Fear And Death In The Works Of Edgar Allan Poe

Fear can be both helpful and harmful. It helps us survive, preventing us from making poor choices. It is an instinct that can save both you and others. But it can lead to paranoia, paralyzing you to the point where you can’t act. If you obsess over it too much, you won’t be able to enjoy life to the fullest. You’ll start seeing hallucinations. In Poe’s stories, symbol, irony, and imagery are used to show how fear and paranoia distorts the narrator’s mind. In his stories, all of the characters experience fear and each handle it differently.

Edgar Allan Poe once said, “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” Edgar Allan Poe is among many authors as one of the most influential writers of all time. Edgar Allan Poe had a unique writing style that no one else did. He did impact many people and still impacts many to this day. He was one to build on the idea of horror and expand the concept of it. Many of Poe’s works are still available today, and his poems are still some of the most famous around. Not only is Poe’s works some of the best anyone has ever seen, the message he leaves everyone with is astonishing. His tragic early life was the main cause of his affection for horror.

One of Edgar Allan Poe’s most known attributes is his use of fear in many of his stories. He used words and images to instill the fright into his readers. He strung together scenarios that happen to his characters that encapsulates real fears that a reader could have. Poe would use fear in his stories in multiple ways. A story could relate around a certain fear. The way Poe sets up his story with the tension could create a fearful atmosphere. He did not just focus on portraying a narrator with a certain fear, he would use language that would make the reader feel fear. He packed in images of darkness and horror in order to create these atmospheres that presented fear in many different ways.

Death affects all it comes into contact with. One such person is Edgar Allan Poe, in his Complete Tales And Poems, Poe has many stories involving madness and death. Poe lost both his parents at a young age, as well as his wife after 12 years of marriage. “After Virginia’s death from tuberculosis in 1847, Poe’s lifelong struggle with depression and alcoholism worsened.“ (poets.org) The pain of the losses can be seen in Poe’s writings, often reflecting death and how it can’t be undone. In Poe’s most famous poem, the Raven, Poe is confronted by a raven, when he asks if it has a message from his lost Lenore, the raven responds with nothing more then “Nevermore”. Becoming angry at the bird and claiming it to be from the devil, he attacks it in a fury, wishing for nothing more then to undo the death that has been done. The loss of loved ones and the influence of alcohol in Edgar Allan Poe 's life has impacted his writings with motifs of death and pain.

Fear is an emotion we experience every day. Throughout Poe’s stories, we learn that the effect of fear greatly depends on the determination, strong will, and hopefulness of the victim. The variation of these aspects allow both helpful and harmful outcomes of fear. In some cases, fear can sharpen senses, induce caution, and strengthen our will to live. Likewise, fear can lead to paranoia, hallucination, and isolation. In “The Tell Tale Heart,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Masque of Red Death,” these circumstances are portrayed through the adoption of various literary devices. The use of symbolism, irony, and imagery, reveals to us the distortion of the character’s morals and settings while showing the effect of fear on their ultimate

There have been many authors through history who have left a legacy, but one author, Edgar Allen Poe, has left something far greater than that. Though many writers have played an important part in culture, most have not even scratched the surface of the influence Poe has left behind. Poe was not only a writer, he was an artist who could paint mysterious and horrific stories with his words and created things that no one else had. Furthermore, he was the originator of the detective story and a shocking poet, and his writings will forever be immortalized through the works of others. Thus, many authors, musicians and screenwriters were, and still are, influenced by Edgar Allen Poe’s writing style and the somber life he lived.

Poe uses psychology within his stories to evoke all emotions, but he is particularly good at causing fear. There are many examples of him doing this and I am going to share a few of them with you. I have chosen three stories to point out how he uses our most common fears to make us tick. These are, The Tell Tale Heart, The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Masque of Red Death.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential and well-known authors in American history. Poe’s short stories remain recognized throughout American literature for their gothic approach, tall tales, and his recognition style to solving mysteries. Throughout his lifetime, Edgar Allan Poe endured various tragic experiences such as losing his parents at the age of three years old and losing his foster-mother at the age of 20 years old. Even though his literary works and techniques were vastly unique, after his death, some critics argued that they were not quite unique at all; instead, they argued, Poe’s inspiration derived from his own life experiences. These stories, which seem to blur the lines between Poe’s real life and his storytelling are

Fear can be beneficial and unhealthy, it just depends on how people handle it. Fear can keep people from doing horrendous things; however, being exposed to such fear can cause someone to become so paranoid they cannot enjoy life. For example, Edgar Allan Poe writes stories like “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “The Masque of Red Death” to show the different ways to handle fear. All of the main characters in Poe’s stories are exposed to fear and handle it differently. In the texts by Edgar Allan Poe, the symbols, irony, and imagery all display how fear distorts the narrator's mind and the results of that fear.

Edgar Allan Poe creates an atmosphere of fear and dread in his story “The Tell-Tale Heart” through characters and word choice. The author chose an insane character to portray a fearful plotline. Despite the distorted claims the narrator makes to convince the reader, he appears to be insane: “Above all was the sense of hearing acute, I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell” (Poe 303). By reading this quote, the reader understands that this person has mental issues. No sane person in the world can hear all noises in heaven and in hell. The author uses this quote to set up for the rest of the story. By knowing that the narrator is insane, the whole story shifts into a disturbing and uneasy tale. By including

Edgar Allen Poe and Lord Byron are masterful at using vivid, descriptive language language to develop the element of Gothic literature and instil a sense of fear in the reader. Poe, who wrote the Cask of Amontillado, used sentences to put fear in the reader. He wrote, “Fortunato 's low moaning cry from the depth of the recess,” and, “ The walls had been lined with human remains piled to the vault overhead.” These sentences indicate that someone is crying and is in a crypt like structure due to the walls being piled with bones.

Edgar Allan Poe is a master of telling stories about mad men and mysterious women coming back from the dead. Poe has been a well known poetry for hundreds of years. His work has been in the hands of readers looking for a read to make them hang off the edge of their seat. Edgar Allan Poe has always been seen as morbid, peculiar, and cryptic. His reputation rests mainly of the terror of his tales and his haunting lyrical poetry.

Every single living being dies in the long run; this much everyone can agree on. What’s more contentious, however, is what follows death. Throughout “Spirits of the Dead”, Edgar Allen Poe employs emotive and vivid imagery to build an abstract and melancholy poem that grapples with the mystery that is death with, at surface value, remarkable despondence and fear. On the other hand, in “Because I could not stop for Death”, Emily Dickinson, along a dissimilarly clear journey to a fixed destination, meditates over the topic of death and the afterlife with matched intimacy and fixation. However, the poem’s peaceful and blithe sentiment in respect to death, communicated through its personification, sets it

To summarize, Edgar Allan Poe’s stories illustrate how fear alters the character's mind and what the product is of such fear. Poe illustrates this through symbolism, irony, and imagery. Fear can be helpful by causing people to be cautious of their actions. However, people can also start to worry too much and become paranoid. In the end, Poe’s stories show people the differences of how to handle fear.

Born in Boston in 1809, Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential American writers of his age. He died in mysterious circumstances in 1849 and, even though he dedicated himself to both fiction and poetry, he is mainly remembered for his revolutionary novels.