Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe

The literary style of Edgar Allan Poe is very dark and has many supernatural connotations. He showed this style in the stories that he wrote such as: The Raven, The Black Cat, and The Tell-Tale Heart. He also wrote many other stories that showed his dark style of writing; however I felt that these stories portrayed his style the best. Many sources think that the reason Poe had such a dark literary style was because of the events that occurred in his life. Some of these events included his father dying, and soon after that his mother died. Many more loved ones deaths preceded. This put Poe into a state of mind that made him very depressed and some believe that this is where he got his inspiration for his writing.

In The Raven, Poe starts off the story with "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary."(Complete 7) This shows how he sets up the setting for the story. This sentence makes you think of a dark lonely night. This is a good example of how Poe's literary style is dark. Poe also wrote "Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December, and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor. Eagerly I wished the morrow;---vainly I had sought to borrow from books surcease of sorrow---sorrow for the lost Lenore---for the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore---nameless here for evermore" (Complete 7). This is a dark poem of lost love. Whether he was referring to his mother, father or perhaps another loved one is unknown. In the fourth stanza Poe speaks of "Darkness there, and nothing more"(Complete 8) which allows us to see how alone he must have felt. Later in the story he refers to a bird that is sitting above his chamber door. He talks to the bird and gets frustrated with it because all it will ever say to him is "Nevermore." You can tell that the narrator is dying to have some kind of social interaction with someone or something but not even the bird will give it to him. He tries to get the bird to leave him alone, but all that the bird does is sit there and continue to say "Nevermore" (Complete 10). This frustrates him and he says "Leave my loneliness unbroken! ---quit the bust above the door! Take thy beak out of my heart, and take thy form from off my door! Quoth the Raven, Nevermore."(Complete 13) He wants to feel sorry for himself and he is sick of the bird repeating to him "Nevermore" which reminds him of the lost love of Lenore (Complete).

In The Black Cat Poe tells about his love for his animals, especially a black cat named Pluto. His wife refers to the cat as a witch in disguise. This shows the darkness that Poe had for every living thing. He loved this cat in the beginning and then he ended up killing the cat. He just became more moody, more irritable, and cared less and less about the feelings of others. He started to neglect all of his animals, even Pluto. His problem was that he was an alcoholic and he eventually turned on Pluto and cut his eye out of his socket. Poe then stated, " The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fiber of my frame."(DiYanni 132) This introduces the supernatural writing that Poe did. This was another aspect of Poe's dark writing style (pambytes 2). His supernatural writing usually referred to witchcraft and devil worship (eapoe 1). Poe continued the story with even more hatred for the cat. Eventually he ended up killing the cat by hanging it from a tree. In the story Poe explains it very vividly "One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;---hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart;---hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offense;---hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin---a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it---if such a thing were possible---even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God." (DiYanni 133). Later in the night his house catches on fire and there is only one wall that does not fall down. The cat is hanging from his headboard and he assumes that someone threw it in there. Later he feels bad about it and he finds another black cat and tries to make up for the evil things that he has done. This shows that the narrator did have some compassion for the cat and did feel remorse. This reveals that he was still human even after all of the terrible things that had happened in his life, he was still able to feel the feeling of guilt and sadness. The new cat followed him around all of the time. He became annoyed and disgusted by this. Eventually he was going to kill this cat with an axe when his wife stopped him. In his fury he accidentally struck his wife with the axe right into her brain. He decided to put her into the wall. This shows the darkness, because there are not too many people that would hide their own dead wife in the walls of their house. When the police came to check around Poe seemed very calm. Poe couldn't keep his mouth shut and he made a remark to police officers about how sturdy the walls of the house were. This shows that Poe was dark because he was proud about this terrible thing that he had done. It was almost as if he wanted the police to find her. Then there was a howling sound that was coming from behind the wall. It was the black cat. The police found the dead body and his own mistakes were what allowed this to happen. This story about a black cat and hiding his dead wife in a wall just show what a strange and dark style he had (DiYanni).

Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart ends a lot like The Black Cat. He starts the story off explaining how he is not mad. This again shows the type of writing Poe had, very dark and unusual. The narrator wanted to kill a friend of his simply because he didn't like his eye. Poe described the old mans eye as being "a vulture---a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees---very gradually---I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and rid myself of the eye forever."(Tell-Tale 1) Poe continued throughout the story with many supernatural descriptions such as, "for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye."(Tell-Tale 1) The narrator acted as though a person could an evil part on their body without even knowing it. He explained very vividly what it was like when he was waiting to kill the old man. The description he used made him sound very evil. One thing that he was saying about the old man was "Presently I heard a slight

...