Common Themes of Edgar Allan Poe

Allen Poe is a famous poet who is known for his many short stories. Some of his most famous ones are The Tell Tale Heart and The Raven. Edgar’s poems often share a similar or even the same theme. In these two short stories a common theme is loneliness can drive one insane.

In The Tell Tale Heart Edgar shows many examples of supporting this theme. In this story the unnamed narrator was very lonely, lived by himself and took care of an old man. He loved the old man, but he hated his ¨Vulture eye”. “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees- very gradually- I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself from the eye forever.” He hated it so much he had logically planned to murder him just for the way his eye looked. “Object there was none. Passion there was none. I love the old man he had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I have no desire.” It was a successful murder until he started going insane from his guilty conscience making himself hear things that weren’t actually there and eventually turned himself into the police. “I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.”

In the short story, The Raven, the unnamed narrator is very alone by the recent death of his loved one Lenore. He imagines a raven bird knocking at his door and window then entering his room repeatedly saying “Nevermore”. He tries to have a conversation with the raven asking, “Is there anything that will comfort my soul?” “Will I reunite with Lenore in heaven?” The raven still continues to say nothing but “Nevermore”, the narrator then freaks out at the bird and tells him to leave him alone. Suddenly the narrator is convinced that the angels from heaven, Lenore, made the room’s air dense and perfumed. The narrator then tells the audience the raven stopped speaking to him and sits in his room and he believes that he will live in the shadow of the raven forever.

Loneliness can drive one insane, this theme fits these two short stories, The Tell Tale Heart and The Raven, perfectly in many ways. The narrator in both stories is very lonely and he ends up being mentally insane in both. One killing an old man just because of one of his eye and the other having a conversation with a bird about his passed loved one.    

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