A Deeper Darkness
Edgar Allan Poe is considered to be one of the most influential short story authors of mystery, suspense, and the supernatural. His usage of literary techniques compels his reader to finish his tales at one sitting. It is believed that Poe’s usage of first-person narrative in his short stories enhances an underlying emphasis on the mysteries of the self, of others, of nature, ad of the universe through the narrator’s observations. Much of Poe’s works were used to undercut the easy optimism and certainty characteristic popular to his time because of his usage of the darker aspect of life and living. His works carry within them multiple senses of depths. Not merely representing the physical, his tales also have metaphorical depths of mystery, of uncertainty, of the Unknown. In most of Poe’s writings his sense of style and influential views are present through the uniqueness of his works. Regarded as the architect of the modern horror tales, Poe was also the principle forerunner of the “art for art’s sake” movement in nineteenth-century European literature (“Poe Intro.”, 2749). He is also credited with parenting two other popular genres: science fiction and the detective story (Keller, 1898). H
The morbidity and darkness of his writings was used to undercut the easy optimism and certainty characteristic popular to his time (Heller, 1899). Moralists continually wonder hopelessly why Poe’s “morbid” tales need be written or read at all? The answer is not simple. According to D.H. Lawrence, the reasons Poe’s morbid tales need be written is because old things need to die and disintegrate, because the old white psyche needs to be gradually broken down before anything else can come to pass. In other words man must be stripped even of himself ,and it is a painful, almost ghastly process to experience. Poe is absolutely concerned with the disintegration processes of his psyche. While most American art-activity is dual in the sense that the ‘true art is formed from the double rhythm of creating and destroying’--(1) a disintegrating and sloughing of the old consciousness leads to (2) the forming of the new consciousness, Poe seems to have only one of the two vibrations--the disintegration vibration. This makes him almost more a scientist than an artist. This is true also because he reduces his own self as a scientist reduces a salt in a crucible; almost like a chemical analysis of the soul and consciousness (Lawrence, 504). The human soul, too, must suffer its own disintegration, consciously, if ever it is to survive. Poe had a pretty bitter doom. Doomed to seethe down his soul in a great continuous convulsion of disintegration, and doomed to be abused for it when he had performed some of the bitterest tasks of human experience to be asked of man. This is why Poe calls his writings “tales”; they are the epitome of cause and effect—the best pieces are not even, tales they are better, more, ghastly stories of the human soul in its disruptive throes. But moreover they are love stories (Lawrence, 504). Edgar Allan Poe’s literary works focus on three main points: supernatural elements, unusual focuses, and first-person narratives. His usage of the supernatural compels the reader to finish his tale, seeing as what he wrote was intended to be read at just one sitting and not over a periods of time (Keller, 1898). His usage of narrators in short stories is a device to punctuate and reaffirm that everything can be defined by a naturalistic way or to arrive at an acceptable explanation or listener that will confirm his view of events (Heller, 1900). His short stories almost always are personal accounts or manuscripts of the protagonist (narrator) who have an intense preoccupation with the horrible; though, it is noticed that it was often the result of an immense, unused vital energy, stubborn chastity, or sometimes a deeply pressed sensibility (Baudelaire, 496-497). Poe’s narrations are all manuscripts sent back from the edge of nothingness. With a unique single-mindedness and intensity, Poe’s tales probe into a spirit world, which is at time dark and others beautiful, that underlies and destroys all “material phenomena of life, a world of the pit and the grave, of consciousness-after-death, of mystically alluring eyes, of torture, of the desire to kill, of guilt, of madness, and, in the end, utter and complete silence (Graham, 2758).” His stories maybe “narrowly obsessive and joyless,” but their continuing power is founded on one recognizable and familiar vision of life: “that an awareness of death is the starting point of knowledge and reality is not solid but a flux that contains wit
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Approximate Word count = 2317
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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