The Destruction of Man (or the psycho)

Last month James McTeigue made an attempt to bring to life horrifying works of Edgar Allen Poe through his film The Raven. Now, this isn’t a film revue, but an inquiry into my love of Poe. When I watched that movie, I admit, I was disappointed. But it is because of that film that I decided to dig up the ol' Poe collection and bury my head into those pages of wickedness.

Throughout many of Poe’s work, I’ve noticed the reoccurring theme of the destruction of man.

In the “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the nameless narrator claims he’s fully sane. He proves to be the exact opposite of that throughout the remainder of the story. “You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded…”  The reoccurring image of the old man’s wicked eye is the narrator's indicator of his poor mental condition. "I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever." This eye controls him profusely; it gave him a reason to be rid of him altogether. The beating heart of the old man is a symbol of the guilt brought on before and after his murder. Having to listen to the thumping heart, even though no one else but him could hear it, caused his guilt to seep out and brought him to admit to the murder of the old man he so tediously plotted to murder.

Another one of my favorites is “The Black Cat.” This short story conveys the same concept, which is that the narrator at the opening of the play starts off my proclaiming that he too is not mad, saying “Mad indeed would I be to expect it [belief], in a case where my own very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream.” The man telling this story is already conflicted emotionally, being that his only companions are his pets. The two important factors of this story needed to take into account are the narrators alcoholism and the Black Cat that so mischievously haunts him. Like the eye in "The Tell-Tale Heart," the alcohol drunken by the character serves as a catalyst for all the wrong doings done by the narrator, and the Black Cat is the representation of guilt and evil within him. It drives him insane until his ultimate downfall. The cat enrages him to the point of him taking it out on his wife. He kills her and hides her amongst the walls of his own home. His guilt is so strong that he cannot completely hide his suspicious nature and gives away his secret to the police that have come to look for his wife's body. The police storm the wall and dismantle it, discovering the hidden corpse. Upon its head sits the missing cat.

What I find to be quite interesting is that point where the two narrators/characters of these stories need to justify their sanity, when it is blatant enough that they cannot be by the looks of the events unfolded amongst the pages of their gripping stories. Why do you think that Edgar Allen Poe added this detail in?

-Marissa Santos