Edgar Allan Poe Critical Lens Essay

Edgar Allan Poe Critical Lens Essay

  • Submitted By: ktifft
  • Date Submitted: 09/23/2013 3:55 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 439
  • Page: 2
  • Views: 1

Kayla Tifft
Mrs. Babcock
English 11
11 march, 2013
Critical lens
The evil and phantasmagoric thoughts of a person lie deep within their soul and are concealed from everyone except the Almighty God himself. People who seem innocent can have the most evil of souls. The quote is accurate because the nicest people can have the darkest thoughts. “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Raven” both by Edgar Allen Poe depict the quote in a brilliant way. Edgar Allen Poe is a brilliant author who is able to clearly represent the quote in a way that is both dark and twisted, but in a way enlightening. In “The Fall of the House of Usher”, Edgar Allen Poe uses his phantasmagoric writing style to show the darkness of a man’s soul.
“The Fall of the House of Usher”‘s motif of doubling can symbolize how there is two sides to every person; what the world sees and what God sees. To the world, the Ushers looked like people who were just weird and isolated but God could see how messed up they truly were. The incest within the family and the genetic mutilation caused both physical and mental instability. When Usher buried his sister alive, only God can know what his true intentions were. Maybe Usher really did believe she was dead, however, he could have just wanted her gone and out of the way. “The Fall of the House of Usher” is about the darkness that lies within. Many of Poe’s literary works contain dark and phantasmagoric concepts. Just like “The Fall of the House of Usher”, “The Raven” shows the darkness of a man’s soul.
The raven shouting nevermore represents the darkness within the narrator’s own mind. The raven symbolizes the narrator’s own insanity. The narrator obsesses over the death of his wife Lenor. The more the raven answers nevermore, the more the narrator drives himself insane. God can see how alone, desperate, and crazy he truly is. “The Raven” by Poe is a classic because of what the raven represents: obsession and instability. Edgar...

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