Psychological
Study of Edgar Allan Poe
Name: Pritiba B. Gohil
Roll No. : 21
Course
No. 10: The American Literature
Topic
:- Psychological Study of Edger Allan Poe
M.A. English Semester - 3
Batch: 2014 - 2016
Department of English
Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar
University
Submitted to :
Heenaba Zala ,
Department of
English
Maharaja
Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University
Introduction :-
If we talking about psychological study we have to
understand this term psychology first. What is psychology and what is
psychological study is??.
What is Psychology :-
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind
and behaviour. Psychology is a multifaceted
discipline and includes many sub-fields of study such areas as human
development, sports, health, clinical, social behaviour and cognitive
processes.
What is Psychological Study :-
Psychology is the
scientific study of human mind and behaviour: how we think,
feel, act and interact individually and in groups. Psychology is concerned with all aspects of
behaviour and with the thoughts, feelings and motivations underlying that
behaviour.
So,
with the help of this term psychological study lets study mind of Edgar Allan Poe. First of all
let’s talk about his life and biography.
About Edgar Allan Poe :-
Poe is best known as the author of numerous spine-tingling
stories of horror and suspense. He should also be remembered, however, as the
author who helped to establish and develop America’s one real contribution to
the world of literature—the short-story form. Poe was the first writer to recognize
that the short story was a different kind of fiction than the novel and the
first to insist that, for a story to have a powerful effect on the reader,
every single detail in the story should contribute to that effect.
His stories
and criticism have been models and guides for writers in this
characteristically American genre up to the present time. No one who is
interested in the short-story form can afford to ignore his ideas or his
fiction.
Poe was
influential in making American literature more philosophical and metaphysical
than it had been heretofore, especially in terms of the dark Romanticism of
Germany rather than the sometimes sentimentalized romanticism of New England
Transcendentalists.
Poe also helped to make periodical publishing more
important in American literary culture. American writing in the mid-nineteenth
century was often discouraged by the easy accessibility of English novels. Lack
of copyright laws made the works of the great English writers cheaply available;
thus, American writers could not compete in this genre. Periodical publishing,
and the short story as the favored genre of this medium, was America’s way of
fighting back. Poe was an important figure in this battle to make the United
States a literary force in world culture.
Although
much of his early criticism is routine review work, he began in his reviews to
consider the basic nature of poetry and short fiction and to develop
theoretical analyses of these two genres, drawing upon both the German
criticism of A. W. Schlegel and the English criticism of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge. Poe’s most important contribution to criticism is his discussion of
the particular generic characteristics of short fiction in his famous review of
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice-Told
Tales (1837). Poe
makes such a convincing case for the organic unity of short fiction, argues so
strongly for its dependence on a unified effect, and so clearly shows how it is
more closely aligned to the poem than to the novel, that his ideas on the short
tale have influenced short-story writers and literary critics ever since.
In his
theories of the short story, Poe argues that, whereas in long works one may be
pleased with particular passages, in short pieces the pleasure results from the
perception of the oneness, the uniqueness, and the overall unity of the piece.
Poe emphasizes that by “plot” he means pattern and design, not simply the
temporal progression of events. It is pattern that makes the separate elements
of the work meaningful, not mere realistic cause and effect. Moreover, Poe
insists that only when the reader has an awareness of the “end” of the
work—that is, its overall purpose—will seemingly trivial elements of the story
become meaningful in its total pattern.
Poe is too often
judged as being simply the author of some horror stories that many people
remember vividly from their adolescent days but that few adult readers take
very seriously. Moreover, Poe is often judged on the basis of errors and
misunderstandings about his personality. He has been called an alcoholic, a
drug addict, a hack, and a sex pervert. As a result of these errors, myths, and
oversimplifications, serious readers are often reluctant to look closely at his
work. There is little doubt that Poe, however, both in his criticism and in his
dark, metaphysically mysterious stories, helped create a literature that made
American writing a serious cultural force.
“I
became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity”. ~ Edgar Allan
Poe.
