The Theme of Death in Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Term Paper Example

Poe uses death as a central theme to most of his works as he relates stories that end in death, ponder death, or speak about crossing the boundaries that separate life from death. Poe has been analyzed for the psychological foundation for the themes from which he creates his work. Peeples states that “Theorists and critics quickly recognized the opportunities that Poe presented for psychoanalytical study, given his fiction’s emphasis on hidden motives and detection, altered states of consciousness, sadism, and obsession, as well as the self-destructive tendencies he exhibited in his own life” (Peeples 30).

He goes on to examine how Poe has been considered perpetually jealous and highly demanding and through his work was expressing tendencies towards sadism, his fixation on death, and incestuous desires towards his mother which were laced with necrophilia. However, in examining too closely the psychology of Poe, Peeples suggests that his attempts towards creativity are being discounted and the purposefulness with which he approached his writing is diminished (Peeples 31). It may never be fully clear the extent to which his work is devised through literary intent and how much is reflective of a dark soul developed from the difficult events in his life.

Poe is remembered as a morose drunk, lost in the laments of the loss of his wife, but he was not merely a gothic figure up in a darkened room penning out his tales of horror. Poe was actively seeking a literary career and intended to become a known author of his time. This can be understood by the activities he engaged in towards getting published. His work, “The Raven”, was his first published work which appeared in 1845 before he lost his wife in 1947 to tuberculosis (Bloom 46).

It is a myth of literary history that it was written after she died and that he wrote it in his despair, maddened by alcohol and grief. It is a romantic notion, but it does not reflect the facts.