The Red Scare
Many people label Edgar Allen Poe a horror writer, plain and simple others refer to Poe as the father of the detective story, but over all heīs one Americas greatest writers. His ability of expressing the world in gothic ways, really captures the readerīs attention. Even though he lead a tough life and was known as a sadistic drug addict and alcoholic, he still managed to produce great pieces of literature. Three of his greatest works were "The Tell Tale heart", "The Fall of the House Usher", and "The Raven." All of these are very known troughout the world and are considered three of Poeīs greatest pieces. He was born in Boston on January 19, 1809, his parents, regular members of Federal street theater, named him Edgar Poe. Shortly before his mother's death in Richmond, Virginia on December 8, 1811, his father abandoned the family. John Allen, a wealthy tobacco merchant in Richmond, brought Poe into the family (at his wife's request), and gave him the middle name Allen as a baptismal name, though he never formally adopted him. Even though Allenīs treatment toward Poe is not exactly known, we know that Allen never treated Poe with sensitivity. In 1815, the Allen family moved to England on business. There, Poe entered
Poeīs ways to describe his gothic settings make him similar to Ernest Hemingway. He uses the same ways to describe how things are, so the reader can really imagine them. With his descriptions he makes the reader paranoid about their surroundings, and makes them wonder everything around. Most all of Poeīs characters, are lonely and mentally distressed people. Most of his characters try to escape the real world and try to enter the insane world they create. By the end of the poems, the characters are considered completely insane or death comes to them. In most cases the main character or the narrator of the story usually enter the insane world, but sometimes he manages to escape and comes back to reality. Poe's literature hardly relates to the harsh realities of 19th century life. The dark, chaotic, romantic worlds he created represent an escape from the real, unromantic miseries of life to a place where miseries become grand, beautiful things. The story "The Tell Tale Heart" portrays the mad obsession of a man with an old manīs eye. The narrator in the story tries to convince us that heīs not mad, but only he is very careful by planning and executing the crime. Over all the story is about a man obsessed with an old manīs eye and the fact that he cannot bare to even look at it. His hatred toward the eye drives him insane and to the point that he plots a way to kill the old man. By the end of the story the man is completely insane, because he imagines and hears the beating of the dead old manīs heart buried under the floor boards. He finally confesses out of pure insanity and the police arrest him. By murdering the old man, he will never show his awful eye to anyone ever again. Also there is knowledge that in ancient times the possession of a blue "evil" eye was the ability to have powers and harm people. We can speculate that the narrator may not have been mad, maybe he knew the tales of the evil powered eyes, and all he wanted to do was to get rid of it, so it wouldn't cause any harm. As the narrator keeps insisting that heīs not mad, the reader soon realizes that the fear of the old manīs eye has consumed the narrator, who has now fallen into a state of madness. The rest of his life, Poe suffered from severe mental depression and declining physical health. In 1838, he published his only novel, "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym". In December, 1839, he lost his job because of the intense rumors of his excessive drinking habits. "By late 1846, financial woes and Poe's own continuing decline ended the magazine" (Levin, 18). In January 1847, his wife died in their cottage at Fordham. This made his poverty and instability worst. He continued to write, and engaged in unsuccessful publishing schemes and romances, until, on October 3, 1849, Joseph W. Walker found him unconscious, (thought to be intoxicated) in the street. Poe remained hospitalized, oscillating between a somatic state and violent delirium, until his death at 5 am on the 7th of 1849. the Manor-House School in Stoke-Newingt
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2046
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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