Wish to Death’ in Poe’s short stories

— Name                : Dodiya Mehul M.

— Roll No             : 23

— Enrollment No  : 206910840120011

— Class                 : M.A. Sem 3

— Paper Name      : The American Literature

— Question       : Comment on ‘Wish to Death’ in Poe’s short stories

— Words               :  157

—  Percentage       :

— Year                  : 2017/19

— Submitted to     : Smt. S.B.Gardi Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University


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Question : Comment on ‘Wish to Death’ in Poe’s short stories

  I.            Abstract

                                  Edgar Allan Poe was a American Short-stories writer, Editor, Critic and poet. He has known for his cultivation of mystery and the macabre. His most of short stories is based on the theme of ‘Wish to Death’. Like his ‘The Purloined Letter’, ‘The Gold Bug’, ‘The Tell – Tale heart’, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, ‘The Black Cat’, His collation of the stories name ‘The murders on the Rue Morgue’ ‘The Fall of the house of Usher’.

                The most of the writers, authors, poets are write on the theme of Romance, Love, War, Revenge, betrayal, Mystery, patriotism, grace, isolation, motherhood, forgiveness, wartime loss, treachery, rich versus poor, appearance versus reality, reality. But Edgar chooses the theme of Death. We find that the early age how people has afraid of Death, like ‘Frankenstein’ Written by Mary Shelly. In the Frankenstein, people have died in deceases and Frankenstein explored the power of electricity and created a creature. but here Edgar has given the priority of death. John Donne wrote the poem ‘Death do not be proud’, Donne wrote this poem against of Death, but somehow we can say that Donne had afraid of Death, thus he had to wrote it. But Edgar was totally different from other writers, because he did not afraid of the Death, but he murdered his characters in his short stories. Let’s summarize his short-stories.

II.            Key words : ‘Wish to Death’ in Poe’s short-stories, Poe’s theme of Death , Poe’s life and Work

III.            Introduction

         Edgar Allan Poe was an writer, editor, and Critic. He known for poetry, Short-stories, particularly his tales of Mystery and Macabre. He was the central figure of Romanticism in US and American Literature. He was one of the country earliest writer of the short stories. It it considered that Poe has inventor of Detective Fiction and contributed to the emerging genre of Science Fiction. He also want to became a writer, who earn a ling through writing alone.

            In 1809, He was born in Boston. He was son of actor David Poe Jr and Elizabeth Poe. He had an elder brother William Leonard Poe and a younger sister Rosalie Poe. It believed that his name came after his parents has performed William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. His father abandoned their family in 1810 and his mother did a year later from Pulmonary Tuberculosis. He was taken by John Allan, a Scottish merchant in Virginia. (Where Negro’s has sold) Allan dealt in a variety of Goods, like Tobacco, Cloth, wheat, tombstone and Slave. Allan gave him the name “Edgar Allan Poe” but He never formally adopted him. Poe attended the grammar school in Irvine, Boarding school in Chelsea, Manor House School in Stoke Newington. In 1825, he got $750,000 from William Galt, who died, and lived in  Richmond. Allan celebrated his expansive wealth by purchasing a two-story brick home named Moldavia.

               Poe registered his name to study ancient and modern languages in University of Virginia. The University of Virginia was funded by Thomas Jefferson. It was strict rules against Gambling, horses, guns, tobacco and alcohol but these rules were generally ignored. Poe claimed that Allan had not given him sufficient money to register for these class, and purchase text, and procure and furnish a dormitory. But Allan did send additional money and clothes but Poe’s debt increased. At list he traveled to Boston in April 1827, sustaining himself with odd jobs as a clerk and newspaper writer.

                After his brother’s death, Poe began to attempts to start his career as a writer, that time it is difficult to published. He was the first well known American to try to live by writing alone. And hampered by th lack an international copyrights law. After his early attempts at poetry , had turn to prose/ he placed few stories with a Philadelphia publication and began work on his only drama Politian. The Baltimore Saturday Visiter awarded Poe a prize in October 1833 for his short Story “MS. Founded in a Bottle”.  The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pyn og Nantcket was published in 1839.Poe became assistant editor of Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine and published numerous articles, stories and reviews  en hancing his reputation as trenchant critic which he had established at The Southern Literary Messenger.  Poe left Burton’s after about a year and found a position as assistant at Graham’s Magazine. He died in 1849 in Baltimore.

