Analysis Of Edgar Allan Poe 's ' The Imp Of The Perverse '

The 19th century American poet, Edgar Allan Poe, had been plagued by grief from an early age. He was an amazing poet and author who just happened to have a darker story. Many who have studied this prestigious man feel that his works, though magnificent, were extremely dark. Some believe it was nothing more then a fancy for him to spin such gruesome tales. Others feel his work was manipulated by the misfortune of his past. These people have actually found evidence that agrees with this statement. The works of Edgar Allan Poe were inspired by the history and life style of the author. The evidence is evident, when people look back and examine the author, his life, and his writings closely.

In living his life and even in his manner of negotiating death, Poe was a captive of the imp of perversity. But with art as his shield, the realms of perversity became a haven for his troubled soul. . . Perversion is a complex strategy of mind, with its unique principles for regulating the negotiations between desire and authority. To achieve its aims, the perverse strategy employs mechanisms of mystification, concealment and illusion, devices characteristic of the tales of Edgar Allen Poe. The perverse strategy is, as

The main themes of Edgar Allan Poe’s works are death, perversity, revenge and destruction. The settings he employed in the given short stories, especially in The Fall of the House of Usher and The Black Cat are Gothic. Therefore, naturally the mood of these stories would be dark and sepulchral. However, this is not a trivial employment undertaken to put the reader in a certain kind of zone.

Edgar Allan Poe is the most morbid of all American authors. Poe made his impact in Gothic fiction, especially for the tales of the macabre of which he is so renowned for. “How can so strange & so fine a genius & so sad a life, be exprest [sic] & comprest in on line — would it not be best to say of Poe in a reverential spirit simply Requiescat in Pace [?]” — (Alfred Lord Tennyson’s reply to the Poe Memorial committee, February 18, 1876). Poe’s own life story sheds light on the darkness of his writings.

is made through his use of punctuation, word choice, figurative language, tone, and sentence structure.

Poe uses the dark side of human nature to create a demoralizing and daunting story in both “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Tell-Tale Heart.” In “The Cask of Amontillado,” one can see that the dark side of human nature is conveyed through Montresor’s actions of murdering his enemy, Fortunato. As seen in “The Tell-Tale Heart,” the dark side of human the race is shown through the protagonists dark and treacherous actions resulting in the death of an innocent, old man. The dark side of human nature, and the dreadful actions that are taken within the stories, are prime examples of the devilish and demonic forces within our world. The dark side of human nature is expressed in “The Cask of Amontillado and “The Tell-Tale Heart” through the protagonist’s actions of guilt, deceit and insanity.

Edgar Allan Poe’s influence on American literature was nothing short of great; not only was he the creator of the detective story and the horror thriller, but he also influenced many great writers, among those William Faulkner and Fyodor Dostoevsky. While Poe is best known for his horror thrillers, being the creator of that particular genre, he has also fashioned two other literary genres, like the detective and the science fiction genre. Throughout his life, Poe read, reviewed, and critiqued many books for various magazines and papers. Poe did not hesitate to attack what he deemed inferior. “Is purely too imbecile to merit an extended critique,” he once wrote of a novel. Because of his readiness to attack what he believed to be unworthy,

Edgar Allan Poe has a distinctive and dark way of writing (Poe & Kennedy, pp.22). His mysterious style of writing appeals to passion and sentimentality. Poe’s most prominent works of fiction are gothic. His stories tend to have similar recurring theme of either death, lost love or both. Poe’s psychologically thrilling stories examining the depths of the humanoid psyche earned him much fame throughout his lifetime and after his death. And this distinctive style of writing made him possess his own style of wiring (Arbor, pp.71). There is a psychological concentration which is an important characteristic of Poe’s literatures, particularly the tales of horror that encompass his best and well-known works, such as The Black Cat and The Raven which

This essay will discuss the themes in Poe’s writing that mirror his personal life and, in addition, the fear and supernatural motivators for his characters. First, I will discuss Poe’s background and explore how he became best known as a poet for his tales of mystery and macabre.

Sadness, guilt, and fear are some of the most negative emotions that humanity can experience, however they are also the strongest. Edgar Allan Poe, a nineteenth century author and poet, is known primarily for his use of these emotions, as well as the results that may come from these emotions, such as substance abuse, depression, and death. However, the ability to write such elegant, sophisticated works that delve into the very dark recesses of the human mind reflects greatly upon the author himself. Repetitive themes found both in Poe’s stories and in his life deliver insight on the inspiration for this author’s stories. Poe uses themes of death, illness, and depression in order to reflect his own experiences within his writing.

"The Imp of the Perverse" begins unlike many of Poe's other short stories; it appears to be a serious essay about phrenology, a science that sought to determine the relationship between character and skull morphology. However, the short story quickly transitions into a format that Poe would continue to use throughout his other stories. Once phrenology has been explained, the narrator declares that he has fallen victim to the imp of the perverse, which he contends is "an innate and primitive principle of human action," or an instinct, that prompts an individual to be self destructive (Poe, "The Imp of the Perverse," 281). In "The Imp of the Perverse," the narrator murders a man using a poisoned candle that emits poisonous gas/smoke. The narrator admits that his plan was premeditated and that "[f]or weeks, for months, I pondered upon the means of murder. I rejected a thousand schemes, because their accomplishment involved a chance of detection" (283). Thinking he has gotten away with murder, the narrator declares, "I am safe I

As a master of short stories of horror, Edgar Allan Poe is knowledgeable, learned and imaginative. He could skillfully manipulate the words in his literary works to create everything people can think of. The masterful use of the symbols, objects intensify the readers’ nerve as the typical elements of horror in Poe’s short stories, and therefore it is also a feature which makes Poe 's stories different from other writers.

In many of his stories, it seemed as though Poe craved to see the pain of sorrow in others. The unstable mind motivates the body to act out in such a violent manner in order to satisfy its desires. In “The Cask of Amontillado” the protagonist, Montressor, “[hearkens] in vain for a reply” of agony from his enemy. Poe wanted to hear the suffering of his adversaries; he needed to hear them feel the pain he felt. His desire to force this punishment onto others, questions his sanity and reason. Frances Winwar, Author of the The Haunted Place, suggests that the discovery of a female body found on the Hudson “roused the sleuth Edgar Allan Poe in his alter ego.” (Winwar 226). The darkness that Poe encountered and experienced was the reason he developed the insane characters in his stories.

When looking at a piece of literature through a psychological approach it is easy to apply Sigmund Freud’s theories of the id, ego, and superego, which focus on conscious and unconscious behavior. When analyzing many of Poe’s works, critics tend to look through a psychological lens. Specifically in Poe’s The Black Cat. Some critics believe that Poe’s alcoholism is reflected in the piece, but many, such as James W. Gargano “advised the tales readers to avoid the biographical pitfall of seeing Poe and the first-person narrator of The Black Cat as ‘identical literary twins’” (Piacentino 1). It is due to his childhood that Poe’s narrator in The Black Cat subconsciously places animals before humans, thus leading to him to murder his wife.

Edgar Allan Poe was a fictional writer that astonished readers with his many mysterious poems and his tales of horror such as “The Raven”, “Annabelle Lee”, and “The Fall of the house of Usher”.