Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe was a bizarre and often scary writer. People throughout history have often wondered why his writings were so fantastically different and unusual. They were not the result of a diseased mind, as some think. Rather they came from a tense and miserable life. Edgar Allan Poe was not a happy man.
He was a victim of fate from the moment he was born to his death only forty years later. He died alone and unappreciated. It is quite obvious that his life affected his writings in a great way. In order to understand why, the historical background of Poe must be known. Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts on January 19, 1809. His parents were touring actors and both died before he was three years old. After …show more content…

All of his heroes are usually alone, and if they are not crazy, they are on their way to becoming so rapidly. This leads one to wonder, just how lucid Poe was when he wrote these stories. Was he crazy or just upset and confused? Most texts and histories of
Poe have it that he was influenced not only by his life, but by other writers.
These include Hawthorne, Charles Brockden Brown, E. T. A. Hoffman, and William
Godwin to name a few. Many of his stories show similarities to the works of the aforementioned. Therefore another point is brought up, was Poe writing these stories as the result of a tortured existence and a need to escape, or was he writing to please readers and critics? In letters he wrote, he often pokes fun at his stories and says that they are sometimes intended as satire or banter. Also in his letters, he describes horrible events seemingly without any concern. So who can tell how he really felt since he might not have been totally sane and rational at the time. Even though Poe writes such bizarre tales he is never quite taken in with them. He fears but is at the same time skeptical. He is frantic but at the same time lucid. It is not until the very end that Poe was consumed by something, and died. It might have been fear or something worse,