Edgar Allan Poe Insanity

Edgar Allan Poe creates a very suspenseful, exhilarating, and gloomy mood. Poe creates this by building up details little by little, giving you little tastes that gets the reader wanting to read more. Edgar Allan Poe writes “TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. 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. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story.”(P.1) This piece of writing is the very first paragraph of the short story The Tell Tale heart. This gets the reader asking, who is this man? What is the story that this man is trying to tell? This is what really makes Edgar Allan Poe’s stories create a suspenseful element that he depicts. Both of the stories have a very dark and gloomy mood. In the short stories there is murder and insanity involved, this really brings out the dark and obscure part of Edgar Allan Poe’s writings. A large part of how Edgar Allan Poe creates this type of mood is

Edgar Allan Poe incorporates real life experiences into the literary work "The Black Cat". Poe struggles with alcoholism, gambling, and may very well possess some mental disorders because of all he has experienced in his life. Many deaths have occurred in his life which could influence his writing greatly. In "The Black Cat" Edgar Allan Poe uses euphemism and motif to reveal the narrator's insanity and inability to own up to his actions.

When authors write stories, often their stories are expressed through their emotions. Edgar Allan Poe had a very tough life. When Poe was a small child he was happy. But up until when he was about 3 years old, life tortured him. All of his loved ones died, he became an alcoholic and, became poor and homeless. In most of Poe’s stories, there is a lot of darkness in them and a very small amount of lightness. That’s because his life was overwhelmed with so much evil or grief and barely any good or light happy moments in his shorts stories and poems. Edgar Allan Poe’s life represents his work of gothic literature to show the motif of light and dark is used by Poe to symbolize the good and evil in his short stories and poems.

Edgar Allan Poe was an extraordinary author whose horror and mystery stories leave an impression on readers even today. In some of Poe’s works, the narrator’s thoughts and actions make the reader question the narrator’s sanity. Two good examples are Poe’s poem “The Raven” and his short story “The Black Cat”; there is plenty of evidence to support that both of the narrators are not completely sane. In Poe’s “The Raven” and “The Black Cat,” both narrators exhibit symptoms of mental illness, including hallucinations, illogical thinking, mood swings, and substance abuse.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Black Cat immerses the reader into the mind of a murdering alcoholic. Poe himself suffered from alcoholism and often showed erratic behavior with violent outburst. Poe is famous for his American Gothic horror tales such as the Tell-Tale Heart and the Fall of the House of Usher. “The Black Cat is Poe’s second psychological study of domestic violence and guilt. He added a new element to aid in evoking the dark side of the narrator, and that is the supernatural world.” (Womack). Poe uses many of the American Gothic characteristics such as emotional intensity, superstition, extremes in violence, the focus on a certain object and foreshadowing lead the reader through a series of events that are horrifying

Edgar Allan Poe said “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” Throughout his short stories; “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Poe sets up his characters to subconsciously reveal their insanity. Often using syntax clues and patterns, Poe shows the madness of the narrators of his short stories. The constant theme of denial of insanity further convinces the reader of the character’s psychosis. Characters themselves often prove they are not in touch with reality through their actions. Through syntax, denial of insanity, and character’s actions, Poe allows his narrators in “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” to reveal their own insanity.

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.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the many poets known for using dark imagery to further the visual content of his text. In doing so, Poe uses his narrator in “The Black Cat” to communicate to his readers “a series of household events” in which he uses details that horrify and haunt the readers. Opening with mystery, the readers are able to quickly infer that Poe’s narrator lacks common sense and rationality and that is what causes him become impulsive in his actions towards his loved ones. In this story, Poe writes through the eyes of an unnamed deceptive narrator who maltreats his wife and cat and relates how alcoholism and his oblivious views led him to their murder. By writing through the eyes of his narrator, Poe breaks the fictional barrier and creates a realism in the story which arouses his readers with the details about the murder of his wife and beloved cat. Poe’s use of dark imagery contributes to the overall mood of the story by utilizing characterization, diction, and anxiety through his narrator.

The Black Cat is one of Poe’s most memorable stories. The story was first published in 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. This like a study of the psychology of guilt, paired with other works by Poe. “Near the beginning of the tale, the narrator says he would be "mad indeed" if he should expect a reader to believe the story, implying that he has already been accused of madness” (Cleman). Poe is creating a sense of confusion for the readers and making them think more about the story before reading. The story is centered around a black cat and the idea of deterioration of a man. From his prison cell, the narrator is writing the story about his life which is falling apart. He has a love for animals, and for his wife that he married young. One of the things that he takes on as a hobby, is

Not a lot of people have the natural talent to write such dark literature. Some people can write scary stories, but their stories are nothing compared to Edgar Allan Poe’s stories. The reason for this is the fact that Edgar could take his horrifying ideas from his sad and awful childhood. Edgar’s mother died when he was a young boy and his father had abandoned his family before then. As a result, Edgar Allan Poe was put into the foster program. When he was 20, he secretly married his cousin, who at that time was 13. They got married publicly later on in their lives. Sadly, she died shortly after. As a result, Edgar Allan Poe was forced to spend the rest of his life alone. To conclude, Edgar Allan Poe has his dark and gloomy life to draw his spooky, horrifying ideas from.

He began drinking witch made him go mad. But while he went mad he made a story a gruesome story called. The Black Cat. The black cat was one of the stories that was a lot like poe. The narrator in this story drank a lot too.

Poe uses the elements of sounds, emotions, darkness, and light very skillfully. Poe's using the available natural and physical elements rather than supernatural factors is the strong point of the story. Narrating with infinite fear and through artistic imagery, the first person narrator completely absorbs the reader in the story. Such atmospheres appear in most of Poe's stories; however, “in Poe's works, there are [in general] many unhealthy mental situations and states associated with detective imagery and gothic scenes” (Priestley 181-180). Poe's stories originate from dreams and are artistically

“The Black Cat,” is a typical work of Edgar Allen Poe. Poe was a master of the horror genre, and it was a focus on many of his works such as: “Berenice” or “The Tell-Tale Heart..” The themes evident in the “The Black Cat” are very typical of Poe’s writing. His themes focused on dark matters, melancholy in nature. The themes present in most of Poe’s works tend to be dark in nature because it was a reflection of his own life. However, Poe did not only write scary or depressing stories as seen in his “Eleonora.” (a love story), or “The Spectacles” (a comedy about love at first sight) or even “The Purloined Letter”” (a detective story.).

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe is a timeless classic, illustrating many different elements of horror. In this story, emotions run high, there are some peculiar/sketchy settings, and grotesque descriptions. The list truly goes on and on, but the focus is primarily on these elements. Examining these elements and understanding them really brings a new understanding to the piece.

In the short story, The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, Poe conveys many different types of the horror genre. During the early 1800s, he wrote many short stories and poems that belonged to the horror genre. His famous works are, “The Raven”, “The Tell Tale Heart”, and “The Pendulum”. Over 400 years later, all of his stories are still recognized today and read by many, making him one of the best writers of all time. In the story “The Black Cat”, it starts with a man explaining the last few horrific days of his life. The man then goes on with his early life and his tendency to nurture and love animals. He becomes an alcoholic, and learns that he is violent and disturbed by his wife and animals. As the story progresses, he continues to find anger within himself to make him harm his family.