Edgar Allan Poe's The Cage

Insanity, the unsoundness of the mind, and madness are topics that are difficult to understand. However, Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, The Raven presents the concept of insanity in an enchanting way. In this paper, I am going to argue that Poe’s use of the image of the raven represents the narrators budding madness and could possibly be viewed as a symbol for his subconscious mind in the poem. Poe seems to structure the raven in this way through his abstract language, form, tone, symbolism and imagery.

Edgar Allan Poe, an often misinterpreted literary mastermind known predominantly by his extraordinary tales of horror, the supernatural, forbidden love, madness, and mystery, is more than meets the eye. Though his genres of expertise may indicate otherwise, Poe was a very social person, having been raised as a gentleman, and he had more hands on military experience than any other major American author in history. As a writer, Poe gained a great deal of his inspiration from his surroundings. His stay in the army contributed significantly to his repertoire, said to have inspired some of Poe’s greatest works including “’The Gold Bug;’ ’The Man Who Was Used Up,’ a satire of southern frontier politics; ‘The Balloon Hoax,’ set along the

In the first stanza, “The doors to rooms they will not be/ Coming back to.” (Justice 3-4) are referring to the way of life that he had when he was younger. The doors are used as a symbol for the memories that he still has. Justice makes sure that the reader knows that “Men at forty/ Learn to close softly” (Justice 1-2), because men want to be able to go back to that time. He wants to go back to a time that is simpler than the one that he is in now by saying “The face of the boy as he practices tying/ His father’s tie there in secret,” (Justice 11-12). He is reflecting back on this because the times were different and there was less stress to deal with. As the change in a man happens, there is always a part of him that wishes they did not have to grow

I decided to pick the work of Edgar Allan Poe “The Raven” because it has always been one of my favorite works of literature. I always find myself enjoying gothic style literature such as the works of Edger Allan Poe. “The Raven” is considered to be a classic of gothic literature. Poe published “The Raven” on January 29, 1845. This poem from Edgar Allan Poe is both a short story and a narrative poem, it holds a tempo and flows like a poem. “The Raven” only has three characters in it the narrator, the raven, and Lenore. The narrator and the raven are both present and Lenore who is only spoken of. The name of the narrator is never gives his name in the poem. Some themes of “The Raven” are the dark side of the human mind, how life goes on after

The Sleeper, by Edgar Allan Poe, was first published in the Poems of 1831; this poem has since been revised from its current version which was printed in 1845. This poem was written during the Romanticism Period. This time period is defined as a time in which poets began to “rebel against the Neoclassical restrictions and dominance of reason as poetic aim. Romantic poetry celebrated the imagination over rationality, passion, and dreams over reason and external reality, and isolated individuality over collective humankind. Romantic poetry looked to celebrate both the supernatural and elevate the commonplace.” (Henriksen) Poe’s imagination prevails in this lyric poem. The speaker of the poem experiences an internal conflict while mourning

The Room itself represents the author’s unconscious protective cell that has encased her mind, represented by the woman, for a very long time. This cell is slowly deteriorating and losing control of her thoughts. I believe that this room is set up as a self-defense mechanism when the author herself is put into the asylum. She sets this false wall up to protect her from actually becoming insane and the longer she is in there the more the wall paper begins to deteriorate. This finally leads to her defense weakening until she is left with just madness and insanity. All of the characters throughout the story represent real life people with altered roles in her mind.

The life of Edgar Allan Poe 's was short and mysterious - just like the lives of the heroes of his stories. And like his fictional heroes, Poe was passionate about painful, strange, gloomy existence of the human soul. The contradictory and unstable, inclined to extravagant whims and binges, he seemed to have decided to match the romantic stereotype of the suffering hero, taken prisoner of self-destruction.

The words people use and how they use them holds so much power within themselves. It seems that, people are always searching for the right words to express their true emotions towards a certain subject. Artists and authors manage to make a living off of knowing how to use the right words to reach through to their platform. Though within his time, Edgar Allan Poe did not have an established platform and was seen as estranged; he still dabbled as an author and has made many famous short stories and poems that we enjoy to this day. Poe uses tone, diction, imagery, symbolism, elements of the supernatural, and allusions to illustrate his themes of sorrow, madness, revenge, and uses these to project and give refuge to his inner

Lastly, the isolated room that the narrator stays in is a symbol. The room symbolizes a safe haven, giving the main character time to write and process many

