Post #8

Possible Thesis

The five stages of grief are reflected in poe’s writing.
Concerning his wife

Concerning his illnesses

Fear

Fear governs many lives. Those who do as they are told and study hard then find a safe and secure job are ruled by it. Those who stay within a bad relationship fear lonliness. And those whos close ones die fear death.

Edgar Allan Poe’s writing is reflective of his fear of death. Concerning his wife and diagnosis.

Note: Poe’s narrorators often dance around the main subject using subtlty and complex wording, until they’re finally face to face with the subject; In which case they must fully work out how they feel, and describe their fear using comparisons.

Writing Assignment # 8: Thesis Proposal

Edgar Allan Poe’s writing is a reflection of his thoughts of death, fears of death, and his way of coming to terms with death. Just like all citizens of our earth, Poe was faced with death and chose to come to terms with it and his feelings about it through writing. Having his young wife die early on gave Poe a taste of the grief associated with death. In 1842 having been diagnosed with heart and brain trouble and congestion Poe realized how close he himself was to death. Thus Poe began. Writing gothic, macabre, and dark romanticism, Poe explored these genres as well as those pertaining to mystery and science fiction; while he simultaneously works out he feels and comes closer to coming to terms with the fear and death itself.

Edgar Allan Poe’s characters are reflective of his thoughts; being that most of his works are written in first person, Poe gets to get even more in depth with his thoughts. The short story is The Premature Burial and The Pit and the Pendulum are proof of this in that their first halves are merely trains of thought with the story following. When one first reads The Premature Burial, one may be confused as to who the narrator is. Whether it is Poe or a character is not found out until later on in the story when the character describes events in his life and the conclusion of the story is at hand.

Hoaxes, fake new stories written as truth at the time and then exposed as lies later on, were a very profound way of expression for Poe. The Balloon Hoax was just a testing of the waters, to see how far he could go; while

Metzengerstein, the first story that Poe is known to have published, Silverman, 88, was his first foray into horror and was originally intended as a burlesque satirizing the popular genre, Fisher, Benjamin Franklin (1993).

Poe’s narrorators often dance around the main subject, death, using subtlty and complex wording, until they’re finally face to face with the subject; In which case they must fully work out how they feel, and describe their fear using comparisons and coming to conclusions. Poe’s characters often feel fear toward death and are confronted with it in the beginning or experience fear of death for the duration of the story until they come to terms with it in the end. In the case of the former, the main character is faced with fear and or death, acts on their feelings, and has to deal with the concequences. The Black Cat, The Tell-Tale Heart, and The Imp of the Perverse all have the main character commit an act of murder; subsequently dealing with the murder, death, and then being arrested.

Post # 7

Possible thesis # 1: Poe was a mad man with a reputation as an intelegent literary critic. His writings reflect the extremities to which his death and love obsessed mind were pushed.

During his time, Poe was most noted as being a literary critic. Through examining his works one easily finds that Poe is well educated, well read, and articulate. His writings in the science fiction genre, such as the two short stories "The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfall" and "The Balloon-Hoax" show both depth in research and creativity. But that creativity stemmed from a dark past haunted by the death of a young wife. Poe was able to write so well, blending complicated subtle text with vivid fictictious characters, naught because of genius, but because of his mourning thoughts of death and love.

Possible thesis # 2: Poe was meerly a writer. His writings are not reflective of his life, but that of his own creative genius, and the times.

Poe was most recognized as a literary critic in his time. Many say that his writings were reflective, some say completley derived from, the death of his cousin/wife; but Poe's creative genius was the true engine behind his works. The Raven, arguable Poe's most famouse peice of writting, was actually written before his wife died. Published two full years before her death, this poem could not have been written about her. Further proof comes in the way of multiple routes. Poe wrote stories on topics other than death, "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Premature Burial" both have 'happy' endings, as well as the fact that Poe's essays, satires, and litarary criticisms reveal the true nature of his creative genius.

I've read all poems and ten stories.

The Masque of Red Death: A huge, like year long, sucleded party is thrown. A masqueraid is held, and to it comes a man bearing the red death.
(5)
The Oval Portrait: A man reads of a most life like portrait, only to find out that its obsessed painter locked up his wife to create the masterpeice; but in the end paid more attention to his canvass than to his dying wife
(3)

Post #5

Essay topics:
Poe's wrote of death and suffering because of his late wife.

Poe was mad man with a reputation, as a witty critic, to be upheld. His writings reflect the extremities to which his death and love obsessed mind were pushed.

Poe was meerly a writer. His writings are not reflective of his life, but that of the times.

Update

I've read all poems and 9 short stories.

The Pit and the Pendulum: A man is captured, mentally tortured, and barely saved. The narrorater is sentenced to death and subsequently wakes up in a black room, which at its center has a rat infested pit. He narrowly escapes death via pit and is soon met with the pendulum. Having been feed/drugged he is strapped to a plank and a huge scythe swings over head, slowly sinking. The narrorater is nearly driven mad, but at the last instance, gets the rats to dive onto his ropes and cut him loose. Than the iron prison heats to extremities, the pics on the walls eyes glow, and the room begins to close in on him. Just as he makes his last scream, he is saved by a general.
(12 pages)
The Premature Burial: Although slightly non traditional in its beginning and its end, as far as Poe's works are concerned, a writing about being buried before one is dead. The narrorater suffers from a diseases which renders him into death like coma states, the man takes precautions to avoid preinternmant. He alerts his freinds as well as makes his family tomb easily escapable. Although he takes precautions, every time he goes into a coma and wakes up, he is mortified. Eventually waking up in total darkness, the narrorator finds himself in a box like construct and shrieks. Being only in a small bed on a trip with comrades, the man decides to go out and live a free life without limitations, no longering cowering or obeying his fears.


(12 pages)

Blog # 4

Alrighty then, lets get started.

Symbolism, does Poe use it? I dont think he does use much of it. He compares feelings to things like an ocean. Or writes things like the eye looked like that of a vulture. He does a lot of comparasons and uses a lot of subtlety. Its not just that he is very subtle in how he says what he says, he uses a lot of it. And he also uses a lot of double negatives. So I don't think Poe uses symbolism, but instead uses comparisons.

I've read all of Poe's peoms, and about eight of his short stories. I'll post the actual pages at some other occasion.

Summaries:

The Unparalled Adventure of One Hans Pfall: a man writes home about his adventure in a hot air balloon to home (31 pages)

The Black Cat: a man kills his cat, then his wife, and then is caught under mysterious surcumstances. In a fit of rage, the narrorator cuts out his cats eye, then some days later, in another drunken rage, hangs his cat. He's house then burns down and he and his wife move out. They find another black cat which they adopt. The cat has is also missing an eye, and has white fur in a shape resembeling a noose around its neck. This eventually drives the man mad and while trying to kill the cat ends up killing his wife. He entombs her in one the the walls of his house, lives freely for a few days with the cat having disapeared. Then one day some cops come over to examine his house, he taps on the exact spot where his wife is buried, feeling confidant. Aftwards a shriek comes from the wall and the cops dismantle it. The cat is on his dead wifes head as the source of the shrieks. (8)

Ideas/style observations:

Poe writes in very descriptive sentences. A lot of, if not most, are written so that a narrorater describes a situation with very complicated language using comparisons and negatives very often.

Typical sentence: "After this I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all is madness-the madness of a memory which busies itself among forbidden things.

As most know, Poe's writing pertains to the Gothic and dark romanticism genres. Often writing of death and suffering, Poe's stories are usually written from the perspective of some victim of a tragic nature recalling an event and writing it down.
As of now, I dont have to many paper ideas