Literary Studies

Paper Summary:

This paper explains how Poe writes "The Oval Portrait" to reflect his own sense of artistic behaviors in relation to the death of his own wife. The paper shows how details of the painting, which reflects Virginia's beauty, is also present in how the artist of the story is depicted as containing and isolating his wife as a model for his works. The paper explains how this sense of domineering control is what kills the woman that the narrator is looking at in the story. The paper highlights how death and loss reflect a biographical account of Edgar Allan Poe in "The Oval Portrait."

From the Paper:

"This study will examine the deep and disturbing biographical presence of Edgar Allan Poe within the literary work: "The Oval Portrait". The "Long--long I read--and devoutly, devotedly I gazed. Rapidly and gloriously the hours flew by, and the deep midnight came. The position of the candelabrum displeased me, and outreaching my hand with difficulty, rather than disturb my slumbering valet, I placed it so as to throw its rays more fully upon the book" (Poe, para.2). The narrator is a highly educated man, much as Poe was in his own studies and experience as a writer and intellectual in the 19th century."

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