Essay on Criminal Thoughts in Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales

â€Å"Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence— whether much that is glorious— whether all that is profound— does not spring from disease of thought— from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect.† (Poe 1) The topic of the madness always kept Edgar Allan Poe’s mind occupied. A lot of his works deal with the issue of sin, guilt and the criminal’s mind. In my paper I will demonstrate the different kinds of mentality of the guilty in Poe’s stories. Edgar Allan Poe is most well known for his Gothic, detective and mysterious stories. His inclination for writing about these topics comes from his childhood. After his father abandoned the family and her†¦show more content†¦Freud divided the human mind into three pieces. The â€Å"id† is responsible for the instincts. These biological instincts help humans to survive. The â €Å"ego† is liable for satisfying the demands of the â€Å"id†. The â€Å"superego† motivates us to behave in a socially acceptable way. (McLeod) In the case of murder one of these parts of the mind is damaged. That means a person commits these kinds of crimes because they are harmed. â€Å"Neurosis and psychosis emerged from interruptions or distortions to the formation of a coherent self, and from peculiar mechanisms of negotiation between the self and the world.† (Valentine 91) Kylie Valentine writes these words in her book about modernist literature, and these thoughts can also equal to Poe’s case. It is hard to decide whether the storyteller is mad or judicious and if the tales are true or not. His protagonists always see the world from a different view. They cannot think reasonably when the anger comes uncontrollable. They take actions intuitively as they were perfectly natural. Poe writes in first-person singular most of the time. This writi ng technique makes the stories more accurate. The reader almost believes that Poe is the mad protagonist of the short stories. This feeling is not baseless, if we think of his alcoholism and depression. In my paper I will analyze some well-known murder stories form Poe. All of them deal with the situationShow MoreRelatedEdgar A. Poe s Writing956 Words   |  4 Pages Edgar A. Poe’s writing is very interesting as we go into the mind of a very creative man and maybe a little insane. Edgar A. Poe was an American Writer from Boston, Massachusetts. Born on January 19, 1809. Mr. Poe died on October 7, 1849. Edwin Markham informs us that, â€Å"Poe graduated at the University of Virginia at Charlotte† (viii). During the early life in Poe’s life he enrolled into the military. Financially unstable, he made that decision. 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