Edgar Allen Poe - Death Theme

Edgar Allen Poe was a famous American author, editor, and literary critic of the 19th

century. He born in 1809 and died in 1849 (Stableford 2003). In this time, he succeeded to write

over sixty short stories. Metzengerstein was his first short story, and it was published in 1832. In

most of his written work, death was his continuous focus. In this paper, a couple of stories will be

analyzed in order to prove this statement.

Before Poe’s death, he wrote an essay called “The Poetic Principle” that was published in

1850. In that essay, Poe said that melancholy was thus the most legitimate of all the poetical tones.

Of entirely melancholy themes, death was the most melancholy's and death of beauties was the

tightest combination of death and beauty. Hence, some have observed this as the sole starting point

to understand his stories, and believe that his vast descriptions of death were for the sake of such

beauty.

In Poe’s short stories descriptions of death were very common, and contrast in different

works. Characters could be divided into two groups depending upon their final fates: those who

were dying and those who went beyond death. This essay will mainly discuss the first group.

Characters in the first group had a beautiful life at the very beginning of the story, but draw near

death slowly and could not escape from death even though they had made a painful complaint.

Based on diverse forms of death, their death could be divided into disease and murder. The two

stories will be analyzed; each story will represent one form of death. After that, the research will

focus on the reasons behind the existence of the death theme in the author’s life.

The first form of death that will be discussed is the death because of disease. Due to

physical illness, there was a deterioration of the character’s health in the stories and at the end
characters selected to surrender to death, which was the expression of death triggered by disease

in Poe’s short stories.

This form of death was distinguished from other death forms discussed above because most

victims of death caused by disease were females, for example, female characters in Berenice and

other stories like The Oval Portrait, The Fall of the House of Usher and Morella all died at early

ages, which were not simple the embodiments of indeterminate destiny or to make people crying

through destruction of beauties. On the other hand, death caused by disease was of significance if

roles played by males were considered.

Poe loved to make females in his novels charming and beautiful. Death caused by disease

regularly was widely different from murder because disease brought physical damages and

withering of appearance. At an advanced stage, the characteristics of beauty held by women were

stripped, and the time beauty died away was exactly the time death falls.

One example of the theme of death which will be discussed is Berenice. Berenice was a

short story containing mainly two characters, Egaeus and his beautiful cousin Berenice. Egaeus

grew up in a luxury mansion but he had poor health. His favorite place in the mansion was the

library where he was born, and his mother died. He used to spend his time reading the books,

performing meditations. Bernice was among his memories because they grew up together. At the

beginning of the story, Poe described the beauty of Bernice. She was a joyful, elegant and energetic

girl until she was affected by a strange nervous disease that awfully changed her character and

shape. This reversal of the story line is a typical scenario in Poe’s stories. She became, a gloomy,

pale and a sad girl, with a morbid and terrible aspect: “The forehead was high, and very pale, and

singularly placid, and the once jetty hair fell partially over it” (Poe 1903). The disease sometimes

caused a false impression of death that made her suddenly wake up. Egaeus was attracted to
Bernice, not for love, but for interest in her new aspect so that he decided to marry her. “During

the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her” (Poe 1903).

In some parts of the story when Egaeus spoke of Berenice, he sometimes referred to her as

an object. For example, when he described Bernice’s gauntness as she stood before him in the

library, he said, "I remained for some time breathless and motionless, with my eyes riveted upon

her person” (Poe 1903). It was clear that Poe mentioned “her person” for a purpose to show how

much the beautiful wife was suffering.

At the same time, Egaeus developed his own disease. He suffered from a type of

monomania. He explained his monomania was not the same joint reflection from the dreamers, in

which the attention in the object was replaced by assumptions and meditations about the world and

life. “This monomania, if I must so term it, consisted in a morbid irritability of those properties of

the mind in metaphysical science termed the attentive” (Poe 1903).

After a while, Berenice died and the story ended when a servant entered the library. He

was afraid and said something that Egaeus just understood in pieces: a female cry, a violated grave,

a blemished body that remained alive.

Such a type of ending makes Poe’s stories differ from others. In Berenice, it was not just

about how much the beautiful Berenice suffered, but also a mysterious end that could lead the

reader to read the story one more time to figure out any hidden details that might bring Berenice

to life.

The accumulation of scientific knowledge in Poe’s life as we will show later and cultivation

of scientific habits made him yearn for science, which was of particular use even in stories the

theme of death. At the same time, Poe was a reader with great hobbies; besides works of literature
and philosophy, he was also interested in science and cryptology and uses this knowledge to write

mysteries. In addition, he learned some popular pseudoscience, hypnotism and some additional

knowledge to explore instincts. He finds that human’s sense was the most active and their emotions

were the least repressed regarding life and death. Therefore, there were lots of images about mental

disorder, telepathy and some other abnormal or special thoughts, like the next example “The Tell-

Tale Heart”.

The second form of death is murder which was a typical form of death in Poe’s stories.

The concept of murdering was related to two personalities: perpetrator and victim. The perpetrator

was driven by some motivations to take away the life of a victim on purpose. This was clear in

The Tell-Tale Heart.

