Edgar Allan Poe's “the Masque of the Red Death”

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most mysterious authors that the world of writing has known.   Although many critics have different views on Poe's writing style, Harold Bloom summed it up best when he said, "Poe has an uncanny talent for exposing our common nightmares and hysteria lurking beneath our carefully structured lives".(Bloom 7 ).   Many of   Poe’s works can be related back to his life.   Poe had many problems such as psychological illness, alcohol addiction, and gambling issues.   There is also the fact that Poe’s life was full of heart aches such as the fact that everyone that Poe would grow to love would leave him or die.   Since Poe’s works are so closely related to his life or inspired by his life struggles one can correctly assume what his life was like.
Edgar Allan Poe was the middle child of three, and when Poe was less than a year old his parents separated.   After his father’s abandonment Poe and his two siblings were left with his mother.   However, Poe’s mother died when he was three and Poe went to go live with John and Francis Allan hence Edgar Allan Poe.   By living with the Allans, Poe was able to get a good education attending schools in both England and Virginia (Roberts 233).   One of Poe’s first loves was for Jane Stith Standard, however, this love was shortly lived when she died of a brain tumor.   This would lead Poe to write the poem “To Helen”.   Years later after the death of Francis Allan, Poe met a woman named Maria Clemm who became a mother figure to him and also was the mother of Virginia who

would later become Poe’s wife.   While married to Virginia, Poe wrote on such an emotional level with the stories such as “Eleonora”.   This story in many ways paralleled Poe's life and his love for his wife (Hammond 11-21).   The question is who does the person at the end of the story represent? Could it be Poe foreshadowing Virginia’s death?   Poe knew that his wife Virginia had been battling with tuberculosis for a while.   It was only a matter of... [continues]

Read full essay