Edgar Allan Poe's Life, Trauma, and Gothic Fiction

Introduction: Life as the Source of Horror

While fiction is more believable the more realistic it is, reality is more frightening when it seems fantastical. One of the most painful stories of the tortured artist is that of Edgar Allan Poe, a man who could not escape death and the pain of it no matter how he tried. As a result of his tragic life, we have some of the most powerful literature dealing with the horror of death, the pain of suffering, and the madness that stems from personal tragedies eclipsing what any rational man might be expected to endure. Poe writes about death because he knows it personally. He can write about the suffering caused by death because he lived through it more than once. He can also capture the fragile mental state associated with loneliness and isolation because this is what life seemed to have handed him almost from birth.

Edgar Allan Poe is the product of a lifetime of pain, and his writing was perhaps his greatest gift because it allowed him a means of release from the inner demons he fought daily. His art remains a gift to readers because it captures the fragility of the human mind. Some of his best stories reflect this fragility: "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Fall of the House of Usher," and "Ligeia." Through them, we see that Poe was both a victim of death and of life.

Early Hardships and the Roots of Depression

Poe was the victim of dreadful circumstances, which resulted in his depressive, withdrawn state. His first personal tragedy occurred when he was a child. E. F. Bleilel writes that Poe was orphaned when he was three years old and raised in the home of John Allan. Bleilel also states that Poe's "early life was conditioned by his quarrels with Allan, and instead of being heir to one of the wealthiest men in America, he eventually found himself a penniless, half-trained intellectual with no means of livelihood" (Bleilel 697). Before he began writing seriously, Poe served in the U.S. Military for two years before he was court-martialed in 1831. From that point on, Bleilel writes, Poe made a "scanty living as a free-lance writer, journalist, and editor" (697).

While Poe's talent was eventually recognized, it cannot be appreciated without also acknowledging what Bleilel refers to as "severe personality problems" (697). Poe suffered from "fits of depression, from which alcohol relieved him, and gradually became an alcoholic" (697). As might be expected, his drinking made him an "impossible person" (697), causing him to lose "job after job and opportunity after opportunity" (697). While it is tempting to view Poe's alcoholism simply as a personal failing, it is important to examine the reasons behind it in order to understand his mind and, as a result, his life.

There are concrete, understandable reasons for Poe's unhappiness and depression. As noted above, those reasons emerge quite early in the author's life, long before he could take control of his own circumstances. The relationship with his foster father was tumultuous at best, and John Allan was never very supportive of young Edgar. Tony Magistrale writes that his foster father's "psychological presence in Poe's troubled life is perhaps as significant as the psychological void caused by David Poe's early abandonment" (Magistrale 263). As a result of their troubled relationship, Poe was sent to the boarding school Manor House in Newington. Wolf Mankowitz writes that being away from his family was deeply bothersome, and Poe wrote about the "refreshing chilliness" (Mankowitz 27) he experienced while away. Mankowitz suggests that at this age, Poe was beginning to express "Romantic, medieval and gothic qualities" (27) before he was even ten years old. Poe's early separation led him to live a rather inward life.

Death, Loss, and Psychological Compounding

Death only compounded these existing difficulties. His foster mother died when Poe was twenty years old. Poe later married his cousin, and just two years after the marriage, she died of tuberculosis. At this point in his life, it seems that Poe was a magnet for suffering and loss. When we consider the events that occurred at such an early age, we can make sense of the anguish that so many of Poe's characters experience. Death is rarely presented as simple finality in his tales — it is a painful, excruciating ordeal. It is never glamorous, nor is it quick. Victims know they are dying, and there is nothing for them but terror.

Poe's writing no doubt served as an outlet for his emotional loss. Losing the women he most cared about left a profound impression on him. Mankowitz suggests that Poe harbored a "preoccupation with the dying mother-sister, the red phantom of tuberculosis, the tomb, suffocation, premature burial, womb-like tunnels of darkness and light" (Mankowitz 208). Their deaths were "prolonged and particularly gruesome; their graphic images of death and dying probably would have been enough to animate a lifetime of nightmares for anyone. For Poe, they would translate into obsessive components of his work" (Magistrale 263).

Suffering and isolation were simply a part of Poe's life from his earliest days — it was all that he knew. He did not have to search for terror; it found him. It should come as no surprise, then, that many of his characters are "troubled and highly motivated by subjective demons" (263). If anyone knew the experience of living with demons, it was Poe, and perhaps the healthiest way for him to confront them was through the act of writing. His writing focuses on terror and demons, and Poe was popular because he "not only created art from the essence of his own personal suffering but also came to define himself through this suffering" (263). Poe knew what it meant to suffer, and so did his characters.

Conclusion: Art Imitating a Life of Pain

It is no wonder that death emerges in so many of Poe's stories. Death and dying are synonymous with Poe's name, and for good reason. Poe was not simply trying to write horror stories for their own sake; he was attempting to cope with death in the only way available to him. His drinking was a manifestation of his inability to cope fully with his losses — a feeble attempt to erase painful memories. Poe reminds us that life is full of pain, and sometimes the reality of it all is simply too much to bear.

Works Cited

Bleilel, E. F. "Edgar Allan Poe." Supernatural Fiction Writers. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1985.

Mankowitz, Wolf. The Extraordinary Mr. Poe. New York: Summit Books, 1978.

Magistrale, Tony. American Writers. Ed. Jay Parini et al. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2003.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Fall of the House of Usher." The Complete Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Minnesota: Amaranth Press, 1984.

---. "The Masque of the Red Death." The Complete Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Minneapolis: Amaranth Press, 1981.

---. "Ligeia." The Complete Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Minneapolis: Amaranth Press, 1981.