Then
the part of his genius mind that is so important to discuss about psychological
study of him. And that is Mystery and Imagination. His way of
thinking is must be affected and how to see the characters of his stories is
also a task to go deep into the situational mind. One can also say that this is
what some people can’t think or their out of capacity. And in
this we find several themes like;
♦ Death
and its physical signs
♦
Mystery, horror and violence
♦
Fictional detective
♦ The power of the imagination
In The
Gold-Bug we follow a man’s obsessive search for buried treasure. After
finding a bug of real gold, the man is convinced that it will lead him to the
treasure and make his fortune. Despite the skepticism of his friend, the man
persists with his search, uncovering clues and breaking a secret code until
finally, with the help of his servant and of his friend; he sets off on a
journey into the hills that ultimately leads them to an amazing discovery.
The Fall of
the House of Usher tells of some very strange happenings. A
man goes to visit an old friend who appears to be suffering from some strange
mental disorder. His sister is very ill and he has been very badly affected by
this. He has lost his taste for life and is extremely afraid of the future. He
feels strongly that the very walls of his old crumbling house have gained an
influence over him. His friend tries to help him by talking to him and painting
with him, but when the man’s sister finally dies, things go from bad to worse.
The man is not convinced that his sister is really dead and worries that he has
buried her alive. The story reaches a dramatic climax when the dead sister
reappears at the door of the house.
The Cask of
Amontillado is another story of terrible revenge. A
man lures his rival into a deep cellar with the promise of tasting an expensive
Spanish wine. The victim’s pride and his single-minded desire to give his
opinion on the wine prevent him from seeing the trap he is walking into. Even
at the last moment, as he is being walled into his death cell, he seems unable
to fully comprehend the terrible nature of his predicament.
Now let’s talk about some of
his stories who tells us about psychology of Edgar Allan Poe’s mind.
Psychological
Study of Edgar Allan Poe’s Stories :-
1.
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
A young nobleman, haunted by a family curse, buries his twin
sister alive after she falls into a cataleptic trance.
“The Fall of the
House of Usher” is Poe’s best-known and most admired story, and rightfully so:
It expertly combines in a powerful and economical way all of his most obsessive
themes, and it brilliantly reflects his aesthetic theory that all the elements
of a literary work must contribute to the single unified effect or pattern of
the work itself. The central mystery on which the thematic structure of the
story depends is the nature of Roderick Usher’s illness. Although its symptoms
consist of an extreme sensitivity to all sensory stimuli and a powerful
unmotivated fear, nowhere does Poe suggest its cause except to hint at some
dark family curse or hereditary illness.
The actual
subject of the story, as is the case with most of Poe’s work, is the nature of
the idealized artwork and the precarious situation of the artist.
2.
“The Tell-Tale Heart”
A
young man kills the old man he lives with because of the old man’s eye; he then
feels compelled to confess.
Poe is often thought to be the author of stories about mad
persons and murders, but attention is seldom given to the psychological nature
of the madness in his stories. “The Tell-Tale Heart,” one of his best-known
stories about murderous madness, is also one of his most psychologically
complex works. The story is told in the first-person voice by the killer, who
has obviously been locked up in a prison or in an insane asylum for his crime.
He begins by arguing that he is not mad and that the calm way he committed the
crime and can now tell about it testify to his sanity.
3.
“The Cask of Amontillado”
In
this sardonic revenge story, Poe undermines the plot with irony.
“The Cask of
Amontillado” is one of the clearest examples of Poe’s theory of the unity of
the short story, for every detail in the story contributes to the overall
ironic effect. The plot is relatively simple. Montresor seeks revenge on
Fortunato for some unspecified insult by luring him down into his family vaults
to inspect some wine he has purchased. However, Montresor’s plot to maneuver
Fortunato to where he can wall him up alive is anything but straightforward. In
fact, from the very beginning, every action and bit of dialogue is
characterized as being just the opposite of what is explicitly stated.
Conclusion :-
So, at last we can
conclude this topic with the reference of psychological approach that Edgar
Allan Poe is writing his all stories with the help of human psychology because
he himself pass through with so many experiences and this experiences are
reflected in his all works and in his all short stories.
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