Edgar Allan
Poe: The Mastermind Behind
Insanity
Known
as a troubled orphan with a troubled childhood, who in time would become
America’s first great lyric poet by the name of Edgar Allan Poe. He was the
inventor of the modern detective story, a trailblazer of science fiction, and a
genius when it came to gothic narratives. Over the course of just forty years
Edgar Allan Poe became the first internationally acclaimed American writer. His
works invoke a power of the mind, provoking a sense of imbalance towards a
plethora of Poe’s protagonists’ mental state. This leads to the idea that Poe
too was in fact teetering on the brink of insanity. Edgar Allan Poe confirms
this idea when he states,” I became insane, with long intervals of horrible
sanity.” Just as the bizarre characters in Poe’s stories have captured the public
imagination so too has Poe himself. He is seen as a morbid, mysterious figure
lurking in the shadows of moonlit cemeteries or crumbling castles. This is the
Poe of legend. The brilliantly dark mind that has led to graphic
descriptions, and morbid wording that enlighten Poe’s ability to twist insanity
with readers’ uncanny fascination with the imagination.
It’s
no secret that Edgar Allan Poe was tormented by a number of skeletons in his
closet. As a result the key component to these horror stories is usually the
characters' insanity. The insanity that inflicts the main characters in these
stories drives them to commit the acts that they do. For example in “Fall of
the House of Usher,” “Tell Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” “The Raven,” are all
prime examples that under extreme anxiety the human psyche is very susceptible
to insanity. Matters haunted all the protagonists from these stories from their
environment, which inevitably led to irrational minds that lacked logic,
responsibility, and composure. One must wonder where the potential for insanity
comes from however. The history of Poe’s short works would show evidence that the
narrator has a doppelganger that represents his subconscious or his primal
instincts. In "The Raven," the narrator encounters a double that
embodies his deepest fears, which in turn eventually overpower his conscious,
rational self. Although the narrator of "The Raven" initially ignores
the message of the intruding bird, he concludes the poem by interpreting its
word "nevermore" as the denial of all his hopes; he has projected his
soul into the body of the bird. In both cases, the poetic separation of the two
halves creates a dramatic dialogue that highlights the narrator's inner
struggle. Many of these pieces
Are demented enough even if the
reader does not read between the lines.
"The Black Cat" is another
example of this kind of story. In this morbid look into the narrator's
mind, the reader follows the narrator as he does many disturbing things in his
household. This story, like many of Poe's other pieces, is a venture into
abnormal psychology where the narrator is completely insane, not only because
of the horrible things he does to his cat and his wife, but because of his
state of mind that he shows the reader throughout the story. Like the narrator in Poe's "The Tell-Tale
Heart," this narrator also begins his story with the declaration that he
isn't "mad," and that his story is no "dream" (The Black
Cat, 1). He says he knows we probably won't believe it. He also says that what
happened is "a series of mere household events," you know, just the
day-to-day business of family life (The Black Cat, 1). The events within the
text of this account are unmistakably the ramblings of a madman who cannot seem
to control his actions and keeps drifting deeper and deeper into insanity. On
the first page of the story, the narrator says that he "was especially
fond of animals" (The Black Cat, 1). He contradicts himself once
again in talking about his cat, Pluto. At first he loves the cat and cares
for it very affectionately. After a while, his demeanor changes and he
begins to take out his anger on his pet, along with his wife. The
narrator then comes in one night "much intoxicated" (The Black Cat, 2)
and cuts Pluto's eye out because the cat avoids him. This action basically
solidifies his madness in general. It is soon after this that the narrator
makes an attempt to display his remorse. When in reality this is just a façade
in order to prove to himself that he is not insane. Over a time after the
narrator kills Pluto, he begins to descend into a deeper madness. It’s from
this point forward Edgar Allan Poe flirts with the idea of the seen, the
unseen, and that which is imagined to be. For the figure on the wall after the
house burned down was imagined by the narrator to be a cat hanging from a tree.
Which plagued his psyche far beyond someone who was still sane. Soon after the narrator is only to be
haunted by a “new” cat which at first loves, but then grows disdain towards it
due to the resemblance of Pluto and the imagined formation of the gallows
within the cat’s white spot. Poe prevails and continues the downward spiral
when the narrator kills his wife when she tries to prevent him from killing the
black cat with an axe. This is without a doubt a deal sealer, for the argument
of the protagonist claim to sane.
While
Edgar Allan Poe's narrators are often unreliable, the narrator of "The
Fall of the House of Usher" seems at first acutely sensitive to his
environment, rather than mentally disturbed. In it, the narrator, a childhood
friend of the rich Roderick Usher has come to meet him on the Usher estate to
help alleviate his sickness. The narrator finds Usher unable to leave his
mansion, suffering from "over-sensitivity" and unable to experience
bright lights, hear loud music, or eat hardy food. He also meets the Lady
Madeline, Usher's twin sister, who is caused by Poe to suffer the opposite of
her brother's malady: she is almost catatonic, unable to feel any outside
stimulus ("Usher" 199-203). In this story, Poe also uses insanity as
a plot mover. However, instead of making a character commit a heinous act, he
uses insanity to create the circumstances of the story. The hypersensitivity of
Roderick Usher that brings the narrator to his estate is really an incipient
madness. The insanity is further highlighted to the reader by the twisted shape
that Usher's artwork takes on. The madness also ends up killing Usher, who,
unable to withstand the death of his sister withdraws even further from the world.
Finally, the belief that his sister is alive despite all evidence to the
contrary shows the detachment Usher has from reality. In this story, instead of
using madness as a motive, Poe makes it cause the main character's death.
Edgar
Allan Poe has this eerie ability to portray the human psyche in a way that has
never been accomplished before. He
seems to be sincerely asking, why do
we do things we know will be bad for us? Is
the narrator insane, or is he just taking normal human behavior due to certain
extremes? The human obsession of the seen, the unseen, and that which is
imagined to be tend to plague our minds to the point of unrest. He is able to
use insanity as a central character and plot motivator three different ways in
three different stories. He is also able to show the reader how insanity can
cause someone to commit a murder, how it can cause a person to exaggerate an
insult to cause irrational anger, and how it can ravage the mind and even cause
death. Because of his many insights into the human mind, Poe will live eternal
in the annals of American literature.
Works
Cited
Bloom's
Major Short Story Writers: Edgar Allan Poe. Broomall, Pennsylvania: Chelsea
House, 1999.
Coughlin,
E.K. "Research Notes: Poe Said To Explore Issues Of Insanity Defense In
His Crime Stories." Chronicle Of Higher Education 38.18 (1992): A8. Academic
Search Complete. Web. 25 June 2012.
Cromwell,
Jill. “Literary analysis: The Black Cat, by Edgar Allan Poe – by Jill Cromwell
– Helium.” Helium – Where Knowledge Rules. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.helium.com/items/1754877-edgar-allan-poe>.
Graham,
Jorie. "Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven.." Paris Review 42.154
(2000): 236-241. Academic Search Complete. Web. 25 June 2012.
Poe, Edgar A.
The Fall of the House of Usher. Edgar Allan Poe: Sixty-Seven Tales.
Avenel, New Jersey: Gramercy Books, 1985. 199-212.
