Edgar Alan Poe Essay, Research Paper

Edgar Allan Poe is perhaps the best-known American Romantic who worked in the

Gothic mode. His stories explore the darker side of the Romantic imagination,

dealing with the grotesque, the supernatural, and the horrifying. He defined the

form of the American short story. As one might expect, Poe himself eschewed

conventional morality, which he believed stems from man’s attempts to dictate

the purposes of God. Poe saw God more as process than purpose. He believed that

moralists derive their beliefs, and thus, the resultant behavioral patterns,

from a priori knowledge. In Eureka, we find that Poe shunned such artifices of

mind, systems which, he professed, have no basis in reality. Yet Poe employed in

his writing the diction of the moral tome, which causes confusion for readers

immersed in this tradition. Daniel Hoffman reiterates Allan Tate’s position

that, aside from his atavistic employment of moral terminology, Poe writes as

though "Christianity had never been invented." (Hoffman 171) Poe did

offer to posterity one tale with a moral. Written in 1841 at the dawn of Poe’s

most creative period, Poe delivers to his readers a satirical spoof, a literary

Bronx cheer to writers of moralistic fiction, and to critics who expressed

disapprobation at finding no discernible moral in his works. The tale

"Never Bet the Devil Your Head: A Tale with a Moral" presents Poe’s

"way of staying execution" (Poe 487) for his transgressions against

the didactics. The story’s main character is Toby Dammit, who from infanthood,

had been flogged left-handed, which since the world revolves right to left,

causes evil propensities to be driven home rather than driven out. The narrator

relates that by the age of seven months, Toby was chasing down and kissing the

female babies, that by eight months he had flatly refused to sign the Temperance

Pledge, and that by the end of his first year, he’d taken to "wearing

moustaches, but had contracted a propensity for cursing and swearing, and for

backing his assertions with bets." (Poe 488) As Toby reaches manhood, the

narrator finally accepts that his young friend is incorrigible. By this time,

Toby utters scarcely a sentence without oaths, his favorite of which is to bet

the devil his head that he can accomplish whatever challenge lies before him.

One day as the narrator accompanies Toby Dammit on a route which requires the

crossing of a covered bridge, Toby bets the devil his head that he can leap over

a bridge stile, pigeon winging as he performs the feat. Unexpectedly a

"little lame old gentleman of venerable aspect" (Poe 491) interrupts

with an emphatic "ahem" to take Toby up on his bet. The elderly

gentleman wears a "a full suit of black, but his shirt was perfectly clean

and the collar turned very neatly down over a white cravat." Oddly, his

eyes are "carefully rolled up into the top of his head," and he wears

a black silk apron. (491) After he takes charge of Toby, allowing him a running

start, the elderly interloper takes his position just behind the stile. The

narrator awaits the gentleman’s "One–two–three–and–away," when

Toby initiates his running leap. To all appearances, the young reprobate is

destined to clear the stile easily, pigeon-winging as he flies, when abruptly

his progress is arrested, and the luckless Toby falls flat on his back on his

side of the stile. The elderly gentleman is indistinctly seen wrapping a bulky

object in his apron, and taking his leave of them. When the narrator throws open

an adjacent window, he sees that Toby has been deprived of his head by a sharp,

heretofore unnoticed cross-support located directly above the stile. Stated so

that the targets of Poe’s ridicule cannot miss it, the moral of his tale is the

title of the story. Yet the moral of the tale is not its theme. Poe purposes

ridicule of those who presume to judge him, and of their small-mindedness. This

ridicule is his theme. His rendering of this riotous spoof illustrates that Poe

believed he had more important things to do than pass moral judgment in his

tales. Poe instead opted to depict what occurred to him as the natural order of

man’s behavior, rather than to engage in baseless speculation concerning what

God intended for the individual. Appropriately, Poe asks, "if we cannot

comprehend God in his visible works, how then in his inconceivable thoughts,

that call the works into being! If we cannot understand him in his objective

creatures, how then in his substantive moods and phases of creation"? (Poe

280-81) Instead, Poe’s work penetrated to the truths which govern the universe.

