Reason and Insanity in Poe's Works

Paper Summary:

The paper focuses on the characterization of the narrator with the paradoxical opposites of reason and insanity in Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," "The Masque of the Red Death" and "The Black Cat". The paper illustrates how Poe successfully portrays the mood of his narrator as a kind of hysteria that excites the reader and garners his sympathy. The paper also points out the theme of the frailty of humankind in all three stories and suggests that perhaps this is why Poe's works enjoyed such popularity during his lifetime.

From the Paper:

"In the article "English Poe: Review in the Aristedean, October 1845." Thomas Dunn contends that most of the work of Edgar Allen Poe leans towards analytical tales that need to be decoded (199). Though it might be assumed that such decoding might bring about some type of tedious task to the reader, the distinguishing factor in the work of Poe is his ability to create intriguing and unique characters that entertain the reader's imagination. Always essential to the telling of the narrative, Poe's tales rely on a theme of counterpoints between reason and insanity, and because the tales are often written in the first person narrative, the narrator is comprised of these paradoxical opposites."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Dunn, Thomas. "English Poe: Review in the Aristedean, October 1845." EdgarAllen Poe: The Critical Heritage. Ed. Ian Walker. New York: Routledge,1997. 192-198.
• Kennedy, Gerald. "The Limits of Reason: Poe's Deluded Detectives." On Poe: The Best from American Literature. Durham: Duke University P, 1993. 172-189.
• Levin, Harry. "The Power of Blackness." Edgar Allan Poe: The Critical Heritage.New York: Routledge, 1997. 259-262.
• Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Tell-Tale Heart." Literature and Its Writers: A Compact Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 2nd ed. Eds. Anne Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston: Bedford St. Martin's, 2004. 491-494.
• ---. "The Importance of the Single Effect in a Prose Tale." 2nd Ed. Eds. Anne Charters and Samuel Charters. Boston: Bedford St. Martin's, 2004. 656-658.

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• Poem Review # 109799 : "Reason and Choice in "Paradise Lost"

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