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Madness And Death In Edgar Allan Poe

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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. In The Raven, the narrator is not able to deal with the death of his wife, not believing it to be real, so when the Raven came to him he believed it was his wife. At the start of the poem, the narrator is awoken in the night by a knocking on his chamber door. “And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, “Lenore?” This I whispered , and an echo murmured back the word, “Lenore!” Merely this and nothing more.” (Poe, 69). The narrator is overcome with grief and pain at the loss of his Lenore. So upon opening the door to

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