How petty the moralists of his day must have seemed to him! Best known for his

poems and short fiction, Edgar Allan Poe deserves more credit than any other

writer for the transformation of the short story from anecdote to art. He

virtually created the detective story and perfected the psychological thriller.

He also produced some of the most influential literary criticism of his

time–important theoretical statements on poetry and the short story–and has

had a worldwide influence on literature. Poe did not find it sufficient that he

essay his theory of perversity in one story only. Perhaps his most lucid

portrayal of perversity resides in his masterfully told tale "The Black

Cat." That work’s narrator owns a black cat named Pluto, which he dearly

loves. However, the cat’s owner takes to drinking, and one day, in a tantrum, he

is seized by perverse impulses beyond his control. He captures the unfortunate

creature, and with his pen knife, removes one of its eyes. This is but the

beginning of the narrator’s sorrows. He recognizes that it was this unfathomable

longing of the soul to vex itself–to offer violence to own nature–to do wrong

for the wrong’s sake only–that urged me to continue and finally to consummate

the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cold

blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;–hung

it with tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my

heart;–hung it because I knew it had loved me, and because I felt it had given

me no offence;–hung it because I knew that in doing so I was committing a

sin–a deadly sin that would jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it–if such

a thing were possible–even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most

Merciful and Most Terrible God. (Poe, "The Black Cat" 225) Again, Poe

employs language which can send a traditional moralist howling about the wages

of sin. But catch the subjunctive, "if such a thing were possible."

Poe makes it clear, even in this extreme set of circumstances, that he does not

believe it possible to be beyond the reach of God. In Eureka we saw why. In that

work, Poe portrayed God as manifest in the works of his own creation. We saw him

further declare that all things of the universe contain "the germ of their

inevitable annihilation." Speaking through his narrators," Poe

illustrates perversity as the "germ" of annihilation as it resides in

the human psyche. But, for now, let us return to the story and witness

perversity wreak its havoc. The night of the day he hanged Pluto, a fire swept

through the narrator’s house. He, his wife, and the servant escaped, but the

conflagration completely destroyed the house; yet one wall had not fallen in.

Upon visiting the ruin, the narrator witnessed in the standing wall, "as if

graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic

cat…There was a rope about the animal’s neck." (Poe 66) The image of the

cat detailed in what had been a freshly plastered wall profoundly affected the

fancies of the narrator. As if to atone for his actions, the narrator begins a

search to adopt a similar cat, which he finally locates "in a den of more

than infamy…reposing on the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of

Rum." (66) The new cat is completely black except for an indefinite white

splotch on its chest. It follows him home. At first he likes the cat, for it is

quite affectionate. But his attitude changes; tension builds anew. The tension

grows to hatred, caused in part by the narrator’s discovery that, like Pluto,

the new cat has been deprived of an eye. The narrator, only because of his

terrors about his first cat, restrains himself from doing the new cat harm. But

to his horror, the white patch of fur on his new cat’s chest gradually assumes

the shape of the gallows. The narrator begins to fancy the cat as the tormentor

of his heart, its hot breath in his face. Perversely, the narrator succumbs

entirely to evil thoughts, "hatred of all things and of all mankind."

(Poe 68) Finally, one day as the narrator and his wife descend the steps into

their cellar, the cat causes the narrator to lose his footing. In turn, the

narrator flies into a rage and tries to axe the cat. The wife, trying to save

the life of the cat, catches hold of the axe. Then entirely out of his mind, the

narrator plants the axe in her skull. To avoid detection in his crime, he bricks

his wife into a cellar wall. But the luckless narrator accidentally bricks the

cat into the wall as well. After searching for the dreaded cat, the narrator

concludes that the beast has "in terror, fled the premises forever."

However, the fourth day, the police arrive to thoroughly examine the house. They

leave no "nook or corner unexplored." (Poe 60) Even upon their third

or fourth visit to the cellar, the narrator remains sublimely calm. Finally

satisfied, and preparing to quit the search, the police are interrupted in their

ascension of the stairs by the triumphant voice of the narrator.

