Another photograph of Poe
For this storybook, I have chosen the works of Edgar Allan Poe. From what I have gathered from the class comments so far, I will be the first to introduce you to some of Poe's stories. I hope to give you all some insight into the very twisted mind of this author, who has concocted some of the most macabre and fiendish stories I've ever read.
To understand the background of Poe's tales, it would be beneficial to get a sense of who he was and why he is so...disturbed.
Edgar Allan Poe grew up in the early 1800s in the Boston area. Poe's father abandoned him and his family when Poe was about ten years old, and his mother died shortly after of tuberculosis. After his mother's death, he was taken in by a wealthy merchant named John Allan, though he was never legally adopted by him.
As Poe grew up, he found his niche in writing, and worked on several magazines and newspapers throughout his life - though he had trouble keeping those jobs due to a growing alcohol addiction. In 1835, he eloped with his thirteen-year old cousin and managed to keep it a secret from their family until after the ceremony. Seven years later, Edgar's young wife, Virginia, began to show symptoms of tuberculosis. She died in 1847, leaving Edgar alone yet again.
Anyone familiar with Poe's works will recognize a number of common themes, such as death and loss of a loved one, typically a woman. Also, some historians have suggested Poe's writings have been distorted by alcohol and possibly other drugs. As you will see in one of the stories I have chosen The Tell Tale Heart, Poe deals very graphically with anger and murder - in this case, dismemberment.
The story of The Tell Tale Heart revolves around a murderer who kills an old man because he has an "evil eye." The man's eye disturbs the narrator so much that he kills the man by smothering him, cuts him up and hides the body under the floorboards of his house. A neighbor had heard the man's screams in the night and alerted the police, who then investigate the situation. While being interrogated in the same room where he murdered the old man, the narrator is driven to madness by what he believes is the sound of the old man's heartbeat from beneath the floor. This sound drives him mad and leads him to admit his crime to the police, who then uncover the man's dismembered body.
The concept of this story has been adapted to several different genres, including children's cartoons. I can recall a SpongeBob Squarepants episode similar to this, but instead of discovering a cut-up corpse, a pair of squeaky boots is hidden under the floorboards. Although this is a comical adaptation of a work of Poe, it goes to show some of the influences he has had on American literature, not to mention pop culture.
I chose this story because I wanted to have a main character (who I will call Allen) who commits this murder and gets sent to prison, and then brags about it to the prisoners in an attempt to show everyone how tough he is. I did this because there are several other stories written by Poe that involve murder by some sadistic individual, and although Poe does not write these characters as the same person, I can see a relation and will attempt to tie several stories together, starting with The Cask of Amontillado.
In The Cask of Amontillado, the killer lures a man to his cellar to give him a taste of his fine Amontillado (which, for you non-connoisseurs, is a type of wine). He lures his guest to the basement, where he straps him to the wall in chains, and proceeds to wall him in, brick by brick, mocking his prisoner as he screams for help. The catch is, in Poe's story, the man does not get caught, and is actually quite smug about it. Poe tells the story and concludes by saying that no one has found the man in almost fifty years. I thought this would go well as a prison story, since it is clearly something a sadistic serial killer would do, and is definitely something that a murderer would brag about himself to seem tough.
Next, I segue into my adaptation of The Raven. In The Raven, Poe writes a poem lamenting about the death of his true love Lenore, and how he is pestered by a raven who repeats the word "nevermore." I had my adaptation of The Cask of Amontillado include a love story as first a motive for murder, and also helps make a transition into my third story.
In my adaptation of The Raven, I add some more details in order to make the stories related,i since Poe did not originally intend the stories to be tied together. I had Allen lose his beloved Lenore to a sudden car wreck, which ruined his world and drove him to madness. In the original story, the man is not necessarily deranged, but he does strike up a "conversation" with the raven, though the raven only says one word. I decided to modify the story slightly to add more of a human element to Allen.
My final story is a re-enactment of The Pit and the Pendulum. This story is by far one of the creepiest Poe stories I have read. Basically, there is a pit and a giant pendulum. While that doesn't sound very scary, realize that the pendulum is a giant blade, and a man is strapped down, helpless to do anything but lie there wait for the pendulum to slice him open. I think that Poe did his best work in writing The Pit and the Pendulum because he writes about the sights and sounds, and gives the reader real insight to how freaked out the prisoner really is. The description of the darkness and the mustiness of the pit, in addition to the deranged mentality of a man who is sitting and waiting to die, really drew me into the story, and I found myself starting to sweat a little bit myself.
As you can see, Poe's writing is not for those with weak stomachs, but I definitely encourage any of you that can stand a little bit of gore to check out some of his works. He really has very well developed plots - though they are a bit disturbing at times - and the writing is not too "old timey." The language is a little bit dated, but it's nothing too hard to understand.