Edgar Allan Poe Essay Example for Free

Edgar Allan Poe Essay Edgar Allan Poe was evil genius for his time and a great literary forerunner of today. He created the mind set for current writers such as Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Robin Cook by creating the horror story. Poe invites the reader to enter the mind of the narrator by using our senses as a way to provoke terror, suspense, and awe. His writing was influenced by many tragic losses in his life, and this would explain why Poe was a writer of such morbid short stories and poems. Poes experiences in life definitely influenced the remarkable literary work he produced. In his early life he had to deal with the death of both his parents, a difficult experience, but Poe accepted it as time went on. Later on in his life Poes stepfather disowned him. Young Edgars life was changed due to abandonment, alcoholism, and depression. In 1832 Poe moved in with his aunt and his 11 year old cousin in Baltimore. Poe then married his younger cousin in 1836. However, Poe did not know that he would suffer yet another terrible loss, the loss of his love, his wife. Poes ability to write literature was the window for him to express his feelings. All of Poes tragic losses affected the way he wrote. Poe used his life experiences to make his writing a lot more interesting. Poes writing is remarkably interesting. The poem The Raven showed how Poe erected a crazed state of mind, as the poem shows how the loss or a loved one drove a person crazy. This poem was possibly created for his wife that he had lost. While reading the poem it seems as if the stresses of the life of Poe, and his thoughts and feelings were all put into this poem. Throughout Poes life, many factors have contributed and influenced his writing style. He lived a difficult life, because he was raised in a dysfunctional household. But the final product of Poes mind is printed in his short stories and poems. Poes stories all have similar motifs and composition that would suggest suppressed emotions from life experiences are being discharged through his writings. The most prominent feature of Poes writing is his obsession with death. Poes writing does more than entertain the reader. It can be an insight into the dark and somber world of Edgar Allan Poe. One does not understand the meaning of Poe if one reads at the superficial level. One has to read into Poe, and understand the hardships of his life and how he maintained them that way. He knew that death was an inevitable part of life, it is the price of life, but he tried to fight it as if it was an unnatural part of life. He was an extremely intriguing man from all viewpoints, and he was and is, the dark side of all of us. It is difficult not to link Poes fictional stories with his real life. Evidence shows that Poe had a heart condition during his later years in life. Could The Tell Tale Heart be his own fear of the disease? Who knows? Could Poe have been expressing his fears that his alcoholic rages may cause him to hurt the ones he loved most in his tale The Black Cat? Finally, was the Pit and the Pendulum an allegory of his life? Did he find himself caught between the pendulum of financial adversity and the pit of degradation of death? Poe made the reader feel as if the reader were there, in the story, struggling with the same terrors of the characters. All his famous mystery thriller works give the reader a sense of nervousness, a sense of fear, and a sense of evil, by making our five senses awaken by reading every word. Critics say that Poe did not merely imitate the Gothic tales, but he also enriched them by preserving a central action while adding philosophical speculations and lore that deepened the impressions of the tales. As a result of the traumas he endured, Poe was unafraid of taking his readers for a walk on the dark side, where lines between life and death were sometimes blurred. His ability to tap into humankinds deepest fears and his consistency in portraying such intriguing and captivating themes is what has kept the work of Poe timeless. In short, Edgar Allan Poe has created many great stories for us. He liked to illustrate the dissolution of an individuals mind and body, as he had suffered it himself for quite a long time. He thought death is unavoidable, because he experienced keenly deaths all around him and its threat on his own life. He was obsessed by the loss of love of ideal women, for he had the same experience in life. Now, we can understand why Poe had a tendency of choosing such themes. Poe is an author of the inner world and his writings are his psychological autobiography to some extent. In this respect, Poe pioneered a new field in literature. He is the first one who focused on mans mental and spiritual activities, and his writings have deep influence on many of later writers. WORKS CITED Poe, Edgar Allan. Introductory Notes and Editors preface by Phillip van Doren Stern. In Selected Tales and Poems. The Viking Portal Library, Penguin Books, 1993. Moore, R. The Tell-Tale Heart: Discussion. 2002.Online. Internet. 11 November 2002. Available WWW: http://www.allpoe.com Murphy, Sally. Poes Poetry. 2002.Online. Internet. 12 November 2002. Available WWW: http://www.allpoe.com Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe His Life and Legacy. New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., 1992. Peters, James. Edgar Allan Poe. April 1, 2002.http://www.island-of-freedom.com/POE.HTM Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: A Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1991. Death of Edgar Allan Poe. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998