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Edgar Allan Poe Alone Essay

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Gloomy and “Alone” The “early pioneer of science fiction” American writer during the 1800s, Edgar Allan Poe, is widely known for casualties, “premature burials, mysterious women who return from the dead” and decaying love (“Poe’s life”). Because of his writing style, Poe was dubbed “Father of the Detective Story” (“Biography.com Editors”). Poe was an unhappy and alone man, whose life was filled with mental illness and death. Poe has earned his reputation by writing his short stories filled with “tales of terror as well as on his haunting lyric poetry” (“Poe’s life”), such as “The Raven” and “Alone.” All the poems Poe has written seem to have at least one, if not more, familiar qualities: they all have a mournful, deserted mood. In his poem, …show more content…

In his writing, the reader can taste the depression, emptiness, and sorrow Poe has felt in his lifetime. In Poe’s story “Alone” he believes that his childhood was “the mystery which” has bound him to the good and the bad (line 12). In Poe’s early age his father left and his mother died from tuberculosis. Soon after Poe’s mother’s sorrowful death, he was adopted by John and Frances Valentine Allan which meant he had to be separated from his brother, William Henry Leonard Poe, and his sister, Rosalie Mackenzie Poe at a young age (Biography.com Editors). Before Elizabeth Poe’s death, Poe and his mother had a genuine relationship. Elizabeth Poe was an actress and Poe went to his mother’s plays where she would play Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet.” During this play, Poe would witness his mother croak and then revive, which gave Poe an odd aspect of life and death. Between Poe’s birth father leaving and his foster father’s neglect, Poe never had a strong male figure to look up to. Poe has experienced heaps of death of his loved ones throughout his life, losing both his, birth mother and his foster mother to the Grim Reaper by illness. The vicissitude in Poe’s life has influenced Poe to write his deep and meaningful poem, …show more content…

“From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were—I have not seen As others saw,” Poe has shown his readers that he has had one of the “most stormy life” (1-3, 10). Poe’s use of alliteration and “anaphora” in his poem “Alone” emphasizes the message Poe is trying to get across (Cummings). Also Poe’s use of a metaphor while in his poem “Alone” shows a great deal of how his childhood caused him to have a “most stormy life” (Cummings, 10). Poe’s different point of view strongly affected his “emotional life,” Poe hit’s a sensitive nerve when talking about his past and displays to his readers why “he sees things differently” (“Alone Poem Analysis”). Poe’s poem “Alone” had a strong sense of imagery “Alone” was Poe’s cry for help, “My sorrow—I could not awaken,” Poe is announcing that he can’t get escape from his sorrow and what “drives him to sorrow is something different” (6, “Alone Poem Analysis”). The sorrow and the “demon in my view—” led to “The mystery surrounding Poe's death” (22, Giordano). The strong metaphor of “demon” is talking about Poe’s personal demon, the reader might never know exactly what Poe was referring to because “this is the central mystery of his life” (22, “Alone Poem Analysis”). No one truly knows how Poe had died, the rumors still linger to this day. Poe’s reputation didn’t flourish until after his

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