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Giaudrone 1 Lindsey Giaudrone Mrs. DobrinoEnglish 13115 May 1998 Poe's Works as a Reflection of his Plagued Life Despite having a very troubled life, Edgar Allan Poe, appropriately named The Master of Short Stories, is considered by critics to be a literary genius. His unhappy life and the people involved acts as a basis for his work. Poe's short stories and poems not only reveal his obvious obsession with death but his concern for his addiction to alcohol and his relationship with his family as well.
One critic wrote the following about Poe's talent, Possessed of an extraordinary literary talent, Poe's life was blighted by poverty, drink, and the premature deaths of all those dearest to him. It was only natural that he saw himself as a doomed genius (quoted in Wright 29). During Edgar Allan Poe's forty years, he endured much pain and sorrow: his parents, David and Elizabeth Poe, died when he was a small child; he was taken into the home of John and Frances Allan as a foster child; he collected numerous debts and was eventually disgracefully discharged from West Point; and he was left a widower by his beloved wife Virginia. Poe sank into depression because of his troubles and added to them by habitually drinking.
Instead of his lifes experiences Giaudrone 2 being a deterrent to his ability to write, his experiences actually enhanced his creativity and provided a foundation for his work. Poe's use of his personal struggles and the emotions surrounding them are evident even in his earliest literary works. On January 14, 1832, the Saturday Courier in Philadelphia published his first acknowledged tale- Metzengerstein' (quoted in Wright 42). This story was a dreamlike, supernatural tale with strong autobiographical overtones (quoted in Allen 19). Metzengerstein is about a fifteen-year-old boy named Baron Frederick Metzengerstein who, like Edgar, had been orphaned early in life (Allen 19). Afterwards, Baron stood without a living relative to rely on and provide for his needs (quote by Poe in Allen 20).
This situation obviously reflects Poe's own loss of his parents and the loneliness he faced after their untimely deaths. Another similarity that parallels Poe's own life with Baron Frederick Metzengerstein is the house in which Baron lived. The palace in Metzengerstein resembles Moldavia, one of Edgar's previous homes (Allen 21). Moldavia was a large estate built by John and Frances Allan in 1824 (Regan 27).
Moldavia, like the palace in Metzengerstein, was a magnificent estate containing luxurious flower gardens, cascades of billowing trees, ... and an abundance of surrounding outside buildings (quoted in Regan 27). In Poe's Metzengerstein, the setting resembles that of Giaudrone 3 his youth, and, therefore, allows the readers to catch glimpse of what Poe's own childhood setting was like. In addition to Metzengerstein, The Fall of the House of Usher, one of Poe's most famous contributions to American literature, shows similarities to Poe's life and the events involved in it. In the story, the Ushers are named after nobles Luke and Harriet L Estrange Usher who performed in the same acting company as David and Elizabeth Poe (Meyers 32). While Edgar's parents were performing on stage, He was left to do as he pleased backstage (Meyers 32).
Edgar quickly caught the attention of Luke and Harriet, and they soon grew extremely fond one another (Meyers 33). The bond Edgar formed with them at such an early age must have made a lasting impression in his mind or he would not have named his lead characters after them. Poe's mother, Elizabeth Arnold Poe, described as a beautiful and fragile woman who broke beyond the bounds of womanly delicacy could possibly have been the model for Madeline Usher (quoted in Meyers 34). The Fall of the House of Usher also shows the possible parallel between Roderick and Madeline Ushers relationship and that of Edgar and Virginia Poe's (Davidson 113).
Roderick and Madeline were twins, and, therefore, considered two separate parts that make up the same person (Davidson 114). Poe thought of his relationship with his wife as if they were one in the same (Stallman 73). He believed their devotion and love for one Giaudrone 4 another was connected by both emotional and physical bonds because they were related (Stallman 73 - 4). Besides revealing Poe's feelings about the people in his life, The Fall of the House of Usher also reveals Poe's personal feelings about death. The story reflects Poe's own denial and fear of death. American culture at that time fostered a preoccupation with death, and Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher shows much of his thoughts of death and the afterlife (quoted in Allen 57).
His obsession with death is hard to explain, but it is said that when adults lose someone, they learn to live with it by gradually withdrawing their involvement with the person. While children, on the other hand, have difficulties in understanding death and tend to look for a substitute. Edgar did not find this substitute, and an underlying denial of death became a major influence in his works (quoted in Allen 59). In The Fall of the House of Usher, Roderick Usher, haunted by a family curse, buries his twin sister alive after she falls into a cataleptic trance (quoted in Magill 1640). Poe's main characters tried to cling on to the past just as Poe did in his own life (Meyers 35).
The Mask of the Red Death is another example of one of Poe's stories that shows a denial to fight death (Stallman 53). The Mask of the Red Death is about a prince named Prospero who is trying hard to fight and defeat the disease that is attacking and slowly killing his country (quote by Poe in Silvermann Giaudrone 5 181). The Red Death, as Poe called it, personifies Tuberculosis which took the life of many of his loved ones, including Virginia (Meyers 81). The T. B. came upon Virginia just as the figure in the blood-babbled grave clothes, who stalks through the terrified company and vanishes in the shadow of the clock, is the walking temporal consciousness, and his coming means the death of dreams (quote by Poe in Bloom 67).
Just as Poe refused to realize how serious Virginias condition was, Prince Prospero tried to conceal his fear of eminent death by throwing a party (Silvermann 183). The celebration took place as a way to try to mask the nearness of death, but every time the clock would chime, everyone knew that their time to live grew shorter and their time to die grew closer (quoted in Silvermann 183). The clocks chiming denotes the impeding doom Edgar felt when Virginia laid, suffering, on her death bed (Silvermann 184). Another part of Edgar Allan Poe's troubled life that was portrayed in his writings was his alcohol abuse. Some of his characters, like Poe, were many times overtaken by alcohol which led to their downfall (quoted in Jacobs 56).
