How Is Edgar Allan Poe Insane

Edgar Allan Poe Paper
Edgar Allan Poe had a life full of devastation and misery. His mother died of tuberculosis when he was two. He was then adopted by John Allen, who had an enormous amount of money. Although, when Poe went to college, John Allan only gave him a third of what he needed. He had to quit school in less than a year; he had no money, no job skills, and no one who loved him. He decided to join the army, but did not stay long because John Allan refused to send him funding. He lived with his aunt and cousin Virginia, whom he later married. He published many short stories, but they did not sell well; he could barely make a living for his family. Virginia and Poe were happily married for eleven years. Despite their happiness, she died …show more content…
For example, in the story "The Masque of the Red Death", the main character, Prince Prospero, was insane. He thought that he could outrun his death by creating an ‘unbreakable' fortress. It says in the story, "It was toward the close of the fifth of sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence." In another short story "The Fall of the House of Usher", the narrator, Roderick, and Madeline were all insane to different degrees. It says in the story, "I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness, for I beheld him gazing upon my vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that this condition terrified- that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions." Also, Poe's story "The Cask of Amontillado" had a psychotic protagonist, Montresor. He thought that because Fortunato ‘insulted’ him, that he should deserve to die. It says in the story, "It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will. I continued, as was my wont, to smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile now was at the thought of his immolation." …show more content…
In the story “The Masque of the Red Death”, everyone perishes at the end of the story from tuberculosis. It says in the story, “He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revelers in blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. In his story “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Roderick and Madeline, the insane twins, die as the house crumbles. It says in the story, “There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold, then, 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, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.” In the story “The Cask of Amontillado”, Montresor killed Fortunato. It says in the story, “No answer still, I thrust a torch though the remaining aperture and let it fall within. There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells. I hastened to make and end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position; I plastered it up. Against the masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones.” Finally, in his story “The Black Cat”, the narrator hung his cat and killed his wife with an axe to the head. It says in the story, “I aimed the blow at the animal which, of course would have