Edgar Allan Poes message on life and death - Research Paper Example

?Edgar Allan Poe’s message on life and death Introduction What is the meaning of life and death? To many of the luminary figures the question seemed to have been a perplexing question, and many tried frantically to find out an answer to this. The terms - life and death- are the two most highly discussed aspects in the literary world. Among the literary figures who tried to analyse these two terms, Edgar Alan Poe stands apart from the common category. His perspectives on these two terms were the contributions of the great man’s experience with his life. He has not clearly stated his perspectives directly about life and death, but the works and characters display the way he viewed both life and death. According to Harold Bloom, Poe’s life “presents almost as much mystery, drama, melancholy, and in some cases fiction as his tales and poems do” and one can also find that “Poe’s personal image is closely associated with many of the characters and imagery contained in his works: dark, gloomy, half –mad (Bloom 5). In most of his works, the characters show the true replica of Edgar Allan Poe’s own ideas regarding life and death. The narrator in the poem, The Raven, is believed to be Poe himself. The personal experiences of Poe from his early child hood to the adulthood are reflected in his works. Almost all his works are filled with the element of melancholy and disillusionment in it as he had witnessed in his life. In his essay, The Philosophy of Composition, he states, “Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. Melancholy is thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones” ("The Philosophy of Composition": Edgar Allan Poe (1809?1849) 3). His works are a combination of the twin aspects- life and death. It can be seen that the attitude of Poe towards life was something pessimistic. This paper analyses Poe’s perspectives on life and death as shown by his characters in various works. For this, some of his important works are taken into consideration, to elucidate how much these aspects- life and death, are portrayed in his works. Life sketch of Edgar Allan Poe and the making up of the philosophy: The experiences that one receives from one’s personal life create an influence on one’s own perspectives. It was true with the case of Poe. The background of Poe was very dismal from his early child hood. He was born on January 19, 1809. In his short span of life (40 years) he had gone through all sorts of struggles and his personal life was a series of tragedies. Being orphaned at the very small age due to the death of his mother and the desertion of his father, he was entrusted with the care of John Frances Allan. The name, Allan he took from his care taker. His step father and step mother could not soothe the young Poe in his agonies. The antagonistic attitudes that developed between his step father and Edgar made their relationship become very uncomfortable. As a result, young Edgar had to struggle a lot to earn money. The futile studentship due to lack of money in the University of Virginia was another hit in his life. Even though he succeeded to become a soldier at the end the undesired incident could make its effect in his life. He had some kind of attachment to Mrs. Allan, his step mother. The death of his step mother also contributed to his peculiar character and thereby constructed a philosophy of dark comedy in his works. He had to part with the Allans as the struggle between the two increased, and he moved towards the outside world and tried to get foot in his literary career. The experiences that he acquired from working in various journals and periodicals paved the way for his literary career. The movements he had made far and across the places had also made an influencing effect to picture his philosophy in his works. In considering his very personal life many ill-fated sequences can be seen. His first courtship with Sarah Elmira Royster was a failure. When he wooed his 13 year old cousin Virginia Clemmm, he was faced with wide protest from his family members. He married the lady secretly in 1835 but her sudden illness to consumption and later her death in 1847 were the epitome of his tragedies. He speaks in his ‘The Ladies Companion’, “Death walks around us at every step , lurks in ambush along our path, revels in our joys, mingles in the feast, kneels at our devotions, and steals our slumbers” (Poe 91). The effect of his wife’s death had made a heavy set back upon him. Later, his affair with Sara Helen Whitman also failed and this culminated in his tragedies. All these incidents had made him drink heavily and attempt for suicide. The tragedies of Poe with the females in his life had made him to compare beauty and death in his works. The literary articles that were published during these times portrayed the mind of the writer very precisely, and so his works are considered to be the best specimens for the philosophy of Poe. His undue death on October 3, 1849 was still a mystery. As though many reasons are attributed to his death the actual cause remains to be unknown to others. Even though he was a figure of tragedy his works had its huge success both inside and outside the country. These had earned him much fame and so he became very popular among the public. He