Pest pays respect to his council-members and honors their unique individual talents, in accordance with the American spirit of individualism, as each of the members of Pest's cabinet demonstrates a unique specialty. Poe attributes a grotesquely enlarged facial feature to each member of the "extraordinary assembly," suggesting that American culture may exaggerate the importance of individualism or, perhaps, that American politics may overemphasize the unique features of individual states. During a time when the American government was still working out its kinks, Poe wrote "King Pest" to illustrate the shortcomings of both Federalism and Jeffersonian democracy. Poe depicts King Pest himself was a strong "elite" political leader who Hamilton and the Federalists would have supported. Yet the grossly exaggerated facial features of the individual council members indicate that Jefferson's concept of states' rights was also deeply flawed.

Moreover, the description of the group of six hoarding the town's liquor during a time of plague may also be a stab at America's sense of Manifest Destiny, newly discovered when Poe wrote the story. The boys' club/fraternity-type atmosphere and the drinking challenge also show that Poe is poking fun of American, not British, politics. The ultimatum delivered to Legs and Hugh Tarpaulin, that they each drink a gallon of Black Strap, and the collective responses from the council members when Legs and Tarpaulin refuse, create an atmosphere similar to those created at fraternity club meetings. Poe also draws attention to the well-known fact that many of America's founding fathers were members of closed, secret societies like the Freemasons. For instance, the six Pests meet in a basement apartment sectioned off and hidden from the rest of town; their undertakings are secretive and supposedly serious and important; and they use strict initiation rites to indoctrinate new members. Surrounded by skulls and bones, the Pests also employ symbols of real world secret orders.

These two antithetical readings of the same Poe passage prove the power of...

Neither of these readings are correct nor incorrect. No literary critic and no scholar can possibly know exactly what Poe intended to do when he wrote "King Pest." However, literary critics can infer much from Poe's text, from his tone, and from the historical context within which "King Pest" was written. Many of these attributes become obvious even to the casual reader: because Poe preludes the story with a suggestion that it is an allegory about political power; because the story is obviously humorous as well as grotesque; and because Poe was an American writer working in the early decades of the nineteenth century.
Readers of any piece of literature or any individual passage in literature should keep similar issues in mind when deconstructing and analyzing texts. Even if two readings show dramatically dissimilar results, as these to for "King Pest" do, the analysis is nevertheless fruitful, rewarding, and may even contribute to the canon of literary criticism. Readers and critics need to beware of reading too far between the lines, such as to infer that a theme or motif is present in the story when it is not. Often, deconstructing and reconstructing a text allows a literary critic to insert too many stray autobiographical elements.

Critical analysis of literary texts reveals facets of the primary source that might not have been visible otherwise, like different cuts of diamond reveal the stone's unique attributes in varying settings. Literary criticism can show students nuances and textures within the prose itself, and can also reveal other levels of analysis such as historical, political, and social context. All of these elements impact a work of literature and it is therefore important to understand them and appreciate them.