Edgar Allen Poe: A great American Icon :: essays research papers

Edgar Allan Poe’s unique, fearless and morbid writing style has influenced literature throughout the world. He was once titled the "master of the macabre" (Buranelli, 57). One of the aspects in his life with which he struggled was social isolation. He used this as a topic in a number of poems and short stories. Poe's life was also filled with periods of fear and irrationality. He had a very sensitive side when it came to the female gender, any woman he was ever close to died at an early age. Another of his major battles, actually the only one he really lost, was his struggle with alcoholism. Of all these topics, Poe's favorites were the death of a beautiful woman, a feeling, which he knew all too well, and the general topic of death. Edgar Allan Poe endured a very difficult life and this is evident in his literary style. Suffering through several periods of fear and irrationality during his life, Poe included those experiences in many of his more famous works. One of these periods involved experiences in joining the army in order to get away from his foster father after the death of his foster mother (Buranelli, 13). These periods of fear and irrationality were the cause of his misfortune and poor social status. His peers for these episodes looked him down upon. Poe expressed this theme throughout almost all of his short stories and poems. "Many of his stories exhibited abnormal states of mind and are constructed in terms of a single mad obsession†(Buranelli, 28). His insane ways made his work stand out from the normal short story, or poem. He was able to twist his stories and poems around in a way that almost seemed real, and was definitely intriguing. An example of this could be found in the â€Å"Black Cat†(Harrison, 257). The character took the eyes out of the first cat and then killed it. After that he proceeded to "accidentally" kill his wife with an ax, and bury her in a wall. Another example of Poe's insanity demonstrated within his works was located in â€Å"The Tell Tale Heart† (Harrison, 555), where Edgar stalked a man and eventually killed him. He then dismembered the body, took out his heart, and buried the man under the house. He later confessed to the police because he believed he could hear the heartbeat of the man.