Question 2:
Poe’s father abandoned the family in 1810 and his mother died shortly after from consumption. He was then taken into the home of John Allen who served him as a foster family and gave him the name Edgar Allen Poe, though they never formally adopted them. When he got older, in an effort to support himself, he enlisted in the US military, lying about his age and his name. In 1830 he married his second wife, Louis Patterson. In Baltimore in 1835, he secretly married Virginia Clemm, his 13 year old cousin. Two years after he published, The Raven, his wife died from tuberculosis. During her illness, he began to drink more from the stress of it all. Critics often believe the constant theme of death of beautiful women in his poetry and works of writing are because of the many women he lost in his life time. He was very unstable after his wife’s death and attempted to court Sarah Helen Whitman. Their engagement failed due to his heavy drinking and behavior (Wikipedia).
His life was pretty down in the dumps. Of course he would be depressed and angry about all the things that happened in his life. I believe all that pent up anger caused him to write such great and famous works. Instead of acting upon his feelings, he used them to write, channeling all of his negative energy on the page instead of someone else. It’s actually brilliant really. Because in a story you can become anything you want, design a character and live vicariously through them, almost as if you’re living with an alter ego. Fascinating really.
Question 4:
I chose the Critical Article The tell Tale Heart and in this article, the author tries to explain every aspect as to why the narrator used the language he used and why he committed the murder. The author talks about the sexual language he uses in the poem, to which I agree there were some parts that I questioned what Poe was trying to get across. He uses words like, Ejaculation and I thrust in my head and with the action of watching the old man while he slept and the fact that the whole setting was in the bedroom. I agree with what the narrator is talking about her. Poe even goes as far to admit that he loves the old man. I’ve read some other people’s blogs and some did not agree with the opinion of use of sexual tones used in the poem, but when I read this poem, I questioned why he would use descriptions rather than something else. Maybe it wasn’t the eye that caused this man’s death. The eye could have been an excuse. Maybe, the main character feared his love for this man since in the time period Poe wrote this, it wasn’t common for men to love men. So, in order to stop the love for him, he kills them and when the man is gone, his love for the man continues on and he can’t forgive what he had done to the man and won’t allow himself to get away with the murder.
Response to your Question 2:
ReplyDeleteEdgar Allan Poe did indeed begin his life very different from most in the era in which he lived in. I found that he was very fortunate, despite the many hardships he faced, that he found something in his life that he knew he was meant to do/become – a writer! Despite the fact that it took him many years and many let-downs, he never gave up chasing his dream of owning his journal. He was never the type of man to try and surround himself with luxury or class; the only thing he valued was his lover(s) and his writing. As for “all of his pent up anger,” being the reason for his unusually but well written literature, I have to disagree. He served quite a few years in the military and there is no such literature in which he discusses that period of his life. I believe his compassion for writing the way he did was based on his way of viewing the world. I believe that people can be very imaginative without resorting to much violence in their actual life. In my opinion, Poe had a very special gift of being able to write the way he did and to be able to pursue his passion of writing no matter what life threw at him; he had always found a way to do things he loved (including the women in his life.)
Response to your Question 4:
In your response you stated that you read other blogs that did not agree with the sexual content/nature of the poem as the article did. I was one of them; I was personally too involved in the nature of the narrator towards the old man and the way he was trying to convince, not only the reader, but himself that he was not crazy. So, with me the sexual nature did not stand out. I don’t think that there was any misconception to him killing the old man or that he did secretly did not want to do it; I believe his mind was very clear during the 7 days prior to the killing and that he was just so over taken by the “blue-eye” that he was purely focused on getting rid of it no matter what the cost. I do believe, however, that the “eye” is a metaphor for something else and so is the man. I strongly do not believe that there was not an affair going on between him and the old man.