The Oval Portrait By Edgar Allan Poe

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.

One of the most influential authors of all time, Edgar Allan Poe, uses dark imagery and complex syntax to make his short stories and poems dark and mysterious. Poe’s dark, tragic backstory contributes to his dark writing style. His father left him when he was young, and his mother died when he was only three. He then went on writing poems, and after he finished his school, he found his fiance cheating on him, so he moved to Boston to get away from everything he knew. He then married his cousin when she was only 13, but she died 11 years after. Annabel Lee was likely based off of his wife's death, having wrote it shortly after her death. Overall, Poe used his dark imagery and complex syntax to write his gothic short stories and poems such as Annabel Lee and Fall of the House of Usher.

In “The Oval Portrait”, Edgar Allan Poe creates a setting in an abandoned castle where the main character and his valet are forced to take shelter in after

The life of Edgar Allan Poe is not a tale of ease. Poe’s life was full of personal and fiscal disaster. These disasters help to mold some of the most ominous and intellectually challenging poetry ever written. For the short duration of Poe’s life, he was seen as a literary critic rather than an author. To the modern generation his unbeknown status seems bafflingly inconceivable, considering his now acclaimed publications. Edgar Allan Poe’s writing was very much dictated by his life. The mournful tone of Edgar Allan Poe’s life created his literature; death and all his friends narrated Poe’s life. Edgar Allan Poe shows his life’s constant despair through his poetry and short story writings.

The traditional Gothic taste for “portraits” is frequent in many novels and short stories that follow the conventions of literary mode making it present in these both texts; House of the Seven Gables by Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe’s The Oval Portrait. Often the characters in such Gothic romances are haunted by the tyranny of the past, which make it inescapable. It often leads to the destruction of their loved ones. Others motive of escape is often pulled back by a curse that the character creates upon himself. According to The Art of Terror by Maria Antonia Lima she says, “These portraits are usually a source of terror, with the past presented as something alive, like a ghost that haunts the present with its terrible mystery. Many authors consider this kind of literature itself as an example of modern art because it can become an anti-realist protest and a rebellion of the imagination against the reduction of fiction to the analysis of contemporary habits” (Lima 80). The painter introduces the “portrait” in the Oval Portrait by Edgar Allen Poe as overwhelming to him. The painter changes his behavior by no longer seeing his wife as his wife rather as an image through the lens of his painting. This idea of a “portrait” can be signified as a curse. A curse that plays with the Pyncheon’s and the painter’s emotions. In The House of the Seven Gables the “portrait” of Colonel Pyncheon is presented as an everlasting reminder of its dark past and the

Edgar Allan Poe manifested his life into what he wrote; the melancholic effects from living in poverty and his beloved wife dying, created hints of somberness that emanates throughout his work. Poe was an accomplished writer of many works such as The Tell Tale Heart and The pit and The Pendulum. Poe’s life pushed him to the limits of sanity as well as advancing his creative thinking processes to the fullest. Throughout the years of his young adult life, he suffered hardships that would shape the rest of his career as a promising writer.

Have you ever wondered the reasons behind why some horror stories are so sinister? Have you ever read a horror story and told yourself that it would not happen in real life? Have your ever thought that you had a rough life growing up? Poe did not live to see his name really get the big praise it does now for his horror. Most of Poe’s life was filled with death of loved one’s and sadness which made him turn to writing poems and short stories. Edgar Allan Poe’s rough early life, relationships with women, and exposure to man’s evil human nature inspire the plots of his short story fiction.

Edgar Allan Poe is considered to be one of the greatest American writers of all time. His writing is dark and sinister. He wrote of death, murder, psychosis, and obsession. One could only imagine what would bring a person to write such morbid stories. Perhaps, it may be attributed to Poe’s childhood, a past that was sad and far from average. Both of his parents died when he was only three years of age (Shelley). The death of his parents caused a separation from his siblings and he moved to live with his relatives (Shelley). In later years, Poe endured poverty and the loss of his wife-to-be to another man (Clark). Possibly, without those troubling experiences, Poe couldn’t have imagined such eerie and enthralling tales. Some of his most

In the story “the oval portrait” by edgar alan poe, the Narrator tells us a story about an artist who painted his wife, but with every brush stroke he stole a bit of life from her until the painting becomes complete and she is nothing but an empty shell. The “ oval portrait indicates the tension between the life and art. The central idea of the story exists in the confusing relationship between life and art. The story opens with the Narrator occupying an abandoned chateau, together with his valet Pedro.

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.

Edgar Allan Poe is a much known author. He is known for writing dark and mysterious stories and poems. “His imaginative storytelling led to literary innovations, earning him the nickname "Father of the Detective Story" (Edgar Allan Poe Biography.com). When writing stories he wanted the readers to have that one emotion or feeling when reading his writing. Poe has very many stories he is known for two of those short stories being; “The Oval Portrait” and “The Cask of Amontillado”.

Edgar Allan Poe’s life works are a reflection of who he is may it be crazy, depressing, or frightening. His background is what makes him a unique writer, all the horror he writes about is real and he has faced. He takes the main idea from his own life and adds details to describe how he feels making his story realistically horrific because it is real. Many authors just take ideas out of their brain which is great but writing book and poems from your own life, things that really happen is taking it to the next level making it exciting and

Edgar Allan Poe born on January 19, 1809, was known as the creator of the modern detective story and innovator of the science fiction genre. Although, people identify him because of his horror stories as well as his haunting lyric poetry, there was a different side of him other than a gruesome, mysterious individual prowling in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries. Poe’s childhood was very tragic and affected his adult life when growing up. Poe was the second son of actors David and Elizabeth Poe. Shortly after Poe was born, his father abandoned the family in 1810 and the following death of his twenty-four year old mother in 1811, left Poe an orphan at the young age of three. Poe was adopted by a guy named john, who was a strict unemotional

Edgar Allan Poe created many short stories that reflected the horrors and sadness in his life. Two short stories that were influenced by his past are “The Black Cat” and “The Cask of Amontillado”. Edgar Allan Poe lived a very depressing and sad life which influenced him to create a unique voice in his writings. While Edgar Allan Poe was little both of his parents died leaving Poe with a foster father to take care of him. He was able to attend college for only a couple years then had to drop out due to debt. His father was displeased and refused to pay his debts due to Poe's alcoholism and gambling problem. Many loved ones died in Edgar Allan Poe’s life contributing and helping create his dark stories. Poe struggled with depression and resulted into alcohol which is also seen in some of his writings. Edgar Allan Poe creates a unique voice in his short story by using setting to develop the conflict, common theme, and characterization.

Edgar Allen Poe is a fictional writer he wrote many weird and scary stories and poems, most of his poems mirrored bad things’ that happened in his childhood. In 1845, Poe wrote The Raven which is still one of his best known poems. It was first published in the New York paper. The Raven brought him fame in his lifetime but the fame didn’t bring him much joy. (D-1) Poe’s poems and stories usually had a symbolic meaning in them such as “The Raven” it stood for grief and sorrow that would never go away. He wasn’t just a poem and story writer he was also a critic. In 1838-1844 he edited Burtons Gentleman’s Magazines and in Grahams Magazine his criticism in these magazines and in the messenger was keen, direct, incisive and sometimes savage.(B-10) Some of Poes magazine stories were collected as tales of the grotesque and arabesque he also began writing the mystery tales that earned him