A Premature Burial Analysis

Part A: The theme for “A Premature Burial” by Edgar Allen Poe is that people must learn to conquer their fears. In the story, the narrator was scared of being buried alive because of a disorder that put him in a near-comatose state. The only sign of him being alive would be the appearance of non-decay. Every day the narrator lived his life in fear that this might happen and that whenever he would wake up, he would never be able to get out of the coffin. One day, it did happen; however, a few men found him and dug him out of the ground. He then spent some time on a boat and where he slept was in a very small space with almost the same dimensions in a coffin. Every night when he went to sleep, it would be like sleeping in a coffin and the narrator would get the feeling of being buried alive. After a while, he got used to it and he faced his fear. From then on, he …show more content…
I felt it day in and day out and I seemed to never escape it. After living with my anxiety for a few months, I began to feel very afraid at night. I felt like someone was watching me while I had my back turned in my completely empty house. I could not go through a dark room, as I had to have all of the lights turned on so I knew that nothing was lurking in the dark. A few more weeks and this fear had crept into daytime. I could not go more than five to ten minutes without turning my head around to check if something was behind me, staring at me, or haunting me. I could not escape my fears anywhere I went. One day I searched why I was experiencing these irrational fears on the Internet and I came across how it was tied to anxiety. It then made complete sense to me. From then on, whenever I felt terrified, I knew that there was absolutely nothing, and it was just my brain telling me that something was there, so I ignored it and carried on my daily tasks. Slowly, these fears melted away once I knew how to face them