Edgar Allen Poe
...Tale Heart” are some of Poe’s greatest works (Womack). These two pieces include a lot of gruesome details such as perfect description of how the narrator killed the old man in “Tell Tale Heart” and a description that included some weird details about how the Red Death, in the short story “The Masque of The Red Death” would kill its victims. Poe wrote these stories like all the others that he wrote. He had motive for writing the way he did. Poe was an alcoholic and was a very depressed person and led a dark and gloomy life(Womack). These stories have much symbolism involved in them, for which one could assume the basis for him writing the way he did. One may believe that part of his life that had most influence on his writing would be his late teen years all the way to death. His world was dark and gloomy one full of depression and anger (Wiley). One may believe overall his stories symbolize his life as a whole, and little details that are included in each story are symbols of people or certain aspects events that were present in his actual life. Symbolism plays a great role in understanding the poems and stories written by Poe. In the short story “The Tell Tale Heart” symbolism is present many ways (Wiley). One form of symbolism that links the story to Poe’s life is the old mans eye, the description of his eye from the story is “one eye like a vulture, pale with a film over it” the old man obviously has a cataract (Kennedy 234). This could most definitely symbolize Poe’s life by this I mean his life is a blurred and distorted world just like the eye sees the world blurred and distorted. He was also an alcoholic so blurred and distorted vision may have played a role in the usage of the eye. Also Poe may have wanted to stop drinking, he was an alcoholic, and the eye could have been a symbol of alcoholism by him killing the eye symbolizes the end of his drinking days. He also believed it would kill him one day so if he kills the eye first he would be able to live longer and maybe have a happy ending to his dark and gloomy life. By him getting caught in the end is a way of saying that he is already dead and he’s already crossed the point of no return, and drinking had already had the best of him and he will never be able to stop drinking, it will subsequently be the death of him. Another example of symbolism that could possibly portray Poe’s life is the old man in the story. The old man in “The Tell Tale Heart” could most possibly symbolize Poe’s adoptive father John Alan ( Bonaparte 497). This could be true for one of many reasons; he may resemble John Alan in physical appearance. It was inferred in the story that the old man had blue eyes; in real life Poe’s adoptive father had blue eyes (Bonaparte 497). I believe there is significance involved in this symbolism, Poe had pent up anger toward John Alan for not always supporting him as financially as he could and for never fully adopting him. All of Poe’s confined anger could be expressed in a story without getting in trouble for it and actually committing a murder. One may believe that he has intentions of murder for his step father but he knew what would happen, he would get arrested. It is a known fact that everyone at some point in there life fantasizes about killing a loved one or someone close to them; this is a great example of human condition. Poe expressed his life through stories and poems he wrote. “The Masque of the Red Death” is another one of his stories that I believe is connected to his life. There are symbols involved in this story that Poe could have incorporated to express his life. Poe was a social outcast so he could never really communicate his problems and issues that he had with other people on a face to face basis, therefore to understand his life and how he felt in life one has to understand his stories and to do this one has to be able to find symbolism between his stories and biographical information on his life and make inferences about his life and put the two together. In The Masque of the Red Death” on of the most apparent one of these symbols would be the black room in the castle of Prince Prospero (Kennedy 239). This room of all black and hardly any light that came in symbolizes the life of Poe. The room was all black everything in the room was of darkness even the little bit of light that shined in was dark and gloomy (Kennedy 239). There was no happiness involved with the room. This room is much like Poe’s life, Poe’s adult life was dark and gloomy and there was little happiness in it. Another example of symbolism is the Prince Prospero, I believe he symbolizes Poe’s early life where he had everything going for him, he was enjoying his life he was in school he was financially set for the time being, his adoptive parent had all the money that was needed to fund his education he was a prince to there family and the name infers that he was prosperous by this I mean he was going somewhere with his life. Prospero most likely means prosperous which the prince was before the red death appeared, the red death that ended the era of prosperous times for Poe would have been gambling. So...