved once died one after another from tuberculosis and Poe was all alone. All the way up to Poe’s death, he drank himself to sleep trying to surpass his loss of the ones he loved.

“The Masque of the Red Death”

Red Death = Tuberculosis

The story covers a period of approximately six months during the reign of the Red Death in seven different rooms which reminds us of the history of the world which was thought to have seven ages, just as a humans life had seven stages. The ancient world had seven wonders, seven deadly sins with seven cardinal virtues and the number is important in mysticism. It is believed that each room in the story represents each stage of like Prince Prospero goes through.

Prince Prospero = happiness and good fortune

The prince uses happiness to wall up the sadness, creating a ball which can be seen as the “dance of death” where skeletons are leading mortals to their graves, just as the prince leads his guests to their deaths with the red death. The seven rooms are lined up from east to west, symbolizing the rising and falling of the sun. In the seventh room, there is a clock, but is characterized by Prospero to have human aspects that rings musical notes. It counts down our lives until they are finally up.

As death takes hold of everyone in Prospero’s life, he wishes to escape it all by walling it, creating a prison in his sanctuary. He learns in the end that you can’t escape death when your clock has stopped.

Poe’s Mother, Stepmother, and wife were all grasped by the red death and this short story is a prime example of his life. Poe and the main character, Prospero are one with each other, though Prospero had many lovers, where Poe had few. When I think about the 1,000 lovers in “The Masque of the Red Death.” I imagine that in Poe’s real life, losing a few meant losing a thousand. The love he had for his mother, his wife, Virginia, and his stepmother was very strong and he portrayed the strength of it through Prospero.

Prospero watched as “The Red Death” clutched the ones he loved and tore them from his life, before taking his own life in return. Prospero contracted the Red death and died with a part of those he loved with him.

“Annabel Lee”

“Poetry by the sea

With Annabel Lee…”

Poe believed that there was no age restriction when it came to love and that was how he felt for dear, Virginia. To sum this poem up, I am going to take it down into parts. In the first stanza, Poe is remembering of the many years ago it was since he last saw his beloved Virginia. Poe and Virginia believed it was true untainted love and they both lived each day to show their love to one another.

In the second stanza in the first sentence, he resembles the fact that age is not restricted when it comes to love and that in his mind they were both children, pure and full of life. In the second sentence of the second stanza, they loved each other so much that there was not a name for it at all. It was just pure love. Poe’s relationship with Virginia was a total bliss and he had found everything he ever needed. In the beginning, it is beautiful; in the end, it is sad. The angels grew envious of the love they shared for each other and tore each other apart by the wind (tuberculosis.) killing his beautiful Annabel lee, though in the poem, Annabel lee is a boat and a woman. Poe and Virginia were most likely frowned upon by people around them and they represent the angels in the sky, but the side theme is that Poe and Virginia were so much in love that it was unfortunate when she became ill. Some people believe that “Annabel Lee” resembles one person, but I believe the poem is representing each person; Poe had feelings for and lost within his life.

“ANNABEL LEE”

“It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea;

But we loved with a love that was more than love -

I and my Annabel Lee

With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee,

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we-

Of many far wiser than we -

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee,

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling-my darling- my life and my bride,

In the sepulchre there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.

“The Fall of the House of Usher”

In the first psychological resemblance is the portrayal of Roderick and his sister. Being that they are twins, they represent a single, whole person with two sides to them. Another resemblance of Edgar to Roderick is that he married his 13- year-old cousin, Virginia. Both fell in love of close relatives. The second is the way; Roderick clings to his dying sister. Poe’s way of saying that he wasn’t accepting the fact of their deaths, nor does he accept it now. In the aftermath, when the sister awoke from her dead sleep and became vengeful, it makes me realize that Poe is wishing this would happen to Virginia, he wished it was all just a nightmare and that she would wake up and everything would be back to the way it was before.

The narrator tries to comfort and rescue Roderick from his illness in which Roderick has lost himself to a world of the imagination. The isolation of Roderick’s life can be seen from the surroundings. The house looks sad; the trees are dark and decaying, Roderick has lost himself completely.
In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Poe explores the inner workings of the imagination but, at the same time, cautions the reader about the destructive dangers inside. When fantasy suppresses reality in the way it does for Roderick, the result is madness and mental death. When Madeline returns she reunites the twins nature of their single being, claiming Roderick. The true focus is the narrator’s reaction and understanding of the strange events. Even to look into the dark realm where fantasy becomes real, can evoke madness. The narrator entered the gate of the mind and is nearly destroyed by it but manages to unleash himself from it.

The house crumbles to the ground and takes the bodies with it, leaving the once distasteful and dark background, a cloud of dirt. The Darkness within the walls of the building had finally given in. Everything spawned within darkness must return to darkness where it came from. In the aftermath of everything, Poe wished that he could have died with Virginia and that they would live forever in heaven.

“The Cask of Amontillado”

“In pace requiescat”

“The Cask of Amontillado,” first published in 1846, exhibits another example of Poe combining psychological elements of two seemingly distinct characters and follows this theme of personality.

“The Cask of Amontillado”is a carefully crafted story so that every detail contributes to “a certain unique or single effect.” Irony, drama and verbal, plays an important role in this process. Poe places Irony in this story to characterize Fortunato, and dresses him in a fool’s costume, since Montresor intends to make a fool of him as part of his dark plan. Montresor however, wears a black mask which could be considered as a way to show that he is hiding something.

The Verbal Irony in this story is where Montresor becomes concerned of Fortunato being sick. He tries to get him to turn back, but Fortunato instinctively says:

“I will not die of a cough.” Montresor says, “True–true….”

As Poe pushes us farther into the story, he shares with us the similarities, giving readers the thought that they are two sides of one person. Montresor later on overpowers the drunken Fortunato and walls him within the underground chambers and leaves him there to rot.

As Poe wrote this story, I believed that a part of him was fighting off the alcohol that clung to him. As he walled Fortunato, he walled his own side of himself in. He wanted to get rid of the part of him that was bad, trying to control himself.

“The Tell-Tale ”

“True!–nervous–very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses–not destroyed–not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heavens and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?”

The story covers a period of eight days, with everything happening around midnight, where an elderly man lives with his new caretaker. The narrator is nameless, making us unsure of whether or not they are male or female, but most have thought the narrator to be a male. Poe is a perfectionist and he doesn’t seem to leave much behind to make an assumption.

In this story we come to realize that human nature is a delicate balance of light and dark; yin and yang. They balance each other out, but sometimes there is a shift and the dark side emerges when an individual is pushed to their limit. In the narrator’s case, it was the ‘vulture eye” of the old man that makes the narrators blood run cold and makes him slaughter the innocent, old man. The narrator plans, executes and conceals his track, however what has been hidden within the self will not stay hidden. Though, even all the way up to the end, the narrator ensures us that he is not crazy.

Poe is unsure on if he actually is sane or is in a world of chaos. He is trying to search for himself through each piece, and through this piece, he shows about the demise of two characters and how guilt can make you even crazier.

THE DEATH OF THE HORROR KING

January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849

At age 40, Poe died in Baltimore; the cause of his death is unknown and has been attributed to alcohol, brain congestion, cholera, drugs, heart disease, rabies, suicide, tuberculosis, and other agents.There is no true evidence to suggest the cause of Edgar Allan Poe’s death, but his death has remained a mystery for over 150 years. Poe died with only one sentence left.

“Lord, please help my poor soul.”

Poe was done with suffering, done with living a life full of unhappiness. He died, hoping god would redeem his soul so he could see his mother, his stepmother and his beloved Virginia once again.

Works Cited