was gifted with different genres-poems, short stories, literary theories, fiction, and satires were all easily accessible for him. Moreover, he had earned his fame as an editor also. His contributions to fiction had enabled him the name, the father of detective fiction. He was considered as a literary luminary of his life time in America. The fierce experience that he faced in personal life altered him to be a man of excessive alcoholic addict who is pessimistic and melancholic. This has shadowed in his works too. So the message of Poe towards life carries pessimism, dark comedy, and melancholy. The explanation of Life and death in Poe’s works: The important works of Poe are Raven, Tamerlane, Ligeia, A Dream in A Dream, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Fall of the House of Usher. His short stories present the macabre category. In most of these works the theme of death prevails in a great account. The style and theme of his short stories made him the founder of detective stories and the science fiction. His poems well depict his perspectives in dealing with life and death. According to him death has more implications in poetry than in life. The treatment of both aspects are analysed in many his major works. His noted poem ‘The Raven’ has been considered as the greatest work of Poe in dealing with his philosophy. It focuses on his perspectives on life and death simultaneously. Even though the work published in 1845 had not earned him much financial success, it had been discussed in the literary world for its uniqueness and treatment of the theme. The attitude of the writer is well pictured in this poem and so Poe to some extend is known by the poem, The Raven for many of the literature students all over the world. The word “never more” has been highly discussed and many critics attribute multilayer meanings to it. Christian Schlegel analyses the various aspects of the poem ‘The Raven’ in his paper named Edgar Allan Poe: the Raven- an Analysis. He divides the poem into three sub divisions. According to him the first subdivision consists of the first 6 stanzas. Here “Poe introduces the protagonist and his problems, the setting of the poem and creates a horrifying atmosphere” (Schlegel 5). The lamentation of the narrator over his lost lover Lenore reflects the sorrow of Poe over his dying wife, Virginia. The poet gains control of the protagonist in the first division of the poem and he has done it deliberately to implement his creative process in the following parts. Schlegel puts stanzas from 7 to 12 as the second division of the poem. It gives the confrontation of raven with the desperate protagonist. The horrifying sounds outside of his room now makes cleared as it he had seen the raven. Moreover he learns the name of the raven, ‘Never more’. The second division of the poem further intensifies the poetic creation of Poe and the refrain ‘nevermore’ strikes him deep into his own feelings. The third subdivision of the poem ‘The Raven’ comprises the stanzas from 13 to 18.Here the dialogue between the protagonist and the bird raven develops to its final stage. As put by Schegel, “he sees the animal as some of an intelligent or prophetic creature and starts to ask it questions, which the bird answers with the only word he knows” (5). Towards the final section of the poem the poet realises more about his own self and the initial horrifying sounds come to the scene making the man plunged into his own despair. The poem takes both the aspects of attachment and detachment of life. The attachment of the narrator towards his dead beloved Lenore whom he wishes to be united by dying with her, makes the attributes of attachment clearly. The words ‘never more’ stand for the detachment of life. It tells the vanity of existence on earth. It also offers the message that love on earth is temporal. The raven responds the only words ‘never more’ and which stand as poet’s own portrait of the philosophy. The terms, ‘Lenore’ and ‘nevermore’, are contrasted each other in the poem. Lenore comes to the disillusioned mind of the poet whereas never more stands as the philosophy of immortality. In realising this, the narrator calls the raven prophet. “Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil! Prophet still, if bird or devil!”(Poe, The Raven 4). The narrator realises the reality of his own self. The melancholy tone of the poem later paves way for manifestation of the melancholy tone by the words never more. The narrator wants the raven to carry him off to immortality, getting rid of the shortened word, Lenore. Thus it can be said that the poem ‘The Raven’ depicts the essentiality of poetic manifestation by becoming more philosophic. The setting of the poem is more towards the aspect of death than towards life. Poe’s poem ‘A Dream within a Dream’ also describes his condition- things which are near him slips away at not the desired moments. It takes his idea on life and as everything in this world as a dream within a dream. He speaks in it, “All that we see or see is but a dream within a dream” (Poe, A dream within a Dream). This aspect of detachment is seen in many of his poems. This dream of life is a reality for Poe as he realised that whatever he had at his reach had gone away pulling him into the lake of sadness. Even though the work shows the