The Tell-Tale Heart was about an anonymous person who was extremely nervous but was

not insane. “True! —nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am” (Poe 1903). The

narrator (an anonymous person) had a "disease" which made all his senses, especially his hearing,

very sensitive. To show that he was not insane, the narrator shared an event from his past. The

narrator had an idea that he could not shake. He loved the old man who was his neighbor, and he

had nothing against him except his horrible eyes, which were pale blue eyes. The narrator hated

the eye and decided to kill the old man to get rid of his eyes.” I made up my mind to take the life

of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 1903).

To that end, the narrator was visiting the old man's room every night at 12 am, for seven

days. Each night the narrator opened the man's door and put in a lantern. After the lantern, the

narrator put his head through the doorway, very slowly, and then he opened the lantern, so a tiny

beam of light shone on the old man's eye. Each night the old man did not open his eye, so the

narrator felt that he could not kill him.

narrator was so cautious. “Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the

door” (Poe 1903). The old man started to scream, and the narrator dragged the old man off the

bed, and then pulled the bed on top of the man to kill him. After that, the narrator cut the old man

up and hid his remains under the floor.

A neighbor heard a scream and called the police, and then three police officers came. The

narrator said he screamed while sleeping, and claimed that the old man was out of town. After

convincing the police nothing bad had happened, the narrator brought them into the old man's

bedroom. While the narrator was speaking to the police, he heard a terrible ticking noise, which

was getting louder and louder until the narrator lost control. He confessed, and pointed the police

to the old man's body, stating that the sound was coming from the old man's heart. “"Villains!" I

shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks! here, here!—It is the beating of his

hideous heart!" (Poe 1903).

Poe discussed death in this story not only from the murder’s perspective but also to provide

a study of mental deterioration. This type of story is very important to keep us aware of the

consequences of mental illnesses. Poe succeeded to write this kind of story because while he was

studying at the University of Virginia, he read many literal works and some books on American

history. He also studied at West Point and received military training and learned scientific

knowledge on algebra, physics geometry, and chemistry. This study made him interested in

science, and his sensitivity helped him easily capture slight changes of human mentality.

There are many factors that make death one of the most significant themes in Poe’s short

stories. For example, cultural perspective, social, historical background, knowledge structure,
hobbies and interests and life experiences as discussed previously all influence his theme to

varying degrees.

On the personal level, Poe had astonishing imagination. He described death in excessive

details for us as he had experienced much death in his life. He was born in Boston in 1809 (Quinn

1998). In 1810, his father abandoned the family, and his mother died in 1811 his mother Elizabeth

Poe died of tuberculosis (Meyers 1992).

After Poe’s mother death, he was taken to live with John Allan, a Scottish merchant in

Richmond. Although Allan never formally adapted Poe, he gave him the name “Edgar Allan Poe”

(Quinn 1998). The series of death in Poe’s life continued when his adoptive mother passed away

in 1829, and he left home for Baltimore as he broke up with his adoptive father (Sova 2001).

In Baltimore, he lived with his aunt, Maria Ctemm and his sister Virginia and his brother

Henry Poe. However, his brother Henry died of intemperance and tuberculosis in August. Poe

adored Henry as Henry had rich experiences: he had been a sailor and written poems in

newspapers. Therefore, his death influenced Poe greatly.

Poe married Virginia in 1836. His wife and aunt had given him great comfort, and they

lived a peaceful and happy life even though they were poor. However, good times did not last long.

In 1842, Virginia’s blood vessels burst when she was singing. Though her life was saved, she was

never as healthy as before, and her disease constantly repeated, which resulted in Poe’s fluctuation

between desperation and hope. Then he began intemperance. He was found to be unconscious on

the street of Baltimore on 3, October 1849, and after three days, he passed away in the hospital.
 As a conclusion, in over forty years, Edgar Ellen Poe had been from Richmond to London,

and then back to Richmond. He had described death many times in his stories. He had to face death

of so many people, Elizabeth, Dave Poe, Fanny Allen, Henry Poe and Virginia, and eventually his

own death. In his novels, there was reverence toward death, humorous banter, courage facing death

and efforts to go beyond death. In fact, he had recorded all his painful and pleasant moments in

the stories and described those common feelings of human beings subtly.
Cited work

Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy (Paperback ed.). New York: Cooper

Square Press.1992.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "Berenice." The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Lit2Go Edition. 1903. Web.

<http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/147/the-works-of-edgar-allan-poe/5230/berenice/>. June 04,

2017.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Tell-Tale Heart." The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Lit2Go Edition. 1903.

Web. <http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/147/the-works-of-edgar-allan-poe/5314/the-tell-tale-

heart/>. June 04, 2017.

Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins

University Press. 1998.

Stableford, Brian. "Science Fiction before the Genre." The Cambridge Companion to Science

Fiction. Cambridge, Cambridge Press. 2003:18-19.

Sova, Dawn B. Edgar Allan Poe A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work (Paperback

ed.). New York: Checkmark Books. 2001.