Edgar Allan Poe has been characterized as an impulsive binge drinker (quoted in Jacobs 55). The most important and unfortunately the most disastrous for Poe was the bad effect that his binge drinking had on his professional career (Jacobs 55). Magazine editing was the profession that might have allowed Poe to mak Giaudrone 6 stable living, but his failure to perform sober when he had a chance to advance gave him more grief -which he promptly drowned in liquor (Jacobs 55). Poe was fully aware of the nature of his problems saying, Sensitive temperament could not stand an excitement which was an everyday matter to my companions (quote by Poe in Jacobs 56).
Poe's reasons for drinking were as numerous as his terrible binges (Jacobs 57). Some critics claim he drank because he could not deal with all of the losses that he has faced throughout his life, other critics argue that the chemical imbalance in his brain caused by a tumor drove him to drink; while still other critics say it is a combination a both (Jacobs 57). Poe explained his drinking as a way to escape the drudgery and disappointment saying, I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge. It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason. It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom (quote by Poe in Meyers 89). The addiction to alcohol has a significant role in the portrayal of the narrator in The Black Cat (Jacobs 59).
The narrator is a chronic alcoholic who exclaims in the story for what disease is like Alcohol (quoted in Poe 224); and in a drunken stupor gouges out his cats eye because he thought it was Giaudrone 7 avoiding him (Jacobs 60). Although the narrator kills the cat a number of times, it keeps coming back because it is just a figment of his imagination. In one attempt to kill the fictitious cat, the narrator actually kills his wife by im bedding an axe into her head. He then bricks her body in the basement wall.
Ironically the cats howling reveals to the police where he has concealed the body. All of the hallucinations about the cat that the narrator experiences are a result of his drunken stupors just as Poe, once heavily intoxicated, hallucinated about Virginia long after her death (Jacobs 61). The Cast of the Amontillado which is considered to be one of the worlds most perfect short stories also reflects Poe's thoughts about the evil of drink (quoted in Bloom 92). In The Cask of the Amontillado, a drunken wine connoisseur by the name of Fortunado is craftily lured by Montressor, a man who is seeking revenge for injuries against his family name, down into the damp, dark catacombs. Fortunado, in such a drunken state, is hardly aware of his surroundings. Plagued with a horrific cough, he continues through the dank tunnels in search of promised liquor.
With much resistance, Montressor is able to shackle Fortunado to a wall. Fortunado is so disoriented that he is shackled to a wall without any resistance. Even while Montressor is enclosing him in a wall of bricks, Fortunado still speaks of the promised liquor. Fortunado is representative of Poe's own Giaudrone 8 inability to drink in moderation (Jacobs 65).
Another of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories that exhibits his obsession with alcohol is The Man of the Crowd. The drunks in this story staggered to the gin houses in shreds and patches, reeling, inarticulate, with bruised visage and lack-lustre eyes (quoted in Poe 24). In this description, Poe may really be describing himself after a binge when he was commonly drug out of gutters in deserted alley-ways (Meyers 44). Poe, like the drunks in The Man of the Crowd, had no control over the alcohol and often times drank until his body could not consume anymore or until his pockets ran empty (Meyers 44). Poe attacked the use and abuse of alcohol in his works because he found himself to be so weak that he continuously fell victim to its overpowering and destructive nature (quoted in Meyers 45). All of Poe's stories pertaining to alcoholism are symbolic of the havoc caused by Poe's inability to enjoy liquor in moderation and his views of alcohol as an instrument of destruction (quoted in Meyers 45 - 6).
Though Poe described the destructive effects of alcohol in his writings, he failed to control his own cravings and died a hopeless drunk. Edgar Allan Poe led a tragic and troubled life. He experienced the loss of several close loved ones and was unable to ever truly cope with these losses. He sought ease and comfort from the pain and sorrow in drinking, but the alcohol only brought on more problems. Despite or possibly as a result Giaudrone 9 of his misfortune, Poe was able to delve into his imagination and create magnificent literary works that are and will continue to be true American classics. One critic summed up Poe's character by saying, Morbid, passionate, and hypertensive, Edgar Allan Poe was brought down by desperate poverty, by the tragic early deaths of all those he loved, and by the solace he often found in drink and opium.
Yet a wild and vivid imagination, transformed by the horrors and obsessions of his life, into a potent literary material, and he became a true master of horrific tales. His chilling horror stories have inspired countless imitations, and he is now seen as one of the Great American Writers' (quoted in Wright 11). note- The description of events in The Cask of the Amontillado and The Black Cat purely came from what information I had retained from reading the story and thoroughly covering it in oral discussions during Mrs. Dobrino and Mrs. Saraccos English classes. Giaudrone 10 Allen, Hervey.
Israel: The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: George H. Doran Co. , 1926. Bloom, Harold. Modern Critical Views: Edgar Allan Poe. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1985.
Davidson, Edward. Poe: A Critical Study. Cambridge: Havard UP, 1957. Jacobs, William. Edgar Allan Poe: Genius in Torment. New York: McGraw Hill Book Co. , 1975.
Magill, Frank. Magill's Survey of American Literature, Volume 5. New York: Salem Press, 1991. Meyers, Jefferey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Charles Scrivners Sons, 1992.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: The Modern Library, 1992. Regan, Robert.
Poe: A Collection of Critical Essays. New York: Summit Books, 1978. Silvermann, Kenneth. Edgar Allan Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992. Stallman, R.
W. and Arthur Waldhorn. American Literature: Reading and Critiques. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1961.
Wright, Regenald. Great Writers fo the English Language, Volume 4. New York: Marshall Caverendish Co. , 1981.
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