The unit question asks whether or not the hero of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” would realistically be able to escape the descending blade swinging on a pendulum. The question is a matter of time, is it feasible for the protagonist to escape the pendulum with the allotted amount of time. Based on standard deviation and testing a pendulum of the same scale as the one mentioned in the story, the answer is no. The protagonist mentions that he believed 10-12 periods of the pendulum would result in the blade coming in contact with his torso. Using the formula developed in class for the period of a pendulum, it would take the 30 foot pendulum described in the story about 72 seconds to complete 12 periods. Testing the actual 30 foot yielded similar results within 1-2 seconds of 72 seconds. Therefore, it is fair to say that the hero is working with 72 seconds to free himself. This does not seem like enough time to develop an escape strategy, act on the strategy, and leave without getting hit bit the pendulum. The method the hero describes involves thinking about the situation and then employing the help of nearby rats. He also mentions, “Yet one minute, and I felt that the struggle would be over,” as if to imply he had 1 minute to spare. Since he was reflecting and then enticing the rats to gnaw through the rope it is not likely that it took only 12 seconds to escape. 72 seconds does not seem like enough time for the hero to complete his escape. However, the thickness of the rope and speed of the rats are factors that could affect the outcome.

"In one case out of a hundred a point is excessively discussed because it is obscure; in the ninety-nine remaining it is obscure because it is excessively discussed." This quote by Edgar Allan Poe describes his obscure works which have been discussed and criticized in great detail for many years to come. Some readers believe that his works are too dark and eccentric maybe even deathly. Others believe his works to be masterpieces. However, one thing that is not up for debate is the fact that Edgar Allan Poe is a literary genius. Edgar Allan Poe, the creator of the ratiocinative story and the amateur sleuth and leading contributor to the gothic genre, is the greatest author of the mid-nineteenth century.

While trapped in a dark and empty dungeon, a single person cannot do much to escape. This is the sad reality for the narrator, who is the main character, in “The Pit and The Pendulum.” However, this situation helps to create an idea of independence and freedom for the reader. These are both very important to our lives on a daily basis. Freedom is something that many people around the world don’t have, but taken for granted in many countries today. Independence is seemingly simple, but can still be a challenge in our lives. In “The Pit and The Pendulum” the author Edgar Allan Poe uses the narrator’s fear, loneliness and his actions to emphasize the importance of freedom and independence.

“…All sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, night were the universe.” This quote from “The Pit and the Pendulum” is an excellent example of how Edgar Allen Poe is a master at using point of view, setting, and conflict to display the thematic message of fear in his short stories. This example uses all three literary strategies. The setting contributes to the theme of fear by stating that the soul was descending to Hades, the Greek god of the underworld, or hell, a place that will almost definitely draw a fear response in the reader. He uses conflict by having the reader infer that the story is about a dying person, and so on. He finds unique ways to do this with all types of literary strategies, but most prominently with point of view, setting and conflict. He especially uses point of view in a unique way, making the narrator either mentally unstable or having some other unusual ailment. Therefore, after thorough analysis of both “The Black Cat” and “The Pit and the Pendulum,” it is clear that Edgar Allen Poe is a master at using setting, conflict, and point of view to help display the unique thematic message of fear throughout almost all of his literary works. Firstly, Poe uses setting to convey the theme of fear in “The Black Cat” and “The Pit and the Pendulum”. In “The Black Cat”, the climax of the story takes place in a cellar. “At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar,” The

As much as a prison cell is a place of captivity it is also a place for punishment, which is also directly connected to Giovanni’s room. David describes the disorder of Giovanni’s room as “not a matter of habit or circumstance or temperament; it was a matter of punishment and grief” (87). David directly identifies the room’s clutter as a punishment, with all of its contents being Giovanni’s life stuffed into one small room suffocating him. Giovanni’s room is a punishment in that it holds him back from any other life he could make. Giovanni is crammed into his small single room and it can be understood as a storage space for his life, which can be connected to a closet; where things are also stored and never really brought out of; another shadowing of a prison cell. David calls Giovanni’s room “a closet of a room” (142). A closet is also small and crammed with a person’s life, just like Giovanni’s room is full of his life. Giovanni’s’ room is a cell, a closet and a tomb containing his accumulated life.

Also, it is amazing how he coordinates each room from east to west because it means that the sun rises from east to west. This is a form of allegory because those are symbols that conveys a message. Even though, the room weren’t aligned correctly, it was more of sharp turns in certain distances. The color sequences of the room started of as blue, purple, green, orange, white, violet, and black. For me, it reminds of life and death because those colors represents different meanings. For example, blue symbolizes the beginning of something new and trust or loyalty to others. Black symbolizes death, evil, mystery, and so much more which can bring harmful effects to someone. The seventh room was painted all black with dark stained glass window which is ultimately known to be scary, horrible, frightening, and terrified. Nobody didn’t enter that room because they thought that the devil was inside in that room.