His famous Works are,

1.   The Raven

2.   The Fall of the House of Usher

3.   The Tell-tale Heart

4.   Murders in the  Rue Morgue

5.   The Purloined Letter

6.   The Gold Bug

7.   The Black Cat

8.   Annabel Lee

9.   The Cask of Amontillado

·       Analysis

           Edgar Allan Poe was the master of mystery and the macabre writing. But some how he more focuses on Death then other theme from Short stories. We can Find many examples in his work which is end with the Death and the murder himself accepting his crime. Very young age, he had lost his parents as well as his wife to tuberculosis so in one way or another stories reflected his personal experience. We find in his ‘Annabel Lee’, ‘The Cask of Amontillado’, ‘The Raven’ and ‘The Black cat’ in many others poems and short stories.

        ‘The Annabel lee’ main theme is Death, where the speaker sit behind that tomb of his beloved Annabel, who is maiden. He said,

“In the sepulcher there by the sea,

In her tomb by the sounding sea.”

The Speaker has talk about the tomb of his beloved in seashore. The theme of Death, he mansion how the Angels and Demons could never truly saparates them.

“But our love was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we
Of many far wiser than we
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.”

‘The Annabel Lee’, Poe has talk about the death of his wife, a loneliness, aloneness. It is the last composed poem of Poe. But majorly it is mourn mood, sad mood described. The speaker said our love was very stronger the death has not separates us as well as the Demons and also Angels, The heaven’s angel is not above, and the demons down under the sea. He said My soul can only taken by my beloved, Annabel Lee. The second example of the theme of death is ‘The Cask of Amontillado’. It is the story about two best friends, Montresor and Fortunato. Montresor is the story narrator. Who is Angry over numerous injuries and some unspecified insult, he said,

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.”

“It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.”

We can see in above quotes, the revengeful for his own friend. And he drew him in carnival. Poe’s The cask of Amontillado is one of the mysterious story. But the last scene we find that the narrator himself feel guilt and accept his crime. It is equally undressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has wrong. Poe’s the Black Cat, the narrator killed cat and also his wife, because of He dislike it. We find many example which based on the theme of Death. Death was experience whwn the narrator’s intoxicatedd action went far. “I withdrew my arm from her graps and buried the axe in her brain.” This quotation saw us that how the narrators mind is horifying and after the killing his wife he said, “these hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire I set myself forthwith and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body.” In this quotes through we find that narrator is not worry about that he just killed his wife, but he worried that where he will be hiden her died body.

·      Conclusion

Edgar Allan Poe has written over 60 short story during his life time, Poe mostly focus on the theme are mystrial, Death, Horrible.Poe had a soul striking opposition toward death. in his stories, he can have profound analysis of soul. To make the the imapact more intense, Allan Poe had added death in the story. Death will be their ending even through they’re more sensible than ordinary people had easier to loose self control. Edgar Poe is not only a narrator of death but also a recorder and seeker of human’s external and internal fear whenexternal and inner dilema are combinail, human’s contenstion and death begin to show deeper metaphor. The end of the assignment, I would like to quote from his poem, ‘Doomed city’

Hell rising from a thousand thrones

Shall do it reverence,

And Death to some more happy clime

Shall give his undivided time.

Works Cited

Answers. What are the themes that dominate Edgar Allan Poe's works? n.d. 3 Nov 2018. <http://www.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_themes_that_dominate_Edgar_Allan_Poe's_works>.

Wikipedia. Edgar Allan Poe. 25 Oct 2018. <https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Edgar_Allan_Poe&oldid=865623584>.

Xiaobin, Lin. "Analysis of Allen Poe'ss Death Theme." 2rd International Conference on Education, Management and Social Science (2014): 176-177.