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The, Mystery And The Macabre By Edgar Allan Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe was an iconic American writer, editor, and critic. Active between the years 1827 and 1849, he is best known for his poetry and short stories (Edgar Allan Poe). Particular interest lies in his gothic themed works that featured death, mystery and the macabre. He is highly regarded as the proponent in chief of the modern short story and also acknowledged for fostering the development of the “art for art’s sake” movement in nineteenth-century European literature (Poe, Edgar A.; Bloom 1). Poe is considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre through his keen analytical writing in works such as ´The Murders in the Rue Morgue.” He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction through the …show more content…

For instance, no pronouns identifying the narrator are used. As a result, the narrator’s gender remains open to speculation. However, many accounts render him as a male. The narrator is also obsessive and displays monomania, in which case he is altogether normal save for his strange fixation on one issue; the old man’s eye. The narrator acknowledges that he has a disease but claims that the disease enhances his senses making him able to hear everything. He then proceeds to defend his sanity as opposed to his innocence, declaring that the systematic way in which he studied his victim and killed him as well as concealed his deed is indicative of a rational mind in working order (Poe). It is, however, apparent that the reality is to the contrary because the narrator reveals having committed the old man’s murder. The narrator also makes references to having heard many things in heaven and hell. This is captured in the words, “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad?” (Poe). This statement further reinforces the reality of the narrator’s mental condition. The narrator also appears to be duplicitous given how he speaks of stalking the old man at night yet greeting him heartily in the morning. This suggests a darker sinister nature in the narrator. The fact that he flaunts his ability to be friendly to the old man while harboring intentions of

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