realisation of life as a dream within a dream, the readers can find out the disillusioned poet in it. It has been proclaimed that among the stories of Poe, Lady Ligeia stands as supreme. It is an amalgamation of his personal experience and narrative technique. Philip L. Roderick rightly says, “Both the popularity of this story among the critics and the public, as well as the fact that Poe considered it his personal favourite of all his tales, indicates that “Ligeia” is more complicated than the previous two stories; consequently, the events in “Ligeia” provide an even greater insight into the mysteries behind the tortured mind of Edgar Allan Poe” (Roderick 34). The work has taken the psyche of Poe in his interactions with the female world. The aspects of life and death can be seen in picturing the female characters in the story. The story named ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ plunges into the psychological realm of the writer. The story describes a mad narrator who after killing a person hears the persistent heartbeats. He cannot escape from the guilt feelings and so he confesses everything to the police. On the notes of the book The Best of Poe by Edgar Allan Poe it was the written: “Poe’s stories and poems are remarkable, not only for an unusual anxiety about life, a preoccupation with loss, an all- consuming terror, and a unique perspective on death, but also for their rich mixture of beauty, the sensual, and the supernatural”(Poe, The Best of Poe 5). The excerpt from the story Tell- Tale Heart tells that the narrator’s murder of the old man was not because of any financial purpose but of his eyes. “I loved the old man. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eyes! Yes, it was this! He had the eye of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees- very gradually- I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe, The Best of Poe 81). The eyes of the old man had its implications of death in the narrator. The narrator’s experience in life has made in him a strong desire to death. The vulture’s eye is a symbol for death. The narrator in the story depicts Poe himself. Even though Poe had not committed murder, the literal aspects of death in his works convey the psyche of the writer. The narrator in the story can no longer escape from his psyche and thence the killing of the man turns to be indispensable in his life. The overwhelming aspect of death and guilt feeling in the story make this a huge success among the literature lovers. The story, ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ puts the readers under the influence of gothic tradition. The setting has been arranged to instil a feeling of gloominess, dark comedy, and fear. The heroine of the story, Madeline dies just like his wife Virginia. The unknown disease of Madeline compares with the disease of his wife. It says in the story, “The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical character, were the unusual diagnosis” (Poe, The Best of Poe 16). When he wrote this story he was sure of his wife’s death. The brother of Madeline, Roderick also succumbs to death at the end. The belief of the Roderick was that they buried the sister alive below their house, makes much of the Gothic character of the story. The aspect of death had its effects in this story. The death of Madeline plays a crucial role in the story to engulf the elements of mystery and fear. Poe had accomplished to make this story one dealing with death and its related fears. Philosophy of Poe: Edgar Allan Poe had been able to establish a philosophy through his works. All the characters that he made portrayed what kind of a philosophy he wished for. In analysing his works one can very easily find out the overwhelming aspects of death and horror. He had clear cut notions towards life and death. In his work named The Ladies’ Companion, the character Gertrude Gray speaks, “Tell him I have business of life and death importance, to my peace, my happiness” (Poe, The Ladies' companion, Volumes 3-4 74). He considered that these two aspects- life and death- as dealing with most of the characters of his works. According to him poetry is filled with the rhythmical creation of beauty and in its attempts melancholy has a key role. Poetry’s highest manifestation comes with melancholy or sadness. According to him death stands as the most melancholic aspect and so the involvement of death is very relevant in the poems. Together with the aspect of melancholy and disillusionment Poe had written love poems too. His love poems portray his affinity towards female self. His ardent desire for a peaceful life takes its sketches in such poems. He desired for the escape from his problems that were circled round him. His love poems are not merely romantic but carry a deeper meaning. The devotional level of Poe can be seen in his poem named ‘To My Mother’. This poem takes his attachment towards all mothers he had. Here he says, “My mother- my own mother, who died early, Was but the mother of myself; but you Are mother to the one I loved so dearly, And thus are dearer than the mother I knew By that infinity with which my wife Was dearer to my soul than its soul-life” (Poe & Mabbott 467). Here Poe shows his attachment towards his mothers and more than that the attachment towards his wife Virginia. Poe