Tara McClanaghan

Mr. Provenzano

Honors American Literature

16 March 2012

Poe’s Obsession with Death

            Death is a topic that people do not typically like to discuss. It is frequently tiptoed around and pushed aside, however, Edgar Allan Poe chose to do quite the opposite in his short stories and poems. The vast majority of Poe’s works are centered around the topic of death. Through his repeated use of death as a major theme in almost all of his works it can be seen that Poe had an obsession with death. Specifically in his short stories: “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Premature Burial”, “The Black Cat”, “The Pit and the Pendulum”, and “The Masque of Red Death”.

            In Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher” the narrator has to take care of his old friend, Roderick Usher, who has a mental condition. The Roderick and his sister are the last descendents of the Usher family. When the sister, Madeline Useher, is proclaimed dead Roderick and the narrator bury her in the family tomb, they face a horrifying surprise, however, when she later bursts through the door of the room they are in, alive. The shock of this event ends up killing both of the remaining Usher’s leaving the narrator to flee the house. The house itself symbolizes the family and it collapses as the narrator runs from it. Poe’s fixation on death is clear in his zealous descriptions of death. “… with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse,” (Poe, “The Fall of the House of Usher”). Though Roderick’s death was technically sudden, his mental state had been slowly unraveling.  When Poe speaks about death it is clear that it is a topic that he is passionate about. Poe used the concept of being buried alive in other stories as well as “The Fall of the House of Usher”.

In both “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Premature Burial” the concept of being buried alive is a major theme. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” the narrator and his good friend Roderick bury Roderick’s sister alive thinking that she is dead. Similarly, the entirety of “The Premature Burial” tells of many cases in which people, including the narrator, were accidently buried alive. In the case of “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Madeline Usher manages to escape from her tomb, however, in the end her fate . Poe uses the common fear of being buried alive to frighten his readers and that is intensified because being buried alive is relatively realistic during the time period. “He is senseless and externally motionless; but the pulsation of the heart is still faintly perceptible; some traces of warmth remain; a slight color lingers within the centre of the cheek…”(Poe, “The Premature Burial”). When describing the state of those who could be mistaken as dead Poe is well versed. He has a good understanding of the physical state of both bodies that appear to be dead and corpses and portrays them  both vividly. Both of these stories show Poe’s obsession with death through their detailed descriptions of death and the fact that it is a common theme in these and many of his other stories.

Another one of Poe’s short stories, “The Black Cat”, is an example of Poe’s passion for death. In it, a man who claims to be sane is, in actuality, on a downward spiral of alcoholism which results in him killing his wife. In an attempt to cover up the murder he puts his wife’s corpse inside of a wall in his basement. The man is overly confident when the police come to his house and he ends up being given away by the screeching of his cat that had been hiding in the wall with his wife’s dead body. After killing his favorite pet cat, Pluto, earlier in the story, the man felt remorse, however, when he murdered his wife by taking an axe to her head, he only worried about how he would dispose of the body. “This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house,” (Poe, “The Black Cat”). Any remorse that he may have felt at the beginning of the story slowly faded as the story progressed and his rage and alcoholism worsened. Though this story is not written from Poe’s perspective, it does reflect his personality. The narrator being on a killing spree is an extension of Poe’s own fixation with death.  

“The Pit and the Pendulum” is yet another example of one of Poe’s works about facing death. In it the main character does not die, however, he is sentenced to death and narrowly escapes it. He is locked in a dungeon where he would have been killed had it not been for the arrival of the French army. This work differs from the others in that the main character does not end up dying, however, Poe is still focuses on death as the center of the story. The man was expecting to be hung, but he was relieved when he awoke in a dungeon. The narrator in this story survives only because upon facing death, instead of panicking he was resourceful. “Its sweep was brief, and course slow. I watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but more in wonder,” (Poe, “The Pit and the Pendulum”). Though Poe does not end up killing the narrator, he has him face death multiple times. When the pendulum was headed for his heart, the narrator was quick on his feet, which kept him alive. Though Poe did not believe that death could be cheated simply by hiding, he did allow this character to stay alive because he was intuitive, unlike the wealthy characters in “The Masque of Red Death”.   

In “The Masque of Red Death” the Red Death is a plague that bares striking resemblance to the Black Death (Bubonic plague). The characters in the story are wealthy and greedy, most of all Prince Prospero. They try to escape the plague by hiding from it in the prince’s mansion. Death, however, manages to find them. “And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall,” (Poe, “The Masque of Red Death”). Death itself is represented by the man who brought the disease into the mansion. Had they not all gathered together in the prince’s mansion some of them may have had a chance to survive, but because they thought they had cheated death, they all ended up dying. This story is a prime example of Poe’s obsession of death. The story is about the fact that no one, rich or poor, can escape death and that everyone’s time will come. Though this is true, it shows how morbid Poe’s writing was.  

            All five of these stories share one common theme, death. Poe’s obsession with death is made apparent through these works; he shows a great understanding of death and manages to depict it in great detail. Death consumed Poe’s life and that is reflected in his writing. In nearly all of Poe’s works death is the underlying theme, which shows that Poe had a fascination with death that can only be described as an obsession.

Bibliography

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume II." Project Gutenberg's 
     The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, by Edgar Allan Poe. David Widger, 19 May 
     2008. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2148/2148-h/ 
     2148-h.htm#2H_4_0015>.

"Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe." PoeStories.com An Exploration of Short 
     Stories by Edgar Allan Poe. N.p., 2012. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. 
     <http://poestories.com/stories.php>.