The Sleeper by Edgar Allan Poe

Written by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven” is a famous short poem known for the dark fantasy that it portrays. From the mindset of a first person narrative, one may experience the tale through the eyes of a haunted man who is in mourning for the death of his beloved Lenore. As this man sits in his chamber, within a dark and dreary December night, a “raven of the saintly days of yore” visits him. The raven is no ordinary bird, for it is like a ghost, silent, yet it answers every inquiry the man presents in it’s own personal way. This dark and tragic tale grabs one’s attention through the rhythmic, yet melancholy verses, through the classic references, and through the dark imagery that all play a critical role within this poem.

I am doing my essay on “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe. I am going to tell you about the author and what he is greatly known for, next I will summarize the story and tell you the main themes and parts of the story that really play a big role in the story, then I will describe all the symbolisms in the story, and last I will prove that the deed drove the narrator insane more than he was already.

“The Raven” is a fictional poem written by Edgar Allan Poe in which the audience witnesses the narrator’s gradual change from a weary scholar to grieving lover. While falling asleep, he suddenly hears a tap at his chamber door. In alarm, the scholar tries to reason with himself and explain away the soft tapping. Eventually, he gains courage, opens the door, and finds it void of anyone. The narrator immediately wonders if it is perhaps his lost love, Lenore waiting for him, yet the only answer to his inquiry is his echoing voice. However, as he shuts the door, he hears a gentle tapping again, opens a window, and a raven enters. Poe’s use of a raven cannot be a coincidence. According to Gregory McNamee,

Poetry has long been an art form that has entertained readers for many years. Edgar Allen Poe, a poet from the 1900’s, is known for his deep dark poems. He wrote many poems that are now considered classics. One of his greatest works, “The Raven”, was written in 1845; just two years before his wife Virginia Clemm died of Tuberculosis. The entirety of “The Raven” is confined in a man 's chamber. It is a December winter and it is midnight. The narrator, the person who resides in the chamber, is reading a book: glooming over the recent death of his wife Lenore when he hears a sound at his door. After finding no one there, he hears a whisper that says “Lenore.” He returns to what he was doing, but a bird flies in. The bird is a black raven, a bird one would typically find menacing. He is inquisitive and begins to ask the bird questions : “What is your name” to which the bird responds “Nevermore.” Near the end of his questioning he asks, “Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore - Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels name Lenore?” This questioned if he ever get to meet Lenore again and the bird replies “Nevermore.” Finally, the man asks the bird if he will ever leave and once again the bird replies “Nevermore.” Throughout the poem, Poe uses literary elements to produce an aura of wackiness and despair.

Poe also utilizes imagination in his poem titled “The Raven”. In “The Raven”, the narrator has lost his wife, and is wondering if he will ever be able to find true love again. In the poem’s

In “The Tell Tale Heart”, by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator both experiences guilt from killing the old man in which he cared for and also the constant plea of proving his sanity. The narrator one day decides that he should kill the old man in which he cares for, due to the fact that he had an evil eye. Though insane and bizarre, the narrator thinks that he is not crazy; he just has heightened senses that allow him to hear things that no human could ever hear. The telling of the story from whatever prison or asylum the narrator is sentenced to is his way of proving his sanity. In the "Tell-Tale Heart", Edgar Allan Poe uses irony, imagery, and symbolism to depict how the guilt of a human being will always be consumed by their own conscience.

In the poem “The Raven”, Edgar Allan Poe expresses a current state of drunkenness, drug use, and depression as existing in a dark and dreary prison like setting, tormented by the memories of a lost love. Poe’s literary career was undoubtedly influenced by the many tragedies he suffered in his life. These misfortunes are evident in the correlation between his characters in his writings and real life events. It is clear that Poe had a problematic life from a young age; he struggled with mental illness, depression, and substance abuse including alcohol and opium use. Poe’s suffering is present in his dark, depressing, and tormented poem “The Raven”.

“I smiled, for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream.” The Tell Tale Heart is one of Edger Allan Poe’s most famous and creepiest stories. The premise of this gothic short story is that a man’s own insanity gives him away as a murderer. By using the narrators own thoughts as the story Poe displays the mental instability and the unique way of creating a gothic fiction. While other stories written by Poe reflect this same gothic structure and questionable sanity, this story has a unique way of making the reader walk away from the story with an uncomfortable feeling. The mental struggles the narrator faces might as well reflect the depression and other psychological issues Edgar Allan Poe was confronted with in his own life.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Black Cat,” depicts a male narrator who begins to be malicious due to his ongoing consumption of alcohol which in turn, results in his ultimate demise. In summarization, the narrator commits multiple heinous crimes under the influence of alcohol and that can eventually portray his lost of sanity. Furthermore, by studying Sigmund Freud’s Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis along with Poe’s short story, we can perceive the short story on a psychoanalytical level. Therefore, through the lens of psychoanalysis, it is noticeable that the narrator uses alcohol as a vehicle to represses his emotions, however, it only causes him to be more violent which results in his murders of his beloved cats and wife.

Type the word horror into google and you will receive the following definition on Merriam Webster: an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. Horror is different than fear in that it is more disturbing, disgusting, and creepy. Writers of horror stories take repulsive or unspeakable elements and turn them into a story that’s sure to make even the strongest of reader’s arm hairs stand on edge. One such writer spent a portion of his life writing these kind of stories. Edgar Allan Poe was influenced by his own life experiences, social normalities of the early 19th century, and used literary devices to write horrific works such as The Black Cat, The Raven, and Berenice.

This verse lyric again investigates Edgar Allen Poe's topics of death and misfortune and may

Even if one feels they may have 'gotten away ' with a crime, the weight of a person’s conscience cannot be concealed. In someone’s life, too much power and control combined with a person’s conscience in a person’s life can and will lead to an imbalance and perhaps insanity as in the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates how the narrator in this story goes through the greed and need for control, leading to his insanity that results in extreme guilt.

Furthermore, Poe shows that he longs for the reader to be with Annabel, because she was adored and loved by all. This diction gives the poem a romantic feel, which is outside of its gloomy morbid tone, showing his true love for his deceased. This shows that Poe wants the reader to feel a different side of the poem, most of the tone of the poem is dark and extremely morbid, but by saying this he adds a bit of relief to the readers, showing them that it’s not all bad. The most dramatic illustration of this poem is when Poe uses the lines in the poem that suggest imagery such as “For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee” “and the starts never rise, but I feel the bright eyes” This imagery shows the reader what Annabel Lee was like, it glamorizes her showing the reader that she was an incredibly amazing and beautiful person. The diction in Annabel Lee cannot be any more applauding; by doing this he sets the tone for the whole poem, which makes the poem so wonderful in the first place.

The being depicted in the sculpture here is what is known as an “Elder Thing”. First appearing in Dreams in the Witch House by H.P. Lovecraft, these extraterrestrial beings are far from human. The Elder Things are a race of half-vegetable, half-animal beings, having the feature of plants and animals simultaneously. They are capable of reproduction via spores and enter into states of death-like hibernation, yet they also eat and move and have minds of their own.

In the final stanza Poe writes that everything in this natural world reminds him of his beloved and that his heart still longs for his beloved wife. "and so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, in her sepulcher there by the sea- in her tomb by the sea". In this stanza the true feelings of Edgar Allen Poe are clearly evident. He pours his entire soul into this single stanza. He cries out to the world that his one true love is really gone; but he is only truly crying out to those who are able to view the tragedy of life and death through his eyes. Poe’s belief that fate somehow holds a grudge against him for finding love and happiness with a 13 year old girl is begging to be justified.