"Gentleman," I said at last…, I delight to have allayed your

suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. Bye the bye,

gentleman, this–this is a very well constructed house." [In the rabid

desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.]–"I

may say an excellently constructed house. The walls–are you going,

gentlemen?–these walls are solidly put together;" and here, through the

mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand,

upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the

wife of my bosom. No sooner had the reverberations of the striking of the cane

died away, than there issued forth the howl, "a wailing shriek, half of

horror and half of triumph…, such as might have arisen…from the throats of

the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation."

The cat had completed its conquest, revealing the location of the corpse and

consigning the wretch to the gallows. The final horror of the narrator, his

crowning act of perversity, is reminiscent of the crazed killer of the old man

in "The Tell-Tale Heart," who had succeeded in hiding his atrocity,

only to betray himself in direst effect, again to the police. Later, we shall

see a similar psychological imolation performed by the narrator on himself in

"The Imp of the Perverse." "The Black Cat" illustrates many

manifestations and vehicles which the perverse can assume. First the narrator

succumbs to alcohol; then the narrators spirit of perversity, given a foothold

in his psyche, causes the eventual decline in his temperament. As the story

progresses, the narrator reaches the point which Poe describes: "With

certain minds, under certain conditions, it [perversity] becomes absolutely

irresistible…radical…primitive…." Alas, the hapless narrator cannot

help himself. As mentioned previously, a traditional moralist will always be

tempted to overlay his own principles on Poe’s tales, in this story,

expostulating the evils of drink, perhaps. And understandably, when such tenets

reside at the core of one’s belief structure, the temptation to perform moral

judgment can be preemptory; yet Poe’s system of mind deserves our efforts to

comprehend his system. Certainly Poe recognized the lure of alcohol; yet he

chose to examine the primitive cause for the urge, rather than submit to the

prescriptions of the moralists of his time. So let us, too, seek to discern

Poe’s intentions. And what of this flailing narrator who possesses seemingly so

little command of his life? He knows that he has violated his own vitality by

removing Pluto’s eye, and by later hanging the cat in the tree. He displays

regret for his actions, a conscience. But what can his conscience constitute in

Poe’s system of morality? And for that matter, what is morality when one leaves

God’s intention for man out of the picture? Poe’s pervesity is taken further

with his story "The Imp of the Perverse" opens in the style of an

essay, describing "the prima mobilia of the human soul," a propensity

which has been ignored by phrenologists and moralists, "although obviously

existing as a radical, primitive, irreducible sentiment." (Poe 271) The

sentiment thus described as "perverseness is subsequently delineated in

three examples: The first involves a speaker’s tantalizing an audience by

circumlocution, fully aware that he displeases, and though intending to please,

he opts to indulge the "uncontrollable longing" to displease. (272-73)

After its July, 1945 publication of "The Imp…," Poe spoke to open

the Lyceum season on October 16. One cannot help wondering whether Poe’s

self-effacing introduction and his reading of the whole of "Al Aaraaf"

to an audience of Bostonians did not represent enactment of this episode from

his story. (Silverman 267) The second example is much like that of the graduate

student cited earlier. Procrastination as an agency of the perverse also seems

to have plagued Poe before the Lyceum reading, since he had promised to read a

new poem, which he never wrote, then disappointed with the lengthy and

unsuccessful poem from his youth. In contrast to the success of the graduate

student in overcoming his perverse inclination, the

"chanticleer-ghost" petrifies the victim in Poe’s illustration, until

the striking of the hour designating that alas, "it is too late." (Poe

273) The third example places the victim on the brink of a precipice, where he

begins to yearn for the "delight" in the horror of a "rushing

annihilation" from such a height. What "would be our sensations?"

(273) The narrator points out that it is the very loathsomeness and ghastliness

of such a death which causes one to most vividly desire it. "If there be no

friendly arm to check us, or if we fail in a sudden effort to prostrate

ourselves backward from the abyss, we plunge, and are destroyed." (Poe 274)

