The Influences In Edgar Allan Poe's Life

The poet, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote from influences in his life such as his grief, being an orphan and drugs. Poe, born in Boston, spent 3 years with his family until he was orphaned after his mother’s death and his father’s abandonment. Poe was adopted by the

Allan family and later attended the university of virginia for a year before dropping out. Poe was kicked out of the army a year after joining. He later married his cousin, Virginia, who passed away at a young age. Following his wife’s death Poe became a drug addict and alcoholic. Each of these events impacted Poe’s career.

One of poe’s inspirations for his writing was his grief. ‘’For the heart whose woes are legion’’. This quote from Edgar Allan Poe represents his sorrow and his pain.

“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.” This quote from Edgar Allan Poe proves Poe’s drug use and gives the reader an idea of why his stories are unusual. “I do not suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it”. This quote from Edgar Allan Poe relates back to Poe’s drug use and although we can’t prove it, his drug use did seem to alter his state of mind. His unstable mentality did impact his writing by giving many of his male narrators psychotic tendencies. In the Tell Tale Heart the narrator starts to hear a heartbeat and it drives him insane. This represents Poe’s disturbed mind which was a result of his heavy drug use.

Many of Poe’s stories reflects his use of drugs, childhood as an orphan and his grief from traumatic experiences. While reading any story by Edgar Allan Poe these three factors are very detectable. If Poe had never gone through these traumatic events then most likely there would be none of his iconic