Dakota Rushing
Poe’s Mad Men Edgar Allen Poe lived a particularly gloomy life. Events such as the death of his parents at a very early age to being cheated on by his first fiancée threw Poe into a world of despair and darkness. Many could say this is what led Poe to write in his infamous Gothic tone. According to the Edgar Allen Poe Museum, Poe was born in Baltimore to a family of actors who traveled the country (Poe’s Life, 1). Poe was inspired to put pen to paper in a oppressive manner because of his life’s shortcomings. It was his way of escaping the real world and submerse himself into his works. Poe’s Mad Men are the offspring of his dark and plagued mind. These men come from his works, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Tell Tale …show more content…
This is where Poe set himself apart from all other writers. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator displays eerily similar characteristics in the same situation. He starts off his story by saying that his sense of hearing is abnormally keen and questions the reader “How then am I mad” (715). These two men truly believe that they are not mad. With this Poe really brings home the fact these men are completely out of their minds. Instead of these men feeling remorse for their murders, they are attempting to persuade the audience of their sanity. With their sanity hanging in the balance, the men want the reader to be proud of their actions. Poe’s mad men are not worried about their victims and certainly are not worried about their own …show more content…
Both men in “The Black Cat”, and “The Tell Tale Heart” lead the policemen to the exact same spot where they had hidden their victim’s bodies. They lose their common sense to their bravado. Magdalen Wing-chi Ki from the Hong Kong Baptist University English Language and Literature Department calls this “ego-evil” (Wing-chi Ki,2).The men are so caught up in how well they achieved hiding the body. This is a fantastic way to convey to the audience that the men are not in their right minds. The narrator in “The Tell Tale Heart” exclaims that he “welcomed the gentlemen into his own house and that he desired the policemen to rest and stay a while” (Poe, 717) The fact that the man desired them to stick around the same place that he committed a brutal murder screams insanity. He wanted to feed his ego by convincing himself that there would be no way for the policemen to ever find him out. In the other story the mad narrator does the exact same thing. The narrator became so confident in his abilities that he had the audacity and nerve to tap his cane on the same area of the wall where the body was hidden. Poe has a niche for putting these confidently insane killers in his stories. This skill also points out loud and clear that these men are uncontrollably becoming more and more insane. The men find themselves in a constant battle of pleading their sanity and wanting to
Poe’s Mad Men Edgar Allen Poe lived a particularly gloomy life. Events such as the death of his parents at a very early age to being cheated on by his first fiancée threw Poe into a world of despair and darkness. Many could say this is what led Poe to write in his infamous Gothic tone. According to the Edgar Allen Poe Museum, Poe was born in Baltimore to a family of actors who traveled the country (Poe’s Life, 1). Poe was inspired to put pen to paper in a oppressive manner because of his life’s shortcomings. It was his way of escaping the real world and submerse himself into his works. Poe’s Mad Men are the offspring of his dark and plagued mind. These men come from his works, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Tell Tale …show more content…
This is where Poe set himself apart from all other writers. In “The Tell-Tale Heart” the narrator displays eerily similar characteristics in the same situation. He starts off his story by saying that his sense of hearing is abnormally keen and questions the reader “How then am I mad” (715). These two men truly believe that they are not mad. With this Poe really brings home the fact these men are completely out of their minds. Instead of these men feeling remorse for their murders, they are attempting to persuade the audience of their sanity. With their sanity hanging in the balance, the men want the reader to be proud of their actions. Poe’s mad men are not worried about their victims and certainly are not worried about their own …show more content…
Both men in “The Black Cat”, and “The Tell Tale Heart” lead the policemen to the exact same spot where they had hidden their victim’s bodies. They lose their common sense to their bravado. Magdalen Wing-chi Ki from the Hong Kong Baptist University English Language and Literature Department calls this “ego-evil” (Wing-chi Ki,2).The men are so caught up in how well they achieved hiding the body. This is a fantastic way to convey to the audience that the men are not in their right minds. The narrator in “The Tell Tale Heart” exclaims that he “welcomed the gentlemen into his own house and that he desired the policemen to rest and stay a while” (Poe, 717) The fact that the man desired them to stick around the same place that he committed a brutal murder screams insanity. He wanted to feed his ego by convincing himself that there would be no way for the policemen to ever find him out. In the other story the mad narrator does the exact same thing. The narrator became so confident in his abilities that he had the audacity and nerve to tap his cane on the same area of the wall where the body was hidden. Poe has a niche for putting these confidently insane killers in his stories. This skill also points out loud and clear that these men are uncontrollably becoming more and more insane. The men find themselves in a constant battle of pleading their sanity and wanting to