A similar account can be found on the Isle of Tsalal in Poe’s novel, the

Narrative of A. Gordon Pym, when the narrator is saved from a fall from a steep

cliff only by the arms of Peters. Next, the reader discovers that he reads not

an essay, but a tale of horror from a young man who has fallen victim to the

spirit of perverseness he had so well portrayed. One can also bet that Poe had

John Allan in mind when he formulated the plot for this episode. The narrator

devises a scheme that will secure his fortune from his benefactor-to-be. He

poisons the wax of a candle and exchanges it for the candle at his benefactor’s

bedside. Of course the benefactor suffocates; the evidence burns away; the taper

is disposed of. The scheme is a success, as the crime goes undetected. For a

number of years the narrator enjoys his good fortune. But he begins to mutter to

himself, "I am safe," and finally, "I am safe–I am safe–if I be

not fool enough to make open confession." At this suggestion, the narrator

confronts his own double, his perverse self who reveals him "as the very

ghost of him I had murdered…." (Poe 275) The narrator feels the pangs of

suffocation, as if it were he who is now being poisoned. Finally, completely

dominated by his perverse spirit, the narrator rushes madly through the heavily

populated avenues to confess his crime to the authorities. He relates all that

is needed to convict him of his crime, then falls "prostrate in a

swoon." (275) Those whom Poe satirizes in "Never Bet the Devil Your

Head: A Tale with a Moral" would likely find a moral in "The

Imp…" They would avow that the narrator’s guilt caused the confession. He

was a bad egg, and, sonny boy, if you don’t want to end up like him, you won’t

kill people. Moralists would completely ignore the narrator’s explicit

explanation of perversity at the story’s outset, to insist that Poe tells herein

a moral tale. It seems to this writer that we must give Poe credit for knowing

what he was doing. If he presents a narrative in illustration of human

perversity, the reader should take him at his word. But what of his confession?

Is this not the voice of his conscience? Yes, assuredly, his confession is the

utterance of conscience, but it is conscience in Poe’s scheme, an agent of the

perverse, revealing the "deep secret," the seed of annihilation

residing in the human breast. It is not conscience which brings the individual

into submission to a moral code. Perhaps the conditions which I described in the

preceding paragraphs illustrate that creativity and perversity do, as Poe

declared, walk hand-in-hand, just as do the attraction and repulsion motions of

the universe. Consider the possibility that man’s prolific creative genius

necessarily must be just as abundantly perverse. Certainly this antipodality of

action and reaction seems to follow the basic laws of Newton, as well as the

oscillations manifested throughout the universe. But what prevents the

individual from recognizing his own perversity in Poe’s terms, as a primal force

governing many of the activities of psyche? After Toby’s debacle, I would not

bet the devil my head, but could it be our own cultural conditioning which

blinds us to this truth which Poe proclaimed as self-evident? Must we

deliberately shed the accouterments of convention to travel Poe’s intellect?

Yes, yes, emphatically, yes. It is also helpful to consider that Poe performed

his search very much from the Romantic tradition and in the American spirit. He

searched individually, passionately, but entirely alone. Yet his quest for

transcendence to the unity of the godhead and his profound postulates governing

the spiritual universe rarefied him from his literary and social compatriots,

and even from many modern readers. Readers of Poe’s time and of ours have much

to unlearn before they can hope to decode his macabre. In addition, Poe’s

psychological theory, which represents the mind’s compulsion to kill the body,

drew from the society of his time the author’s own imps of the perverse, most

notably the Reverend Rufus W. Griswold , who believed Poe to be demented. Yet

how could Griswold be expected to grasp Poe’s belief in a spiritually governed

universe where God is manifest in his own creation. How could he comprehend

Poe’s psychic landscape, where the mind wars against the body to rejoin the

spirit with God. Griswold recoiled. Though we disparage his onslaught of Poe’s

reputation, his alteration of letters and other records of fact, we can also

perceive the Reverend’s desperation. He was bright enough to see what Poe

undertook, and was scared silly. So what is being undertaken here is a psychical

study of man, an examination of the seasons of intellect, body and spirit,

through which we all cycle. Also attempted is a portrayal of Poe’s creative

spirit. Though hyper-aware of his own tendency to perversity, what creative

impetus must have been requisite for Edgar Poe to have penned poems and stories

which so closely mirror the psychic patterns of his own mind!

Hoffman, Daniel. POE. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Co. Inc. 1972.

Poe, Edgar Allan. Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Garden City,

New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc. 1966. Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe:

Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1991.