was an ardent lover towards the mothers. Actually he had three mothers- his own mother, his loving step mother and finally Mrs. Clemmm, the mother of his wife, Virginia. Here the poet shows his attitude towards love and thereby to life. It was filled with the peak of emotions and feelings. Another concern of Poe towards poems was its length. In the essay titled The Philosophy of Composition Poe states his idea of brevity. He states the need for shorter poems. According to him the proper length of his poem is to be “a length of about one hundred lines. It is, in fact, a hundred and eight” ("The Philosophy of Composition": Edgar Allan Poe (1809?1849) 2). All of his poems had followed his theory of brevity. He believed that the short poems are more emotional and easily acceptable for readers. Further in the same essay Poe states his justification towards involving the dark comedy and the related elements of melancholy by stating that, “…When it most closely allies itself to Beauty: the death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world-equally is beyond doubt that the lips best suited for such topic are those of a bereaved lover” ("The Philosophy of Composition": Edgar Allan Poe (1809?1849) 4). Thus to establish his perspectives he constructed the characters and they spoke what he had intended. The personal experiences of Poe created in him a figure of disillusionment and desperate. The life which filled with melancholy and hopelessness had made him to make colouring to his incidents and the gothic novels are created with it. The major themes of Poe in his works are death and its questions, horror, mourning, and dark romanticism. In his work titled The Premature Burial Poe states his notions of death. It is a horror story in which the writer portrays three being buried alive. The theme of death is very vivid in the story. It says, “Alas! the grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful-but, like the Demons in whose company Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must sleep, or they will devour us-they must be suffered to slumber, or we perish” (Poe, The Premature Burial). The frequent theme of perish and dejection in life are the offshoots of his own tragic life. The dejection of the writer in his life from all sides of his life has made him a pessimistic character. The death related themes are the projection of his self against all tragedies. Conclusions: The life of Poe was mixed up with the characters that he created in his poems and stories. The stark background of Poe and his narrative techniques made him a figure in the gothic culture of the literary field. The story ‘The Fall of the House of the Usher’ is a specimen of the type. The death of Poe was also tragic and gothic as his life. Being found in a gutter just as the case of a heavy alcoholic addict, the great Poet of America had to suffer a lot to relieve his body from the disillusioned world. The forty years of life that he had in the world had seen the progress of disillusioned persons in his poetic career. The recognition of the writer about the inevitable death is shown in almost all his works. It was something that he confronted from his early childhood onwards. According to him life presented the disillusionment and the only solace was the death. So his characters exemplified this notion of death. According to Elisabeth Bronfen, “ the Coupling of ‘death’ and ‘beautiful woman’ offers him the unconditional , universally acknowledged highest degree, the superlative of his basic principles ‘Melancholy’ and ‘Beauty’ (Bronfen 61). These two aspects project his message towards life and death. Even though his view of death is covered with the elements of darkness, foreboding, disillusionment, and negligence, his works have surpassed all horrifying facts of his life and became widely popular. These works lived after him to state his message to life and death. Poe’s message towards life was something struggling and always an attempt to get rid of the struggles can be seen in his works. The theme of death and horror had more intensity in his works. The aspect of death as shown by many of his works show that death brings a solace to the struggling ones and is like a raven that moves towards immortality. Works Cited Bloom, Harold. Edgar Allan Poe. Infobase Publishing, 2007. Print. Bronfen, Elisabeth. Over her dead body: death, femininity and the aesthetic. Reprint Illustrated ed: Manchester University Press, 1992. Print. Poe, Edgar Allan. “A Dream Within a Dream.” poetryloverspage.com, 2011. Web. 13 Jun. 11. < http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/poe/dreamwit.html>. Poe, Edgar Allan. The Ladies' companion, Volumes 3-4. William W. Snowden, 1835. Print. ---. “The raven.” BompaCrazy.com, 1944. Print. ---. The Best of Poe. Prestwick House Inc, 2006. Print. ---. The Premature Burial (1850). About.com, 2011. Web. 13 Jun. 11. . Poe, Edgar Allan & Mabbott, Thomas Ollive. Complete poems. Reprint ed: University of Illinois Press, 2000. Print. Roderick, Phillip L. The Fall of the House of Poe: And Other Essays. iUniverse, 2006. Print. Schlegel, Christian. Edgar Allan Poe: The Raven - An Analysis. GRIN Verlag, 2007. Print. "The Philosophy of Composition": Edgar Allan Poe (1809?1849). Web. 13 Jun. 11. < http://www.vahidnab.com/philocompo.pdf>. Read More