Intro to Horror: Poe

I absolutely LOVE Edgar Allen Poe. I do not think that there is one thing he has written that I don’t enjoy. He is the perfect mix between eerie and suspenseful, just enough madness to convey the idea of horror. Some of his stories are so incredibly unique and disturbing that they make you wonder if he was really crazy or not. He was hands-down one of the most impactful writers of his time and poems such as “The Raven” and “Annabel Lee” amongst others are still considered classics to this day.

The amount of symbolism used in “The Raven” is crazy. In just a little over 50 lines, Poe manages to make the speaker appear/become insane, he turns a raven into a devilish figure (but the speaker may this he’s a profit), and he gives us Lenore. At first in the story you already get the hint that the speaker is insane. He hears the knocking and then the whispers but looks out his door to see that no one is there, and then the raven talks which makes us wonder, is that real? The imagery and description in this story makes it very easy for us as readers to make our setting. The whole thing just seems dark, an old den/study with a crackling fireplace, hardly any light because of the darkness outside, when he opens up the door the hallway is so black you can’t even see down it. Poe paints us a very eerie picture. It becomes clear with his increasing madness that Lenore was a past lover, he is mourning his loss in losing her. He becomes more and more obsessed with the idea of her when he gets the idea that she may be trying to contact him or that her spirit may be near. The whole story does a great job of making you become concerned with the speakers sanity as well as feeling grief for him. Poe was very good at introducing and exploring the realm of intensity/insanity and depression with continually keeping his readers captivated.

While reading “Annabel Lee” I cannot help but imagine it being told by an old man on a rocking chair looking back on a time where he experienced true love. I think that the rhythm of the poem makes me feel this way. It rocks back and forth between telling their story and then him going back to reiterating his love for her over and over again. The tone in this poem makes you feel upset and sad for the speaker because this love is clearly something that was taken away from him and he wasn't able to fulfill his love. It seems like he is very depressed and not over Annabel but also has the attitude “Well, it is what it is”. He also had this kind of guard up like he was telling you their story but he would never really get into it or get into the details because that was their love story and no one but them would ever experience something so true. The way that Poe writes along with the rhythm he uses is incredibly beautiful, it is like a song, his words just sort of dance in your head. It would be hard for anyone to not fully appreciate the talent of Poe’s work.

"I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love I and my Annabel Lee;" - "Annabel Lee", Edgar Allen Poe

UPDATE: This past week in class Steven Dos Santos the author of “The Culling” came in to visit us. I haven’t yet written about this book but I will soon because I absolutely loved it. The Culling is an amazing mixture between a perfect dystopian society as well as a demented type of horror. Steven went a little further into the book writing process and some of the challenged he faced. It is amazing to think all of the historical influences that inspired this piece of work (The Nazi Regime, The Industrial Revolution, The story “Sophie’s Choice”). Although these are prevalent influences the story stands alone as its own original piece of work. I think it is one of the more modern YA science fiction stories that I really enjoyed as well as believing that it stayed true to the genre itself.